Sycamore Seeds: A.

Because B has such bad camera shake. A isn't entirely sharp, but that could be down to resizing.

Rock on Beach: C.

Both are very soft (camera shake?) and 'flat' - desperately in need of some PP to give the image some contrast (or adjust in camera settings to look more 'film like' if you are phobic about PP, which I seem to remember you are! :wink

Reason I prefer C is the wave position, just creates more of a composition IMO. The splash created by the wave in D is hardly waht you'd call 'spectacular'!

Does the image look reasonably sharp at 1:1?

I've attempted to rescue, although with such bad camera shake (or missed focus), and such a subject/composition, it's probably not worth the effort. Going back, with a really steady tripod, is probably the best bet.

Oh yeah!

I'm fairly sure the other 2 are full frame, so maybe DG does denote FF.

Nice personal impression of the 28mm here. http://www.techtheman.com/2009/10/sigma-28mm-f18-ii-in-mid-autumn.html?m=1

No the 30mm vignettes on FF (interesting effect though!)

There are various Vivitar 28/2s, but from what I see, they aren't at their best at f2 so the advantage is lost IMHO.

The sigma 30/1.4 or 28/1.8 may be worth a look. I prefer my DA35 but it's a bit long for what you're after.

If 'the Scum' isn't mainstream, I don't know what is! These shots are from the press release pack associated with the 'My Britain' photo comp. Also covered in The Daily Hell (Mail). Using great images featuring a 'hot' celebrity is smart marketing, much better than a dry advert which readers would tend to skip past. Also, I'm not sure, but I suspect Pentax don't actually need to pay for this form of advertising, apart from the cost of the photoshoot. It strikes me that Pentax have employed a pretty shrewd marketing agency on this one.

The main thing a filter prevents, which a hood can't, is cleaning marks. Cleaning dust or moisture off a 'sacrificial' filter means you don't need to be quite so careful, which is great if you need to have a quick wipe when out and about. I uncapped my DA15mm this afternoon, and found the front element was rather dusty, but didn't have a lens cloth on me, and certainly didn't want to go at it with a corner of my T-shirt.

TBH this filter vs no filter debate seems to be six of one and half dozen of the other. Maybe we should restrict the discussion to the issue of 'do filters cause flare'?

I was able to run Avast in Safe Mode, which removed the offending bit of malware. All's now well! Yippee! And I'm installing Ubuntu alongside Windows, because I enjoyed using it the last couple of nights while Windows was incapacitated.....

You're not telling me you buy a new washing machine every four years, Gary!

System restore didn't work so running a system scan within safe mode.

Won't a new XP disk have it's own serial number, Algi? (Hopefully I can avoid needing to reinstall but who knows!) Can't remember whether this PC came with a disk or not, or if so, where I put it

Would be tempted to upgrade to Win7 if I had to buy a new disk, but not sure if my version of Autocad (2007) would be compatible...

Cheers Mike, I did watch that vid yesterday - it says it won't let you go into safe mode, which is why I overlooked that option and went straight into trying to locate the virus myself running Linux off a CD. However I have managed to get the computer going in safe mode so perhaps I have a slightly different variant.