Received the FA28 today from Dave - Saturday special delivery, lens very well packed, safe and sound, good condition, and working well.

If you buy anything on here from Dave, I'm sure you too will be happy with your purchase - a smooth swift transaction, a great bloke to deal with, highly recommended!

Thanks Dave.

Philip

Terry,

You have lots of good advice here but I will add some more/different points anyway -

Before you start again, you might like to restore the camera to its default settings - see pages 310-311 in your User Manual for how to do this. (The default settings are listed on pages 304 to 309.)

If I'm guessing right, you would like to get the best pictures you can straight from the camera, with little or no processing on the computer? I'm also going to assume that you view your images on a computer screen or TV and print no bigger than A4?

If so, leave the default settings mostly alone - this will give Biggest and Best quality Jpeg Files, Auto ISO, Auto White Balance, and Bright Custom Image. Just change the focus to Centre Focus Point.

Set the Mode Dial to Av (Aperture Priority), choose the aperture to get the best from your lens, or to change the depth of field, and, if the resulting image is too dark or bright, use the exposure compensation button and shoot the scene again - all as described in other posts above.

Keep in mind that you can help the shake reduction system by keeping the shutter speed faster than 1/30 at 18mm and faster than 1/60 at 55mm.

This should give you pretty good images from the camera, and there are many free editing programs that allow you to do simple tweaks to them on the computer (e.g. brightness and sharpness), if necessary.

Something else you might consider is to include your location in your member details in this forum - there could be another member nearby who might be willing and able to give you some practical help.

Philip

Evening on the Grand Union Canal (Pentax K-r):

Are PMs working?

Have you looked at ebay in Australia?

Philip

Not offended, but now both paranoid and pleased. Paranoid that people are laughing at me, not at my camera. But pleased to see that my old lens collection is so valuable.

Philip

I agree with all that.

Thank you, Nigel.

Philip

Currently that is a silly price. But if/when Pentax produce a full frame DSLR....?

Philip

It seems that SR is activated when auto-focusing, regardless of which button is being used.

I think the point being made is that, if the shutter button is already half-pressed, it might result in less physical movement of the camera when completing the press to fire the shutter.

Personally, I prefer to use the back button most of the time, with just the centre focus point activated. It then just feels easier to me when using the focus-recompose method for off-centre subjects.

Philip

Watermarks anywhere on an image are a loathsome, pointless intrusion. Why anyone would want to deface and spoil their work with such an irritating distraction is beyond understanding. If there is a desire to protect copyright, then display small well-compressed Jpegs to make them difficult to scale up for printing or full-screen viewing. If a file is big enough (and good enough) to be worth stealing, the determined hacker will remove any watermark by using PS or its equivalent, and trying to hide it in a corner simply makes his editing easier.

By now you might have guessed that I'm none too keen on watermarks.

Philip

This is the OP Jpeg with the extra PP done in PaintShop Pro X4. The crow was selected using Smart Edge, to leave the background unchanged.




Philip