The misty murk has added some real atmosphere and you were right to focus down onto the close foreground, and the crisp rock and brittle plant life have a real bite. Close ups all work well too with rich but natural colours. Thanks for showing us some tidbits from this most unusual landscape.

That's quite a collection of some beautiful old glass there, have you kept them right through from your time shooting film? The ability to match up such quality and well made lenses from earlier times with our solid well built Pentax camera bodies today is one of the key joys of the whole experience. Hope you enjoy contributing and sharing here, I have found this forum a great support and a wealth of knowledge.

From a technique point of view the main thing is to be in control and be able to make choices, and if the photographer here has created this intentionally then that is great and should be congratulated. But I'm sure I've heard it said that to class as a photograph a photograph needs to look like a photograph .... Now where did I hear that?

The problem I feel here is that while the effect is 'painterly', because it still looks like a photo, then the lack of a critically sharp focus point appears as a technical issue which it wouldn't with an actual painting.

I've seen it recommended to use the rgb histogram, but honestly, when actually shooting I struggle to understand how it can be practical to respond to brightness information in any single colour channel. On the computer later, yes ok ....

I stand by my opinions here and am happy with the points I have made in response to this new members questioning.

I think that's a great idea, so long as you take your base meter reading from a larger area of midtone in the main light.

The question was about exposure compensation, but that is only a part of the equation. Compensation is really the secondary, fine tuning process, which follows the main procedure of metering. The effects of pointing the lens at different objects with differing reflectivity under certain brightness conditions, will be the primary determinant of the end exposure.

I doubt that there are any consistent rules for compensation that apply to aerial photography, not like say, 'plus 1 stop' for fair white skin, or 'minus half a stop' for darker skin. In any case these rules of thumb only work if the metered tone covers the majority of the frame, like a close up portrait with centre weighted metering.

In reality, with multi-segment metering and a wider frame, the camera can often get it right anyway if there is a range of brightness in the wider scene. But with large amounts of bright sky and a much smaller subject a bit darker, its inevitable that some underexposure will occur. So the best approach probably is, as advised here by the others, to get a basic mid tone metering from something in the natural light and set that on manual. Experiment with the sky and planes and make some compensation if needed, although this is likely to vary with shots in different directions.

He has said he is taking a break a number of occasions, but just keeps popping back up again. Lets see if he means it this time.

Lets hope you've learned a few things and can make a better start when you begin to use a forum again.

Thanks Algi, needs to be said. For those .eu people who are looking (that's what this thread is all about right? ... Just my opinion!) ... Your beef is with the mods here, not us fellow Pentax people. We're not over there trying to mess things up for you. Its not for all of us, but we let you get on with it ... Listen to your member charlotte ... I do hope we can all come together again, it doesn't do the brand or our photography any good to be split like this.