A flood of posts have come in response to my last post.

I think that people are getting too specific with my term 'Professional'.
Whilst it is true anyone who earns money from a camera could be classed as professional, however it seems incorrect to put a wedding photographer into the same category as Nick Knight, David Bailey or Sebastiao Salgado who also earn money from photography.

In response to G's comment that you can not notice the difference between a digital print and that of a traditional silver-based print would suggest to me that you have never done a fibre print before... or at least a decent one.
There is a reason why I and many others spend hours in the darkrooms, bleaching our hands and using harsh chemicals.

Secondly as I mentioned previously it is only when I am forced, I will resort to using digital manipulation within an fine art print and even then I will have a negative made from the file for me to traditionally print.

It is clear that by mentioning my ties to fine art I have been instantly stereotyped as a darkroom hermit refusing to go with the times. In-fact I use digital cameras, manipulation and prints more than I use silver based products. I reserve traditional methods for a photograph I actually care about and therefore want to produce the best print possible.
It is far from convenient but it is well worth it.

I think you would be surprised just how much dislike there is for digital in pro sectors where quality is the main concern ie anything except press!

You will never find a fine artist using digital, in some cases when digital manipulation has to occur the neg is drum scanned, the alterations made and then a 5x4 neg is made from the digital file and then its printed traditionally. (expensive stuff.. Ive only done it twice but it looks amazing)

In terms of commercial most still life photography for advertising is still done on large format and pretty much all fashion is still shot on 6x6 or 6x7

As I mentioned in my first post anyone in London who wants to see examples of high quality photographs (both technically and conceptually) go to London College of Communication degree show from 6th June to the 16th

I am not denying that different cameras are suited to different needs. Any professional photographer will always have an armory of cameras for every situation.

My argument is that the frequent comments such as 'A camera is only as good as the person operating it...' is utter rubbish. Instead it should be that 'a better photographer will always make best use of the available camera equipment.'

Example - Ansel Adams didn’t have to worry about his mountains suddenly moving and therefore could spend hours with his 10x8 camera getting the perfect shot
Whereas Cartier-Bresson/ Salgado/Koudelka etc at Magnum had to generally appear invisible with their subjects so had to resort to 35mm to remain inconspicuous.

Its very easy to turn a blind eye to the technicalities, especially with the advent of digital. For people who have used anything better than their 35mm or DSLr, they will always hope that their best photographs will always be shot on large format so that a beautifully composed image can be fully appreciated.

Bringing up the topic of Pentax Dslrs lagging behind is an argument that inevitably stirs and offends the loyal pentax user.

I am one of these loyal pentax users but the fact is if you want decent quality I would never dream of using my Ds (even with * or Ltd lenses), I would use either my Pentax 67 or Sinar.

What everyone seems to be hazy about is the requirements for a Pro Photographer.

I am in my final year of studying 4 years at the London College of Printing (the final show is on the 13th of June if anyone is interested).
http://www.arts.ac.uk/events/16028.htm
Just about everyone in the show is working with 5x4 or 10x8 and very few are using 6x6. Only one person is using digital that being the Canon's 16mp beast and even he has been criticized for its inferior quality (although to be honest I think they look pretty good, but that’s just artists dislike for digital).
It is a fair argument that composition and content of an image is the main concern but it should also be combined with the highest quality to fully appreciate it.

By defining categories of photographic users I would argue
- a pro to be a large format user or possibly a 5x4 digi back or maybe a medium format high mp back
- a semi pro to be a medium format user or very high Mp Dslr ie 16mp+
- an amateur to use formats below this quality threshold and to be honest with Dslrs of 10-14mp in this group Pentax Dslrs would be at the very bottom of the group.

Then again if you don’t need large sharp prints the Ds is perfect as an AMATEUR camera.

To be honest I have lost faith in Penax's ability to repair cameras, especially when they wanted £180 to fit a Beattie interscreen to my 6x7.

An old-timer photographer I know recommended a repair shop in Farringdon (North London) called Graham Playford, who managed to do the same screen upgrade for £20 and did a fantastic job, even checked the shutter speeds for free.

Every repair I need done, whatever the camera or format is always done at this place and I have always been very happy.

For anyone who is interested his number is 02078330850, he is definately worth checking out, especially if you get a stupid quote from Pentax like I did.

I bought an AF080C flash almost a year ago now for some macro work with my Ds. The TTL works proficiently for the intended macro work, generally producing accurate exposures, however I also intended to use the flash as a fill-in for portraiture and these images always yield underexposed images.

I know that the TTL is based for macro (because of its low guide no.) but I would have hoped it would adjust itself accordingly for fill in when the subject is further away ie for a portrait.
The only method I have managed to get a half decent shot is to set the ringflash on full manual and set the camera to manual and keep adjusting the aperture.

I really like the effect of using ring flash for portraits and have tried it with a canon 1ds and it works fantastically well with their ring flash. The photographer Rankin used it throughout his Australia trip www.rankin.co.uk so you can see how the ring flash looks with portraiture.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

For those of you that are unaware of the brand I would strongly recommend that you check out Domke bags.

They are the choice of photojournalists because they are incredible hard wearing and most importantly they dont look like a camera bag, perfect if your in a place where your likely to get mugged, like Brixton or Iraq!

On the downside they are far more expensive than other brands but they do stand the test of time and are the top choice for the Pros. I bought mine from Jacobs in New Oxford St. I think Tiffen imports them from US so there is a website too.

I think I may have overlooked the auto ISO and the AF mode as by far the most significant improvement for me is the battery life.

I can not stress how poor the battery life was before the update, even freshly charged r-AA batteries (2300mah) would only give me around 10-20 shots max- and that’s without flash! Duracell M3s would raise it up to 30-40 which is still abysmal.

The same rechargeable batteries which before gave me a 10 shots now give me around the 200 mark. Before I would take the r-AA out and put them in another appliance and it would read them as full, however now with the new firmware they read empty.

It could be the software supplied on my Ds and I’m sure others as well are only geared up for the lithium batteries and the new firmware has corrected this.

Ps. Slofts the firmware is very easy to install the only worry is the battery dieing during the 40 second install! However the update should solve future battery issues.

I updated my Ds to version 2.0 about 6 weeks ago, while I can not notice any enhancements that Pentax claim the new version to bring, I have noticed that the battery life with rechargeable AAs to be greatly improved.

I’m sure most Ds users are aware that when using rechargeable batteries the camera dies very quickly, even if they are a freshly charged batch. However when the camera dies if you keep switching it off then on again it keeps on going.

I have found with this new firmware that the batteries last at least 5x longer, however when there empty there is no off and on trick to get more out of them. Im assuming this is the camera using up all the battery's power unlike with the previous firmware.

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this or any other benefits to the firmware update (aside from the pretty pictures when changing picture modes).

Does anyone know if the DS focusing screen is the same as that of the 35mm LX?

I am eager to upgrade my DS with a Beattie fresnel but the only ones on the Beattie site are for LX and PZ-1 http://www.intenscreen.com

I took my DS screen out to be remove dust which in doing so seemed to add more dust and smudges so I quickly put it back, before I had a chance to measure.

For those of you that have never had the pleasure of viewing through a fresnel screen, I strongly urge you to give it a go.
Ive got them on 2 LXs, a 6x7 and my 5x4 Sinar and the bigger the screen the brighter they go!