Just logged vote 1001 !

Unlike Womble I accepted the Tamron instead of the 50-200 as I had my suspicions that they may struggle getting the Pentax glass.

As they manually altered my order they forgot to charge for delivery, so I managed to get it for £38.93. Not a brilliant bit of glass but for under £40 it was well worth it.

I bought it to accompany the kit lens so that I can work out at which focal lengths I need to invest in. At the moment it looks as if my style is developing into favouring the wider range. So I may well sell it on sooner than I thought.

I bought a cheap Chinese cable release off ebay to experiment with. It is a bit plasticky & wouldn't take much abuse, but it has 2 stage button (same as shutter half press) & a manual lock off for use with bulb or even focus trap if you're a twitcher.

Great if you don't think it'll get much use. I know now that I do need one so if it breaks I'll probably invest in a sturdier option. It uses a 2.5mm jack which is the same used for some Canon cameras. So there are plenty of options out there.

I think the sign adds something, would've been better had there been an old washing machine lying below the sign though!
I also love the shadows criss crossing the foreground !

Did you run any noise reduction software Ewan? looks very clean at this size.

Thanks for the opinions guys. Have just checked this thread at work and my images do appear a little more saturated than i remember, i'll have to get some prints and see how they look. Matt, i'll look into that masking technique you described. I'm saving my processing and photoshop tutorials for a rainy day. Just needed to see what i could achieve quickly as there.s no point me bracketing shots if i cant use them. Hopefully i'll get good light but if not, and it.s a rarely seen scene then it.s good to know you can produce a workable image if only for posterity's sake !

I'm not a huge fan of HDR but I think it can be useful in certain situations.
These are my first attempts at HDR. The first because I was shooting into the sun & would have had the stones in silhouette, and the 2nd because the light was dull. I doubt I'll be able to return whilst it's still iced up so couldn't wait for better light so used HDR to lift it a little.

Both from 3 exposures 1+1/2 stops apart. Tonemapped in Photomatix.

I'm hoping I haven't overdone them & would like your opinions please to help me improve my results.



[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/bbframed.jpg[/IMG]






[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/frozenwalkframed.jpg[/IMG]

The site is called "Tarren Deusant" which translates to "Rock of the 2 saints" Tarren Deusant is considered to be a pagan cult site dating from the Iron Age. At least eight faces are carved into the rock around an embedded boulder, which has been described as tear or phallus shaped.

The carvings are near a spring which spouts from the rock face and the cult is thought to have worshipped water.
The site is in a steep-sided and wooded valley and the feeling of ancient ritual is strong. Perhaps spookier are the remains of tealights and candlewax around the carvings, evidence that the site continues to be used today.

Tarren Deusant
[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/deusantportfornet.jpg[/IMG]

Ancient portraiture
[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/face1fornet.jpg[/IMG]


Say Cheese !
[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/face2fornet.jpg[/IMG]


Obviously I could have tidied the area for the wide shot but didn't want to mess with the rituals. The pieces of wood stone slate & even money seemed to have been placed deliberately, so I left them be. I will return when I have bought an off camera flash to help light it a little better, will help with the close ups also as setting up a tripod there was precarious at best !


I'd never had known about this site if some friends of mine hadn't introduced me to geocaching. Certainly provides more subject matter, my wife & I bought our own GPS receiver today so will be trying to find some more unique views such as this one.

Have accompanied a couple of friends on a couple of geocache finds & taken my camera along. It was a very overcast day & at twilight I was just about to put my camera away, but I thought I'd try out my 50mm f1.7 I got on ebay for a tenner & the brighter viewfinder allowed me to keep shooting & I'm glad I did as I produced this shot which I'm quite fond of. Focusing was tricky in low light & it's a fair bit off in this shot but I like the blown out street lamp so it's a keeper for me.




I'm seriously considering just buying fast primes instead of the f2.8 zooms I was looking at originally.

The shutter speed is good I think, because it has captured nice long spark trails. Obviously a little motion blur to the face is going to detract a little.

I realise you've lit the scene, but I think that these shots are nicer alot darker, where the light sources seem to be the fire & iron. This helps concentrate the eye on the key elements of the scene. (face, iron, fire) I had a very quick play in photoshop & liked a much darker version with the white wall area to the right well burnt to stop distracting the eye. This was just using the "variations" option, I think with proper curves adjustment it could be even better. Give it a try.

Not sure if I'm on the right track here, but here goes:

1. I think you are zooming in on the picture when viewing it in photoshop & not actually editing the image. If you want the image to be like what you see on screen when zooming then you need to crop the image (search google for cropping with photoshop)

2. If you've missed focus then it's too late - you can sharpen the image using unsharp mask (again google will help here) but this can only help to a small degree.