Its a great lens, and you will be astonished by the image quality.

To avoid quality control issues, go to buy in shop, and make sure it is a good copy, and you have good focus with your body.

I have never noticed any issues with CA, the lens usually performs brilliantly.

Regards,

Regarding image quality, you are not going to find difference from the 18-250mm unless you buy a DA* zoom lens or a Prime lens.

Any other zoom might give marginally better quality at some focal lenghts, but absolutely nothing worth upgrading to.

A wide zoom is a different thing.

I would suggest you get an inexpensive prime like the FA 50 f1,4 and experiment with that for some time.

Good Luck,

Singular - LENS
Plural - LENSES

I believe the choice is entirely up to your needs.

both the Tamron/Pentax 18-250mm and Pentax 55-300mm are very popular lenses with very decent image quality.

Regards.

up to A2 should be fine.

Shoot in RAW and save in not compressed TIFF files.

Good lucK

I am not saying that it is a matter of judgment, and I am sure that your results, are great. There is no doubting here about your skills, or your results.

The only thing I am saying is that on a 16mb file there is more data than on a 3-4 mb file.

Perhaps you haven't tryed printing in large size, and see the difference between an un-compressed TIFF and a compressed Jpeg, say in A3 size.

Dear Paul,

You can definitely keep on shooting for HDR purpose in Jpeg format, if it suits you. THe only thing you should consider is the loss of data that this format gives you.

Regards

"as far as HDR Photography goes, the JPEG can be every "bit" as good as the RAW file. It doesn't matter if 8-bit or 12-bit does the capturing, as long as the full dynamic range is captured"

I cannot possibly understand why somebody would shoot such a 'detail-thirsty' image with a format compression. It makes no sense at all.
Not to mention the noise in the Jpegs, which can be removed in the RAW files. The only reason the book says this is because when you open an image in ACR it will change the settings of the image to suit the best exposure. Jpegs will simplify the process, and the result altogether.


To Carl,
Apart from the minor imperfections in allignment, and CA, and Noise, what disturbs me the most is the crop you've applied to both the images.
When composing, try to see how the eye can look at the picture, where are the points of interest, and where can the eye relax in the frame. In both pictures cutting the top part of the buildings brutally stops the eye from wondering around the frame, and takes away from the composition.

Before experimenting with HDR, I would suggest learning how to compose shots so that these are successfull pre-digital manipulation.

Kind Regards,

yes very fast. much faster than MF

No I skipped CS3, I had CS2, but it really wasn't the same!

The picture was shot in february when it snowed in London.

Yep done those before!

I am not sure that CS4 is beatable at anything!

The horizon is not straight because the allignment was automated, rather than manual. I find the vignetting removal, and joining the pictures in auto mode absolutely unbelievable.

I'll try to understand how to straighten the horizon in large panos....