Sorry Smeggy.

I was making a bit of mischief, because when a well known moderator put a question (that I paraphrased above) about batteries (oh God, no, not again), I thought that you rejected his argument.

Mannesty's recent question about software seemed to be phrased in a very similar way to the "battery" question, even spelling balk the same way (isn't it baulk?).

Regarding RAW conversion, I am using PSE-10 and only now a year on getting to grips with some of what it can do. I have no great desire to sit for ages at a computer to manipulate what I have shot, nor do I know what processing I should be applying (other than to recover the results of poor technique). I have used "Enhance lighting" to lighten shadows and darken highlights (which sometimes gives artificial looking results), but what else?

"...The only question I have is why spend £1000 on a camera to balk (sic) at £100 for RAW editing software? When tested, none of the free software packages have the same, or even the rated, capability of (insert name of favourite expensive package) and some are dismal..."

You don't always agree with "why balk" questioners, do you Smeggy?

I think you are certainly right there Ken, but it would be good if they were able to take a look and possibly give estimates on the day.

It would speed the repairs compared with sending off Recorded Delivery and then estimate and acceptance by postal correspondence.

It may or may not be worthwhile (or necessary) for any work on my K10D as it still functions fine, although I think there is a small piece of plastic rattling around in the battery compartment. If that could be decided on site that would save on postage.

Besides I have never had a walk round Stoke!

Are personal callers welcome at Johnsons?

Has anyone had anything repaired while they waited?

My 16-45 is in need of repair as a bump on the front of the lens has caused the focus & zoom mechanisms to jam.

I would also quite like them to take a look at my K10D following the drop 18 months ago that snapped my 55-300 plus existing "slanty" viewfinder issues and also to check the focussing action on repaired 55-300.

With that little lot, a day return on the train compares favourably with postage charges.

I have Silkypix Developer Studio 3.0 Free Edition (v 3.0.22.2) and this version displays the thumbnail views of *.DNG files but if I select single image display, the main image window goes blank (note that this is with K10 & K5 raw images).

The solution I used was to download Adobe DNG converter (v6.3.0.79 running currently) and by "converting" the original *.DNG to *.DNG, it makes the images viewable/editable.

See the Adobe website at:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=106&platform=Windows

Other forum users in the past have noted that a useful by-product of this "conversion" process is to reduce the file-size of the reulting *.dng file.

I have used the DNG converter to convert K10 PEFs to DNG as well.

Cliff, hope you are nearing top form pretty soon.

Best wishes

Remember that points off centre but nearer to the camera than the 75cm mark will be the same distance from the centre of the lens as the 75cm mark on the central axis - think triangles and Pythagoras theorem.

The height of the ruler above the carpet is relevant too as noted by another poster.

And no, I have not checked any of my lenses but feel that I ought to sometime (responded to poll).

Is it that the debug/menu adjustments have the same effect as positioning a shim between camera mount and lens to compensate for manufacturing tolerances?

The full battery test article is at:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/37224059

Content for now with Pentax & Energiser versions (though my K10 Hahnel spare had a cover).

While we are on batteries again, does anyone know where I could obtain a cover that would protect the terminals on my spare DLI-90 battery.

My gripe against Energiser is that they don't supply one with the battery!

Battery test data summary here:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a304/uzielgal/Batterycapacity2.jpg