We sometimes don't know whats possible until...well,until we have seen what is possible! The best we know is often just the best we have experienced
If an upgrade leads to an obvious iq boost,and the wife approves you are lucky indeed!

Thanks Stan! Stuey, in answer to your question about the blue cast - nothing too complex.

I leave this sort of thing to the end (in case it results any loss of detail), then in PS Elements I make a selection (usually just the quick selection brush - then refine edge), so all the snow parts, then open up Hue/Saturation - use the dropdown to choose the cyan channel and pull the saturation slider down. As well as removing the blue case this has the effect of lowering the light intensity, so you need a compensating right movement on the luminance slider to restore the lost lightness. Then repeat the process using the blue channel from the dropdown, and voila!, lovely white snow

I think the underlying fact is that this is a forum that has evolved from traditional film based photography, and obviously many of the most active members have moved along into digital, but the key aspects of traditional phoography are still at the core of what its all about.

High quality video on 'still' cameras is a fairly new thing - its just a reflection of the bulk of membership here that this is slow to catch on.

For many the use of video will be at an early / experimental stage, both at shooting point and 'processing' (ie editing). I've just got a 'proper' editing program for the first time (Sony Vegas Plat HD) and the learning is fun but takes time. We don't really yet have a common knowledge base and technical vocabulary to share in the same way as for purely 'photographic' matters, so there is more limited potential for robust forum exchanges.

I can't imagine Pentax being that careless - I wonder if our man was tricking us all along, and he had actually secretly opened the box earlier, (with the video off ) just to practise, but was so excited that he forgot to replace the cap !! - then when he actually opened the box for the video it was too late

Have you seen this exciting demonstration of unpacking a new DA 560mm box? I was drooling I'm sure, the anticipation is almost painful.

link

Its an interesting point Stuey - for sure the colour tones appear different on different machines - really nice to me on my new Laptop, but on the old work XP computers they do look 'off', but there's no calibration applied there at all. I have been able to keep consistent colours right through the processing chain, so I guess that's the main thing. Next step would be printing, and so far with foto.com I have been hapy that the colours have been accurate to what I had on screen.

But I have made specific adjustments to colour balance for different parts of the scenes. I think we are all used to seeing a blue cast on snow under this sort of lighting, which is 'unatural' (oh no, not that word again ) - I mean, our eyes correct it to rebalance the snow to pure white. That's what I have done in the pictures, removing the cyan and blue channels and boosting luminance on the snow. And in the skys I have accepted that some ambers will be present from the low sun, and pushed these up accordingly.

Not sure if it works totally - but thats the theory anyway!

Thanks for the comments. You're right with number 6, but number 1 is not HDR, its a single shot. I can see how you would think it could be, as Sagelight's 'smart fill' sliders have brought out the underneaths of the overhanging branches.

Mat, I was pleased also with the blues - the sort of thing I would expect to get with a polarising filter. Well, the Samyang 14mm can't take a polariser, so I use a very effective software polariser in Sagelight. After applying it you can erase the effect from parts of the shot that don't benefit.

I don't remember seeing any references to the improved SD card door in any marketing !! Could be a big selling point - I can see the product shot now - a close up of the SD door all covered in frost, ice & raindrops - and it still opens and closes.

I got scared off windows 8 when shopping because there seemed to be a hurdle to jump for every key usability aspect. As I posted in another thread specifically about this, I just wanted to upgrade the machine and carry on working - I personally wasn't ready for the new learning involved.

But in this context its great to hear that PDCU is up and running well on windows 8! I guess I'll catch up eventually.

Win8 ???!! Wow, so you've actually learnt how to turn the computer on and off then ?