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Andrew, another image full of interest and detail! The mono is appropriate as it focuses attention on the fine range of tones and contrast, like within the stones and shadow zones around the boat.

Personally, I would change the tonal balance somewhat ... There is a bright foreground zone which overpowers the centrally placed subject area, so I would tend to reduce brightness on the foreground stones and slightly boost midtones and contrast on the boat and people.

Am I right in assuming there is some tungsten coloured lighting inside the church? Generally when well within the interior this would be the predominant colour cast, so I'd go for tungsten wb setting, with the a manual tweak back towards cool(blue) to balance. The k7 has a CTE setting (colour temperature enhance) which helps retain natural yellow/orange tones in daylight ... This might be worth exploring in the mixed conditions you're working in, assuming your camera also has this.

For'm' type lenses you need to use m(manual) mode. Double check your menu setting to show that shooting is allowed without the lens set to'a'. Check your aperture on the lens ring is properly clicked into place, then press the green button to stop down and get a meter reading ... This should set the shutter speed. You should should now be able to manually changed speed ... Make sure you're using the correct dial that is set for shutter speed when in m mode.(this is all set in the custom menus). Let us know more details if it doesn't work.

Oh come on, where's your staying power? It's not that difficult, some are blindingly obvious ... Just depends how much you care really...

Yes, that's correct. Lens corrections, shadow/highlight settings are only stored in the RAW metadata ... They will be applied if you open the file in Pentax Digital Camera Utility, but not in any other software. There's no point in having these setting active unless creating jpegs on the camera .. They will slow down the time it takes to display the lcd review image. AFAIK noise reduction is the same .. Only applies to jpegs.

An interesting scene, well composed and it tells a story. Unsurprisingly, given the lens, it is all crisp and has plenty of detail. I wonder if it is a little overexposed? The sky is washed out in appearance, and the colours a little pale ...I think you could have exposed thus maybe 2/3rds or 1 stop less, and I don't think shadows would suffer to much.

6 megapixels is apparently quite enough It's a photo loaded with elements, although the subject is clear enough smack in the middle there ... If its worth noting, it seems to be a consistent stylistic feature of yours Andrew, that is a quite centred main focal point encircled by secondary elements .. I've seen this in many of your shots, and indeed have sometimes suggested a more off-centre placement, but in any case its great to have a recognisable style. I can imagine you would enjoy shooting with a squares format camera ...I think Hassleblad do one .. Or failing that you could always shoot wider on the K100 and just crop square !

Or even 'knock the camera off 1/160th' ... I would also like to know what exactly that means. I thought anyway, even in M camera exposure mode, it wasn't possible to set speeds higher than 180th unless the flash is set to HSS (assuming it has that feature) ?

Good to hear that Gary, it can be very exciting to start out discovering a new powerful editing solution, and it can lead you to faster, better output via new techniques and graphical interface refinements. I thought it was ridiculous to see someone say earlier that Adobe products should be the only of ones considered .. Nonsense. There's plenty of tutorial material available and support forums for each of the sophisticated alternatives.

A very enjoyable set Mike .. 6 & 8 are the best for me, 8 has great energy and is laid out nicely, 6 looks like an aerial shot without a window getting in the way

I is sharp and has good colours ... (I'm surprised we didn't hear any complaints about the 'leaning Tower of Pisa' look :roll, but for me its a typical lens effect we can general forgive, although maybe it could be pulled up a bit.

What's of more concern to me is the brightness variation in the sky around the top of the lighthouse, a halo-type effect, brighter on the right & darker on the left. This sort of thing I find is best fixed with a bit of dodging / burning tools set to soft edges and fairly large, with quick circular movements to try and blend the changes in to the surrounding sky brightness.