Love the framing in the last one; I think if the foreground players were sharp (and the background guy out of focus) it wouldn't have worked so well.

Would be interested in how well Paul's suggestion of using apertures smaller than f10 works to reduce moire (relying on diffraction to create blurring, rather than the SR-based AA-filter-simulator). Cos it sounds like a rather clever idea to me.

What f-stop do you need to go to to reduce the moire acceptably?

Are they substantially cropped as well? (If so it's no wonder there's noise - this is the level of noise you'd expect at say a 100% view).

If he resists the lure of digital, 35mm film is much more widely available and second hand compact 35mm cameras are practically given away for free on ebay, including some really fantastic models that would have cost an arm and a leg back in the day!

I crop first as if the composition is shonky and I'm not sure it can be improved, it demotivates me from making the other necessary tweaks. If cropping does not or cannot improve the image, I ditch it and move on to the next.

Makes sense. But the edge performance of the 8-16mm is actually very good, and there is less barrel distortion than the Samyang (essentially none after 12mm - obviously it's going to struggle when you go wider than that).

The geometric distortion (uncomfortable corners) is, I think, simply a product of the extremely wide FOV on a rectilinear lens and goes away when you zoom in to, say, 12 or 14mm. But at least on a zoom, 8-10mm are available to you if the subject benefits from it.

This isn't in Bristol by any chance?

Interesting how people have different takes on things!

I like 'pictorialism' but I also like the gritty, content-led, storytelling approach to these images. Nearly all the images make you wonder about the people pictured and draw you into their world. The time which has elapsed since they were taken makes them more interesting, but I think most of them have more than a 'historical' interest.

I'm a fan of bokeh but clearly bokeh is beside the point here...

I think it's more complex (optically), and adds more bulk, to push the FOV wider (past 18mm) than it is to push longer (past 200, say).

The IPCC.... you mean the 'iffy police cover-ups commission'? Yeah I'd definitely expect fair treatment from them (presuming they ever got round to looking at the case).