Many commentators on that forum are saying the images are compromised by a casual, snapshot approach, and the use of the Da 18-135. Its true I feel that you don't need a camera of the calibre to take shots like that. Its qualities could be better demonstrated with more well chosen lenses for the specific scenes.

That would be great. I'm not sure if the finer points of resolution or IQ could necessarily be assessed on the screen?

But it would be very interesting to see the effects of the new PRIME III processor on premium jpegs taken from the camera

Thanks for showing the lovely bird images Alan

1st one looks perfect 2nd one the sky has caused a bit of underexposure on the ground, so I'd give the levels an increase, but not on the sky. 3rd one, baby needs a little brightness boost too.

Glad you got out the K20 and kept it ticking over!

I've had a glance through the (very technical) Ricoh Technical Report linked from that page provided earlier - more maths there than I understand for sure. There's a lot about the blending of the different zones to make a natural transition, which is obviously a key element of its success.

But significantly, the 'Post Processing' section is also significant - this is clearly 'in camera' post processing, and the only result from in-camera PP is a JPEG (or TIFF if performing in-camera RAW conversion). So, this seems to support the ideas already expressed above that this MAWB feature must only apply to JPEG output.

I can see no possibility that any third party RAW converter can carry out the calculations even if the data was carried over in the RAW file. As to whether the updated PDCU contains the algorithims to carry out the same computations and construct the WB when rendering the file remains to be seen ....

The placement of the elements in this works very well I think, and also having 'too much sky' dosen't matter either!

I'm seeing some blue / magenta noisy stuff going on in the darker clouds - not sure if its actually colour noise or just a cast. I think it would be better to remove these tones and just get the pure grey back. A selection on the areaand then de-saturation should do the trick.

Thanks for posting this nice shot - I'm sure you'll find plenty of rewarding angles and different lighting on future vists.

Good to hear of the improvements you've seen to the AF & tracking performance. Thats what everyone is wanting to know about!

When you get more time to explore it I'd be interested to know how you set up the various new menu items relating to continuous focusing. Thanks for the post.

Nor 'Relex'

Thanks for that! As I've said elsewhere, the new AF features are really something to get to grips with, with many more options and things to consider.

I was concerned about losing the AF.C option on the lever control, as I'd always found that important and useful to use quickly as things changed around you. I feel that having to delve into the menus more will slow things down. Admittedly, on the K7 there's not the same depth of choices though. How do you find it choosing the right setting on the K3 Alan?

'Pentax' has a very specific photographic derivation though - recognition of the company's pioneering work in SLR technology - the name is constructed from 'Pentaprism & Relex', (with one letter wrong admittedly ... perhaps it was the Japanese translator).

Would the K5 have started to hunt back and forth? I've not heard of the 'hold' feature - tell us more How is it controlled, and will it allow tracking within a certain range? (Presumably thats where the 'medium' comes into it).

If it can do it better, thats good news ! Now, Alan, I must mention that sloping horizon, and as for the noise in the blacks .....