Well done! Good decision, especially considering you shoot in low light a lot. The new k7/k5 body is something else though isn't it? Very posh!

Great stuff, Adrian.

Yes, it is on the k-7 too. Not a great help for aircraft photography tho I imagine! Better to choose the normal (red dot) af point? (Unless i'm misunderstanding you totally!)

Here's one I took testing a Tamron Adaptall zoom lens, at ISO 320 (as close to base ISO as I could find):




That doesn't look too noisy to me. At 1:1 (link) there is indeed a gritty texture to smooth tonal areas, but I think that you'd have to print it out at 'actual size' (3.1 x 4.6m at 72dpi) to see this so I don't worry.

I have noticed that shadow noise becomes a problem when you lighten shadows considerably, as in the shot below (the foreground was very dark indeed originally, with the church tower and sky exposed correctly). But certainly not worse than with my K200D. I used to have an istDL2 so I can have a play and compare with some of my old PEF files at some point. But looking at some old istDL2 shots recently, I was struck by how little detail there was compared to the K-7... there's almost a painterly look to fine details like pine needles link




Bottom line, the K-7 does not compare well with the K-5 in terms of noise or dynamic range. The sensor is from the last generation. But it's on a par with the K20D in terms of IQ, which was an acclaimed camera just a couple of years ago. It's closer to the K-5 in terms of performance and comes in the same great durable body.

I quite like it (can you tell?) but I would probably have passed on it if I had owned a K20D...

Very nice shots. I like the interior shots especially - there's a theme of repeated circles going on there! The submarine interior is especially nice with those dials and valves.

The harbour shot's nice too, look at the ice! The last shot needs a bit of skew and tidying up crop-wise IMO, but I'm a bit anal like that

Must go back to Copenhagen... lovely city with lots to see and photograph.

I would use Topaz on very high iso files maybe, but to mop up the small amount of noise you get at low iso, it would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut imo.

Can we see some image samples at 1:1?

Well I shoot Raw (always have, this is not something special to the k-7). In lightroom all my presets have a small amount of noise reduction which effectively banishes it at low ISOs and reduces it greatly at high ISOs.

Remember when you are looking at a 1:1 crop you are looking at a far smaller portion of the overall image than with the DS. And a much tinier part of any print you are likely to make.

I can understand the temptation! But if it's causing harm it seems very irresponsible for photo workshop groups to go out there against official advice. Maybe the LWT ought to harness the interest in the seals and lead very carefully managed tours of their own, ensuring that a respectful distance is kept.

I agree with you on the excessive cloning and tidying up of images.... trying to turn the world into a sort of chocolate-box airbrushed version of itself... but hat's just my personal taste. On the other hand, for example, Snappychappy recently posted a pic where he'd got rid of a lampost in PS.... in that shot he could not have moved to avoid having it in shot, it really did improve the composition, and in my opinion it was well worth doing.

No I don't think John would take too kindly to that - he's had enough aggro this week already!

From my quick scan of reports it looks like the green helmet guy (Salam Daher?) was a Lebanese (not Israeli) Civil Defense Worker, and the conflict was the Israeli-Lebanon conflict 2006. The only criticism I can find is that he made sure the media got as much coverage as possible - he set up shots, held up bodies etc but it was all 'real' carnage. Not fakery. link

This was a bona fide fake though - link. The person responsible for that terrible bit of cloning worked for Reuters