True Duncan, but as Rob stated, the DNG files are bigger and white balance is messed up.

I use DNG's for archiving and after short experiments with the K20D DNG's I'm back to PEF's.

Prieni

There is a good reason for converting PEF to DNG before using Camera Raw. It's the upgrade policy of Adobe. I have CS and the latest Camera Raw for that won't read K20D PEF files. New cameras are only added to the Camera Raw for the latest Photoshop version (go figure!).

I guess that's why Rob needs to convert to DNG.
Time to give SilkyPix a test run, Rob...

Prieni

Yupp, No. 4 for me. It's not a sparrow, it's master Yoda!
Be the Force with you,
Prieni

From reading the threads over on depressing review I don't think it is an isolated problem. However, it seems that it doesn't affect all K20D's. When I read about it I also went back to have a look at shots I made with the 2s timer. Of course I couldn't look in SilkyPix as it does get rid of hot pixels pretty quickly.

As it seems my K20D is immune against this effect.
The firmware upgrade should cure it for affected cameras.

Hey, it was your choice, no reason to be sad!

It goes to show, though, how unpredictable judges can be. Who would have put any money on a 1-2-3 for colour this round :

Not exactly HDR. It's one layer that had 'local equalization' applied in Corel PhotoPaint (still haven't found a Photoshop plug in to do that) and 'soft light' layer mode. Then there is another 'soft light' layer that had Gaussian blur applied.
A bit of dodging and burning and that's it. (Apart from the conversion to B&W, but that was done earlier).

Thanks for your kind words and the honourable mention!

Congratulations to the winner amoringello and the runners up! Some very good entries again... Thanks to Lilly for thorough and swift judging.

It's a shame that I will have to pause for 4 or 5 rounds as I'm going out to sea again.

Prieni

*istD, FA J 18-35mmF4-5.6AL, 1/180 s, A8, ISO 200. The Lietzenburg in Kloster, on the island of Hiddensee.

Mike,

I had the same feeling at work (a bit more contrast needed). Looking at it at home it's fine. Judging by the histogram it should be fine as well.

Nice capture, Paul! The cloth in the foreground does somehow distract me a bit, but I think without it it would look less authentic. The Spätzle (and I think that is what we see in the pan) are a bit too bright (but as the rest is pretty well balanced I guess there was not a lot you could have done here).

Regarding the composition I think Duncan has made some valid points...

Prieni

I'm looking forward to see what you can do with it using it in anger... You're off to a good start with these.

BTW: I know the feeling of having this new toy and no time to play around with it. I left school many summers ago, but when I got my K20D I was organiser of an international workshop and so had to wait 3 days to even get the box in my fingers...

Best of luck for your GCSE's then and good light for your new toy!

Prieni

Gwyn,

if that is boring then I say: Bore me!
Arizona is certainly on our list of places to visit, so that makes your shots even more interesting for me.

Seems like this really is an amazing landscape...
I especially like the light in #3, wouldn't enjoy #4 (when was that?). I think the first 5 were very interesting so I'm looking forward to the rest...

Prieni

Yes, I waited for him to get there... At first I wanted to wait for him to pass, then I thought that with the red shirt it could add to the picture having him in there.

True, I also like the 10-17 colours. This lens is more fun than I thought...