PDCU4.33 for initial RAW processing and TIFF generation, Photomatix for HDR, Photoshop for touching up, final sharpening and JPG creation, Hugin for panoramas/stitching. FastStone is intuitive and fun to use, but I find that it generates much more noise from PEF RAW files than PDCU4 does. I also marginally prefer the PDCU output over Adobe Camera Raw. Never used Lightroom.

Agreed. I use the 35/2.4 and the non-WR 55-300 with my K-5; both excellent lenses. Happy to use the 35/2.4 wide open. Never had an issue with slow focussing on the K-5 regardless of what I've had on it. The 35/2.4 is almost instantaneous because of the short focus throw, and I pre-focus the 55-300 to approximately the correct range using the manual clutch, so that fine focus is very quick.

Hi Les. Like you, I have a K-5 (it's three years old now!). I upgraded from the 18-55 WR to the 16-45 a couple of years ago and have never regretted it; there's a noticeable difference - and you don't have to worry about shooting it wide open as it maintains its IQ from wide open at f4 down to f16. My standard kit is completed by the 55-300 that you also have (another great lens!), topped off by the A50/1.4 and A28/2.8.

So I'm definitely in the pro-16-45 camp. People criticise it because it casts a shadow at the wide end with the built-in flash, but it's not a problem for me as I rarely use flash (and use an off-camera gun when I do).

Aura,

You mentioned FastStone Viewer in your original post, which I don't think anyone has responded to. Yes, FastStone will decode PEFs, but in my experience (from my K-5) it does it nowhere near as good a job as PDCU4 does - or even Adobe Camera Raw. The times I've tried it, it's delivered noisy, grainy images whereas PDCU4 does a great job. People love PDCU4 or hate it, but it works very well for basic PEF conversion, as does ACR.

Don't get me wrong - FS Viewer is a marvellous tool for tidying up JPGs but I don't rate it as a RAW converter. Well, of PEF's anyway.

Just my two penn'orth.

I echo everyone else; I would have been more than happy to capture the shot above (nothing wrong with the colour and vibrancy here) and many of Andrew's pictures in his portfolio! I tend to shoot landscapes and scenes with my K-5, using a medium aperture to maximise sharpness and depth of field, and use PDCU4 as my main RAW processor, supplemented with Photoshop if curve/level adjustments or sharpening is necessary. PDCU4 is very good at fine-tuning exposure and colour balance, and for optimising the dynamic range. This can provide real punch.

Also agree that individual lens focus adjustment is essential to optimise focussing, especially for closer subjects. One other thing I'd recommend which might have helped in the focus on the girl's eyes in the above picture, is selecting centre-point focus rather than the auto-multi-point option, which might have decided that the girl's hair had more contrast, which may be why it focused there. My camera tends to live on centre point, except for using the set option is specific circumstances.

Just an additional thought. Otherwise, great job

I love those old John Cleese training films; some were better than Fawlty Towers! But the point is well-made; and any of today's Pentaxes can and do give excellent results. It's horses for courses; it's the tools for the job that should drive a camera selection - but of course it doesn't typically work like that. Flagging up the latest HDR mode during a sales pitch just (maybe unknowingly) disguises the fact that with say, a K-5's 14-bit architecture, you might well be able to get more out of a RAW file than you'd get in a JPG-based HDR picture, which to my eyes has looked curiously flat on the odd occasion that I've tried it out.

Even after a couple of years I still marvel at what the K-5 and good lenses can produce, even for an old duffer like me. So, as I said, no 36x24 for me. (Still can't bring myself to call it 'full fr...' cough, cough, as there were larger film-based frames than 35mm, not to mention our own 645D.)

It's a marketing-driven world sadly, and to sell cameras manufacturers are compelled to offer an autopilot mode, which normally renders a lot of the advanced features of Pentaxes (and others) redundant. I've lost count of the number of canikons with kit lenses that I've seen around necks that seem to be in the default position of easy mode with the built-in flash up, or pops up when the shutter is half-depressed. Makes me more than half-depressed! It's easy to put your camera on green mode on all controls and shoot JPGs, no adjustment, no compensations. No hassle, no complexity, point and shoot, marketer's dream. You probably don't even need superlative ergonomics for that.

The fun starts though when you get off the green mode, and start to explore the menu options for what you want the camera to do for you. There are no rights, no wrongs; even green mode is ok if you're content with that. People like Tav mode; me, I tend to use hyper-Av, shooting RAW. The flexibility of the K-5 is a marvel of design and engineering, and it's fun understanding it and using it. If you want small DOF, yes, by all means get a Limited prime; I tend to shoot Pentax zooms mainly (16-45, 55-300) because at the aperture range I typically use (f7-13), there's virtually no difference in performance for my preferred wide DOF. But you only get out what you put in, and my camera will give me more than I'm capable of needing. So 36x24 won't be an issue for me.

Don't know about the Tak-A 28/2.8, but I recently compared my old SMC-A 28/2.8 with my standard 16-45/4 zoom at the equivalent focal length, and not only was the prime 28 not as sharp as the 16-45 across a range of apertures, but the colour rendition on the zoom was noticeably better too. As the Tak won't have the multi-coating, this may well further affect the colour, and also the contrast and flare resistance, so it would be best to use a hood.

Shooting with a K-5, processing RAW with Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4, finishing with levels/curves/sharpening in Photoshop. Have tried RawTherapee but haven't got to grips with it as there are so many options! The great thing about starting the workflow with PDCU4 is that it imports and applies the camera JPEG settings (the ones you see on the camera screen) to the RAW files, so removing one step in the workflow. PDCU also has some very cool distortion correction and tilt adjustments, although its curves graph is just too small to be really useful. Once you're familiar with it, it's a pretty good RAW processor.

Maybe I'll try RawTherapee again, to see if I can get a basic set of tools - which ones do you use, Nigel? I tried the freeware Faststone Viewer, which has a nice feature set - but it does not seem to do a good job of processing PEFs.

Cheers,
Martyn

Thanks all; looks like it's a goner. Maybe I'll dismantle it like I did an old non-functional S3 a couple of years ago.