not sure that the new version of Sigma 30 1.4 is available in Pentax fit from reading the stuff on dpreview about it, Pentax was not mentioned.
i sold DA40 and DA21 as i found my DA*16-50 easily matched them for iq at their respective focal lengths. kept the 15 though.

fancy this little picture causing so much controversy, first luminous trees and mismatched blues, i do not see this on my monitor a bit brighter than usual thats all, the water was absolutely still, the only time you see movement on this lake at this end is when a pretty strong wind is blowing. felt it achieved what i wanted, something with a bit of punch.
David i looked at fusion but felt it would be worse than tone mapping to tone down, when i tried it with fusion after photomatix combined the exposures it was so dark i could not make out what it was. i tend to pick a preset ,usually enhanced or creative then play with the sliders and finish off in elements.
i respect all your feelings on this but we are all different and long let that continue to be so.

upgrade definitely, this is Photomatix pro, DA15 5 exposure, 2 stop between.
there is also Nik HDR Efex which is a plugin to photoshop i believe, reading reviews not much between them but depends if you prefer a stand alone programme

what would be a reasonable time to set between shots for star trail at f5.6, which seems to be the recommended aperture.

the biggest pain is the colour cast, magenta on Cokin, bluish on Hitec, if you double or triple them. the hitec 10 stop has a strong colour cast that has to be got rid of. you do not have that problem in software. as for water it is surprising how fast a shutter speed you can use and still blur a waterfall or river, clouds are another matter but again you can pp motion into those i imagine.
nd in software,i would think nik colour efex is the easiest, it has a preset nd selection just click the mouse and then adjust to suit

it was a lot of fun doing this and my daughter now has it hanging in her house some where. i think i prefer the colour version as i do like to see blue sky, maybe because we have not had a lot for a while, and you obviously can see the tonal differences even though the bulk of the trees are bare and a bit monotone.
thanks to all for the comments. to Vividart and Stewart who kicked it all off and made me use some of this software i have collected and neglected, thanks.

what camera are you using this on?

i believe it is called Fabsil

is this more what you mean Stewart?
is this "moody"

push the glass out of an old 49mm filter and screw the rim to the lens to make an extension then screw on the polariser, works a treat.