Thats interesting - what specifically do you mean here? There's been some discussion recently about how different RAW converters read and interpret Pentax camera settings.

My own assumption has been that generally the metadata of things like Highlight Recovery, Distortion Correction etc, whilst recorded in the file, would not be acted on by a programme such as Lightroom, which has no specific field to match them to. But I may be wrong of course. It is these details to explore in shots like yours here that can help us to illuminate some of this.

On close inspection there's no noticable noise in the blacks, which is impressive assuming no reduction has been applied.

To me the bright highlights appear to have been recovered somehow - I'm curious to know if the LR settings here were purely default values for NR and highlight recovery? Or is there a profile that has made automatic adjustments? I may be wrong of course, it just looks like these aspects have been specifically managed in the software.

Yes Gary, please don't stop - I will sorely miss all your insights on my fast action sports shots

Look, my concern was not so much about how anyone 'takes' criticism - in fact a good old debate about some finer artistic or technical point can be very constructive, even when the photographer is part of that argument.

I feel its wrong to dismiss automatically someones opinion on any shot just because the person making that comment has not 'proven' themselves through their portfolio of related and / or better quality images in that genre.

I have not one sports shot in my portfolio - does that fact mean that the comments I made above on the images are of no value, or should be dismissed?

Thanks for showing another of you lovely Dartmoor stream images. As I have visited the area a few times I appreciate what special places these are, and I know many of the locations you have shot will have been seen by very few!

This shows that they're both great cameras for IQ - no doubt the extra pixels in the K3 will prove very useful to some for large prints, or cropping purposes.

Jury seems to be out still on the AF advantages though ! I love both shots Alan, great job - yes the K5 shot seems to have that tiny bit more punch.

You said the LR settings were the same - so the same sharpness and NR settings? I'm wondering, does an absolutely equalised comparison between a 16mp vs 24mp image require differing sharpness / NR settings?

One last question - I have seen moire effects before on bird feathers posted on this forum - have you found a way to decide on the necessity or not of activating the 'aa filter simulator' on the K3?

OK, so now you've checked out my photos - does that render my comments above on yours invalid, or mean I have nothing of value to say about them?

These shots should be seen for what they are - first attempts to capture action with a brand new camera model with which no one has any significant experience of yet. Sports is not my thing, but I feel qualified to comment on my own response to them, which is that they come over as generally competent and in-focus. I agree with all the finer critical comments that have been made - thats what is being seen about these shots. But they're a first attempt on a new camera, so cannot reflect on the abilities of the photographer more widely.

Most of the thoughts on the colour impact etc surely are down to the differing lighting qualities when the various comparison images were taken.

I don't really like the attitude you took mille19 in immediately checking out photos shot by those who made critical comments, and dismissing those comments simply because you did not find similar images. Yes, this can be a very critical arena, but mostly this proves helpful I feel - even if we might not believe what is said, at least we know for sure the effect our shots are presenting to others.

We're all photographers (of greatly varying abilities of course), but everyones views and responses should be valued I feel - you might value certain peoples thoughts more highly than most if they are commenting very specifically on techniques or settings they have found ideal through great experience, but that doesn't invalidate anyone elses input.

I have experienced something similarly unfair in relation to comments on some software that I don't actually use myself - but I always kept my comments restricted to matters that are well documented in books or other reading matter, and made comparitive statements on an overview basis, not specific details of exact controls.

Finally, I absolutely believe that everything we say is open to debate, questioning and correction - thats how we all pick up new things and share experience. So please, lets all allow everyone their say and respect it equally - but also, if something is wrong or misleading, lets focus on the point of detail and debate that, not on the 'qualification' of any individual based on what we can only assume to be their experience.

Hmmm, how about my Samyang 14mm ? Brand new in 2012 !

From what I've seen as well, other converters generally don't interpret many camera set parameters. Pdcu is the way to go if you want full implementation of the camera controls.

Yes, but it's still not clear (well not to me based on what has been said here) whether that is what the K3 actually does, (ie some kind of selective toning based on different zones of an image and their differing colour casts) or whether it is, more simply, creating a better averaged setting based on taking multiple readings around a scene.

If its the latter then I wouldn't be surprised if many images look very much the same on AWB or MAWB - those that might benefit from MAWB would likely be scenes that included very distinct mixed lighting sources (say a tungsten lit interior with a sunny day going on outside through the window).

Dave, you mentioned ACR 'as shot' setting above - my understanding of this is that it will display the temperature of the image as recorded by the camera settings - the slider defaults are just new 'zero points' to make adjustments from the 'as shot' starting place.