Couldn't agree more

I have both the *ist-D and *ist-DS and always shoot RAW. Both were identical in image quality, but my K10D is most definitely sharper, and covers a much wider dynamic range - which may explain some of your experiences. I use far less sharpening in Silkypix when compared the the 6Mp DSLRs and get better results.

Matt

Ken,
Seems there was another:
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1974

Not sure if it was resolved, but it sounds like a mechanical issue to me. On the K10D (which is probably similar) there's a small spring on the release catch side that does the actual "push" of the popup. There are also a couple of metal linkings that hinge from the flash head to the body - I suspect these are a form of "damping".

Maybe you should give someone like Asahi Photo a call and see what they say? Perhaps there's an easy solution... (here's hoping!)
Matt

Do you mean that the pop-up mechanics are slow?
If so, I seem to remember reading something somewhere... hopefully I can find it again
Matt

Will,
The instructions are quite simple - http://www.proamimaging.com/profile.html

Essentially they don't touch your file at all - no tweaks, no adjustments - nothing. So you know you'll absolutely consistent results.

First, you download their profile, install it on your machine (as per instructions). Make sure your monitor is calibrated (so you're looking at pukkah colours), and edit away in Photoshop.

When you're happy with what you see within Photoshop (not anywhere else as many imaging applications are not colour managed and won't utilise the monitor's profile) then you follow ProAM's instructions and use Photoshop to convert your image into their machine's colour space.
Then you save that as a new high quality JPG and stuff it on CD.

(You also have to resize your images to the correct dimensions - but that's not difficult.)

As George says, there's not much point having your own printer with their service! And their 18x12"s are superb

Matt

www.ProAMImaging.com - definitely
Fully colour managed, high resolution, quick turnaround and friendly staff. (And the prices are crazy too )
Matt

Will,
Just:
* Press the "Fn" button
* Press the Right arrow (ISO)
* Press to Down/Up arrow to scroll through forced ISO settings

If you keep pressing the Up/Down it will eventually say "Auto" - where you can set the Min/Max ISO ratings with the two wheels.

I think (don't have the K10D with me at the mo') you can do a similar thing with the OK button. OK+Green should flick to Auto, and OK+wheel should lock it at a manual ISO.

Matt

SILKYPIX is primarily a RAW convertor. However, they added support in it to process JPG files as if they were RAW.

There are no image editing facilities within SILKYPIX. If you want to do that, then I'd recommend Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements if you are on a tight budget.

There are various versions of PSE, and version 2 is available for next to nothing and will do most of what you need (especially if you add in a number of freeware plugins that open up some of the Photoshop stuff). Version 3 is also pretty good and includes the "healing brush" (which is very useful).

I'm not so sure about the later versions. Some restrict what plugins you can enable. However, in all cases sites like www.hiddenelements.com are a good resource for what can be done with Elements ... just reviewed the site and some of the tools are pay-for (but small amounts) and will open up other features for you in v3,4,5.

(And there are some tutorials on my site for PSE: www.mattmatic.co.uk )

Hope that helps!
Matt

The results aren't that unexpected... at least to me

The Huffman tree compression used in-camera is not as efficient, in terms of space, when compared with the DNG Huffman compression. I think the Adobe method is a double tree (like the Canon RAW format) that will give greater compression.

However, the camera uses a single tree - which results in a good compression in a shorter time. Of course, the PC has loads more processing power and can chomp its way through the maths to squish it down more.

It is also interesting that the DNG converter, when asked to "embed the original" is not actually doing that when converting DNG-to-DNG. If you took an *ist-D PEF file and did that the resulting DNG would be the PEF size plus the size of the DNG alone.

It might be more interesting to see if there are any appreciable processing time differences when handling PEF, DNG, compressed DNG within each RAW converter... a job for later

Matt

You mean like the Tamron 18-200? Or the Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 DC? They're both available for Pentax K-mount, and I suspect is pretty reasonable (or as reasonable as any massive zoom range lens can be!)

I've also read a couple of reviews - in the "Digital SLR User" and "Digital SLR Photographer". Both were favourable, more so in the "Digital SLR User". The DSP mag had a shoot out against the Samsung too and said the Samsung "out-of-the-box" shots were slightly better than Pentax. They did mention that firmware was slightly different... given the speed of Pentax's update for the K10D I'm glad I stuck with Pentax

Matt

USM = Ultrasonic Motor = Canon and Nikon
SSM = Super Sonic Motor. Only in new DA* lenses for K10D. This is Pentax's name for USM (which I think was Canon's)

(All Pentax lenses are focussed by a motor in the body - so the lens can be a lot simpler.)

i.e. No one has seen a SSM/USM lens for Pentax... yet.

Matt