In the enlarged crops, the digital images look more pleasing to me, as does the full image after removing the slight magenta cast to which John refers. The contrast of the film has made much of the image darker than I would like, although I suppose that could also be edited in PP, and image graininess does not appeal to me. (And I was a teenager five decades ago.)

Cheers.
Philip

I agree with John.

If you rarely use macro, you might consider carrying a close-up lens to clip onto your everyday lens for occasional use, such as a Raynox 250. I don't have one, but you can see lots of examples of its results, e.g. https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=pentax%20raynox

Cheers.
Philip

Nigel, I agree with Algi, and just add that to me these images seem to give a good 3D effect, especially number 6.

Cheers.
Philip

If you are willing to accept a recorded JPEG image, the HDR Capture option with Auto Align can work quite well - if you can hold the camera reasonably still - to tame the over-bright areas in a scene. And it can be surprising how much a Pentax JPEG can then be edited to enhance it later in imaging software.

Generally, lovely images.

Cheers.
Philip

From recent events, we should all be well aware of the reliability of polls! So it would seem to me that a poll of 65, taken in a brand exclusive forum of tens of thousands of members, does little to illuminate the statement I made above.

Cheers.
Philip

I agree with much that has been written above. In 2011 when I decided that digital photography would be my retirement hobby, I went to look at the DSLRs available for handling on the shelves at PCWorld/Currys. Not only did Pentax give more for the money, but the build quality was obviously streets ahead, compared with similar (entry level) offerings from Canikon, and so I went for the K-r twin lens kit. Now Pentax seems to have disappeared from PCWorld/Currys, one of the biggest retailers. Presumably though, there is a chicken and egg situation:- ...low sales...low income...low marketing budget...low public awareness....low sales...etc... Releasing models with unacceptable faults probably doesn't help the cause, neither do upgrades that limit functionality - e.g. I might be wrong, but I would guess that most users and more importantly potential users, if they had to choose, would prefer the top of the new K-3 to house a flash rather than a GPS unit.

Cheers.
Philip

In my view, the very fact that you were involved in the creation of the images, makes the procedure and the product examples of one of the forms of creative art. As the photographer/artist, it is entirely up to you how you create the image and what the end product should be.

Photography means drawing with light, and it has two main aspects: capture and process. It is the image capture part that distinguishes photography from other forms of graphic art - e.g. creating a drawing in Photoshop is graphic art but it is not photography.

You captured the light from that part of the real scene that you chose to include in the frame. You then decided how you want yourself and other viewers to see the image/light-drawing. You did that by processing it to control the light it transmits (VDU) or reflects (print) to the viewer's eyes.

You did not want any light from the walls, pipe, aerials or tree in your captured image to reach the viewer, so you cropped or cloned them out of your light-drawing. You wanted the sky and house to transmit/reflect different tones to the viewer, so you altered the colour/brightness/contrast/saturation......

Your creativity has, and should have, no bounds - it's your choice to do as little or as much with your images as you wish.

Cheers.
Philip

Nigel, perhaps this might be something left over from the early days of FF DSLRs? If an APS-C field of view was cropped from the image back then, the few pixels remaining would have limited the scope for making a large print, so it was better to use a longer focal length lens to fill the field of view of the FF sensor with the subject. With the multi-mega-pixel FF sensors around today, cropping and then making a detailed large print is a now a viable option.

Cheers.
Philip

Interesting history, thank you Derek, and a nice set of photos. My preference here is for the colour images. Just one small point - the lighthouse doesn't look quite vertical, except perhaps in number 2.

Cheers.
Philip

Hello Nigel. Numbers 3, 5 & 7 appeal to me more, as the contrast, brightness and saturation look more natural to me there, but less attractive in the rest.

Cheers.
Philip