I went over to Paris on a business trip and took my K10D with me. Here's a couple of snapshots, constructive feedback is welcome.

S-M-C Takumar 135/3.5




Super Takumar 50/1.4 (Charles de Gaule Etoile, that's the mad roundabout with Arc de Triumphe in the middle)



Super Takumar 50/1.4



I am really enjoying these old MF lenses. The 135 is amazing considering the size of it and the price you can get it for.

This is my first attempt at a sky/sunset picture. I didn't change the colours at in pp, sky was just a weird but nice colour.

I checked the histogram on camera which didn't seem to show any areas as blown but on loading to PC some of the horizon was overexposed, wish I'd used a faster shutter now! I used rawtherapee's highlight recovery which helped a bit I think.




Constructive suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks for all your advice,

I do have a Jessops bounce flash that I picked up when they were cheap so will try constructing something to diffuse that. I've searched around and there are some really interesting looking contraptions but for simplicity I'll try wrapping a load of bubble wrap round it first and see how that goes.

I haven't used my flash in manual mode before, would I be right in guessing the procedure is something like:

Put camera in manual mode, set ISO to 100/200, set shutter to 1/180, focus wide open, set aperture to 'just enough', try flash on 1/4 power (manual mode), take a shot and then adjust ISO/f-stop/shutter/flash as necessary.

Don't know what went wrong with the photo I tried to post, I can't see why it only shows for some people some of the time.

I have just purchased an S-M-C Macro Takumar 100/4 with the intention of using it for some macro photography of flowers and insects etc. I'm hoping to take some photos that I will eventually be able to print say 10x8 and put up at home.

Can anyone recommend a good tutorial/website to help me along the way with this?

I quite like the output from this lens so may also try using it for portrait work, would it be suitable for that (guess I'll just try it and see)?

I only got the lens yesterday but took this on the way into work with it on a K10D:




RAW file converted in Rawtherapee with just a bit of sharpening, shot was handheld at 1/30 at ISO800 hovering over the berry. I appreciate a tripod will be pretty much essential but this was just a quick test.

I have recently purchased a K10D and have been very impressed with image quality, build quality and user interface (particularly the two e-dials).

I am hoping somebody can offer me advice on the best way to carry out noise reduction in image editing software (I am using RawTherapee 2.4 but would be open to suggestions of other free programs or included software).


Here is a crop from a .PEF opened in Rawtherapee and saved as a JPEG, detail seems ok to me but there is a bit too much noise for my taste:




Here is a crop from camera JPEG:




Any advice on how I could make use of noise reduction to tidy up the .PEF in RawTherapee or other suitable programs?

I would also welcome constructive criticism on these images also: