Nigel, Smeggy and Stuey - thank you for viewing and for your helpful comments. I was also really pleased with #4, but the dynamic range is probably too high for one shot.

Philip

Thank you for your positive comments Stan. Sorry about the dearth of sky in #4! - is this one any use? -

5. Wall around the Orangery -




Philip

Thank you David and Stephen for your much appreciated comments.

Philip

A few of the photos shot at Cliveden (National Trust) in Buckinghamshire today:

1. Over the roof tops -




2. Through the trees -




3. Backdrop to an E-Type -




4. Backlit by the evening sun -




Captured with the 18-135 on a K-5ii. Hope someone likes them!

Philip

I prefer the wall to be in the shot. The colours are nice but I agree with Nigel regarding the top right. Also, except when an image has been captured at an unusual angle or with extreme perspective (usually for artistic reasons), I expect to see vertical lines in a building like this church. So, in my opinion, this image needs a small clockwise rotation to restore the verticals (unless, of course, the church really is leaning back).

Philip

I have both PSP X4 and PSE 10 installed on my Windose 7 PC - I bought both online a while ago, but when neither were the current versions at the time, so both were cheap.

Most of the time I find that the K-5 Jpegs come out of the camera pretty close to what I want, so PP is fairly straightforward tweaking stuff. I use mainly PSP for that, as I know it better and I like the way the tools and controls work. Having written that,I must also make clear that PSP X4 has many image editing features that I haven't yet used or explored (and might never need to!) - it is a powerful package.

However, I do prefer ACR that comes in PSE for developing any Raw files that I produce - it seems to offer better control to me than the Raw converter in PSP X4, although this might have been improved in the more recent versions, X5 and X6.

Very good advice from Karl above - download and use the trial versions, then make your decision. But also consider - is there anything that you want to achieve that you cannot do easily or at all with your current software?

Philip

Nigel, you are one of the few who have commented when I have posted outdoor shots, and you have always given me some helpful suggestions that I have agreed would improve them.

However, it therefore mystifies me, but I have to agree with John regarding the colour of your outdoor images - often they seem to be over-saturated, particularly in yellow/orange tones. E.g. I would have expected the garden shot to look something like this -




Is the effect in your images being produced by your camera settings, or in your processing, and is that the appearance that you prefer, or could it be anything to do with monitor settings?

Philip

Has this new feature been mentioned yet - I think it is called Peripheral Illumination? It is selected in the Lens Correction menu, so I'm not sure but can I assume that it enables the firmware to compensate for the known amount of vignetting effects of lenses? Anyone know anything about this one?

Philip

Bookmark the Urban Dictionary, e.g. AFAIK - link - it will tell you what they mean.

Philip

Surely that is the photographer taking creative control of the output of the camera? If the K-3 knew what he was trying to produce, that would be really amazing technology.

Philip