As Smeggy has written several times - is there evidence for your assertion that with regard to batteries cheap OFTEN equates with dangerous and illegal? I remember being required only a few years ago, along with many thousands of others, to replace my laptop battery, because just a few had fried their owners' laptops. These were OEM labeled batteries (not sure, but I think they were all actually made by Sony). It would not surprise me if this sort of catastrophic failure is as uncommon with compatible batteries as with OEM - it is just that the faulty cheap ones do not initiate a massive publicised recall programme.

For the past 8 months I have been using two cheap D-LI90 batteries from different ebay sellers, in rotation with the original Pentax battery in the K-5. As others have suggested, if there is any difference, it has not been noticed. This battery model is compatible only with Pentax dslrs, and Pentax has only a small percentage dslr market share, so might the batteries all be from the same source, assembled in the same factory in China, just labelled differently by different distributors?

The image information for the lupins shot shows a focal length of 50mm and shutter speed of 1/4000s at ISO 160. It does not show the aperture although aperture priority was set. All this seems to be evidence that the lens used from your inventory was the manual 50mm, set to its maximum aperture of f/1.7. At this setting, the depth of field would be only a few millimetres, so it is not surprising that it is difficult to find anything in focus.

Gartmore's other comments are also valid - the flower colours do look darker than would reasonably be expected, and the composition could be better, e.g., it looks rather messy to have one flower, with its complex structure, almost directly in front of another similarly complex one.

Philip

It is to be hoped that you are not referring to Pentax User here. Mushrooms are the visible evidence of death and decay in the ecosystem, and the mushrooms themselves don't last very long.

Philip

Hello again, John

As Kevin has written, your edits have improved the originals. We now might be getting to the stage of personal preferences but I will add that, in my view, they would now benefit from a reduction in saturation and some careful sharpening - this is evident to me particularly in the skin tones and textures of the two adults. E.g. When you view it full size, this looks more natural to me -

[IMG]http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb327/MrB154/Reworked%20Photos/5d523177a.jpg[/IMG]

Cheers.
Philip

John,

Your camera appears to be set to multi-segment metering (aka pattern or evaluative), and this can be mis-led by bright (or dark) areas in the frame. The camera detects brightness, but it doesn't know which part of your image interests you most, i.e. your subject. So it tends to set the best average exposure for the scene that doesn't seriously blow the main highlight areas, which sometimes can result in the under-exposure of your subject.

E.g.1
Your 2nd photo is almost half flat (but bright) sky, so the camera has reduced the exposure to bring this down to light grey, but this has also dulled down the colours of the flowers.

E.g.2
Your grand daughter appears to have a white wall behind her, so the camera has reduced the exposure making it light grey, but this has also made the young lady appear too dark in the photo.

These sorts of exposure errors can be corrected by using the exposure compensation button on the camera - we can learn by experience when to add to (or subtract from) the exposure suggested by the camera meter.

My personal preference for the majority of shots is to use Av mode and to leave the meter lever set to centre-weighted. If the subject is not actually central in the frame, I centre it first just to get the camera to set the exposure, then lock that in with the AE-L button, then re-compose and shoot.

Cheers,
Philip

Some nice shots here, especially considering the conditions. The histograms for most of them appear to confirm the initial feeling that they are a bit dark. The K5 records loads of data, even shooting jpegs, so there is scope for making them pop more, by playing around with levels of brightness, contrast and sharpening. Hope you don't mind this example of your grand daughter --

[IMG]http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb327/MrB154/Reworked%20Photos/IMGP1408a1.jpg[/IMG]

It is the shake reduction technology. A good description of the system in the K100D is at the beginning of this article here -

http://www.steves-digicams.com/camera-reviews/pentax/k100d-slr/pentax-k100d-slr-...

In addition to creativity and skill, both of which can be taught and learned, there is a third factor involved in the production of high quality art, as it is in all spheres of human activity. It often seems to be forgotten or overlooked in discussions like these, and it seems that its very existence is denied by many egalitarians. It is talent - the innate potential present in each one of us, and probably a fixed genetic component of our being. An art critic of note was once asked on TV to comment on the works of a current "artist", and he replied that they all suffered from that person's lack of talent.

The quality of a work of art is seen "in the eye of the beholder", but there should be more to it than that for it to be outstanding. The work should also communicate the artist's aesthetic message to every observer and, importantly but ideally, it should do so when the observer has not been influenced by the supposed wisdom of others. Sadly, there seem to be too many examples where "the emperor's new clothes" illusion has the power to grossly inflate the value of the works of some modern "artists".

(Sorry Neil - I referred to you as Shep.)

I agree with this comment by Chunky - I should have included something similar in my previous post but I forgot. And I do like your son's natural expressions, rather than the usual results of "say cheese" - he looks very comfortable to be walking out in the countryside with his proud Dad!