I have Avast and the only time I know it's there is when it tells me, in a loud American voice, 'Virus database has been updated!!!!' Which usually makes me jump out of my skin.

I should imagine the differences would become noticeable as soon as you start trying to lift the shadow areas in PP....

Hey isn't the Pointless Thread a 'photography free zone'?

Anyone see Frankie Boyle's 'Tramadol Nights'? I normally love his line-crossing sort of humour but what a disappointment. Only genuinely funny sketch was the Iranian version of 'Loose Women'

There was a Green Mile parody which I really didn't know what to make of

I like the way the colour draws attention to the relationship between the girl in the red coat and the poster in shot 2. The contrast between their expressions makes the shot IMO! In Ruby Red, wouldn't the Royal Mail van be another red element to emphasise - or would that be one too many 'red things'?

It strikes me that that going for a faster lens and shooting wide open would have improved a lot of these shots - selective focusing on faces and figures (blurring out the distracting background) would have provided something which may have impressed your client even more... The background is not great is it! The 35mm f2.4 would probably have done a fair job although you can always pay a bit more and get something faster. I notice you have a 50mm f2, but can imagine what a nightmare using a fully manual lens in that environment would be.

But they're a good set, I'm sure this sort of thing is not as easy as you might think.

Perhaps so, but it will be able to map the noise and banding on a blank shot and then eliminate it from the original shot... if I'm correct in my understanding of how DFS works? OK the sensor will stay warm, there's no way round that, but it's probably got as warm as it's gonna get during the original exposure. If there was no DFS would probably be shooting your next image soon after anyway.

As an aside, I wonder if anyone has experimented with cooling the back of the camera to help dissipate heat from the sensor?

I don't think anyone said the DFS had anything to do with reducing heat :

There was a head to head comparison of the DFA and WR on the other forum. No difference in IQ except that small OOF highlights were clearly 'round' on the WR lens, hexagonal on the DFA, at certain apertures. So yes the curved blades do make a difference, I've seen it with my own eyes!

If you want to sell the Tamron drop me a line. I'm contemplating buying one as I like my manual version of the lens. (I'm in no hurry though, money's a little tight, as always!)

Very appealing pattern in the last shot, although I'd lose the pebble (bottom right) with a slight crop. The other three are nice records of an extremely cold morning.

The Samsung sensor in the K20D/K7 is not the best for noise, so DFS would definitely be required. But what people are annoyed about is that they cannot do the dark frame subtraction themselves in order to combat this noise, instead of having it done automatically after every single shot.

The advantage of doing it yourself is that you only need to shoot one dark frame for several shots, and the results ought to be the same. Perhaps Pentax are worried about what people would think if they saw the shot before DFS was carried out, but I'm sure a lot of users would be able to steel themselves for the horror of that experience if it made shooting long exposures much more convenient.