It does look more like light leakage than anything. You didn't mention the long exposure in your original post!

Looking at the angle of the sun, I wonder if direct sun was shining into the viewfinder?

Ha, Ricehigh can destroy nothing - only people who bother to look at that site are Pentaxians who are ALREADY dissatisfied, or Pentaxians who want to get angry about something! Can't see anyone else bothering to even look let alone care ;-P

Wow, impressive! Looks gorgeous.

Maybe a *little* extra light (other than that provided by the flame) is needed, so that you don't have just a flame surrounded by blackness (or total blackness in the last shot), or an overexposed, blurred flame.

But the frontal lighting, which has a different colour temp to the candle light, is not so attractive, I agree with the others. You could gel the flash and move it to the side/behind the candle, or add some additional candles out of shot to cast a little bit more light onto the wick.

Good set, Alan, I like 'ahoy' and 'bubbles'. I find the processing a bit strong/dark/grainy though, and St Pauls seems to have developed a slight lean.

But then nearly all my shots would also have a lean if I PP'd in camera only.

I'll take the spare battery please. Will PM details...

That's right John. Dream big!

On a less positive note, I see Ben Karanek has defected to Nikon (D600) and is now trashing the Pentax system he was always so evangelical about.

Maybe he means 'different' as in different from Canikon.

The K30 will blow you away, coming from a K20D. The K5ii will surely be even better! But the K30 may be good enough and is amazing value.

Wonderful pictures, and a fascinating slice of 1980s life.