I've seen one of these before. I know it's a 'duck', but that's the limit of my natural history knowledge

No 1 much better than no 2.

Gareth - thank you for outing me, it gives me such a great feeling to know that other people get pleasure from my images, and I have ALWAYS waited for the moment when someone would say that I have a style.

Tim - sorry, blame my Mom for calling me Tim

Barrie - I always run out of time well before I run out of ideas.

To everyone else, stop worrying about your kit. As you are on this forum you already have the 'thinking persons' camera, just take more pictures, and then when you are finished just take some more. Passion is a great way of improving your images, so just become more passionate about something.

Wow, I've just found this thread and I'm not quite sure what to say (blushing here!)
Gareth, thank you for your very kind and obviously sincere words, and to the others who have made comments.

Since buying a digital SLR (Pentax of course!) I have worked hard to try to improve my photography, and to produce images for myself and others to appreciate - you can see my progression in my gallery images from the beginning. And I'm glad that everybody doesn't like every image, that means I'm doing something right.

I'm trying not to sounds pretentious here, but I am trying to capture images of the beauty of the female form, and to produce images that I would be happy to show to, and be appreciated by, all my friends and family, male and female alike. So Smeggy I am doing my little bit to rebel against the sexualisation of society, that always associates nudity whatever its intent with sex, and my images have to be choreographed as I have yet to find a nude in the wild

I got into nudes by accident, as I found that landscapes, wildlife and other genres often require to get up very early, and spend lots of time waiting for the light or for animals to do their thing, and to get good images you generally get wet and cold With my genre you decide in advance when to shoot - so you can fit it in with work and other commitments - you take your own subject (the model) with you, and you are in control of the subjects position in the frame and posing. And shooting outdoot nudes is actually quite fun, and you can have some stimulating conversations as well (Holly aka 'my muse' has a degree in fine art, so is very much part of the creative process.) And costwise I often shoot with other photographers, so my total modelling bill for the whole year costs less than many of my photographic friends spend on one 'photographic safari'.

As if I am not blushing enough, yesterday I also found an unsolicited blog post from an amazing photographer whose work I really admire:
http://rebecca-parker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/04/timpileisawesome/ (contains nudity)

So a big thank you to everyone who looks at my images on the galleries and comments on them. I really enjoy being part of the friendliest and most helpful photographic forum.

No 2 is my favourite, and I think it would look super in mon as well.

I have the Tamron 17-50mm Non-VC and I find it is on my camera 80% of the time, and has the best IQ of all my lenses (Pentax and non-Pentax).

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I can't find it in the forum.

There are various settings for high ISO noise reduction on the K7, I have it set to off, and then use Lightroom or DFine. Am I doing the right thing, or would I be better letting the camera do some noise reduction.

The argument I have heard for doing it afterwards is that you have far more processing power and time and better algorithms on your PC, while if in camera the processor in the camera is less powerful and has to do it in a split second.

Finally, I always shoot RAW, does the high ISO noise reduction setting have any effect on the RAW file or only the JPEG?

Thanks for all the advice, I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm not going to be able to get the quality I want at an affordable price.

Kris, I'll have you know that it took me quite a time to exactly line up the model with the cracked stone. Glad you appreciated the effort.

Digressing further - Gareth, you may think there are people always milling about these places, but I was at these standing stones for 7 hours, and shot nudes for 5.5 hours, stopping for a visit by the warden and about 30 visitors!!! (images not yet fully edited, just quick mono conversion)
link(warning-nude-images)

You just need a good model, a sharp eye, and a spotter.

I'm looking for anywhere north of Edinburgh/Glasgow, up to 3 hours drive from those cities.

Don't worry about the cold, I'm always well wrapped up
(I actually wear the thinnest clothes I can, to 'share' the cold!!)

No problem Gwyn, life is very boring without some fun

Gareth - from the inside (its 2 foot of the ground from there)!

And I'm back up in Scotland in a few weeks time with my two usual shooting partners, for 5 days of shooting 'nudes in the landscape' - including Raphaella - so any location suggestions most welcome. (I digress)

Is digressing a Dutch national pastime

I have looked at all the lenses, and according to Photozone none of them really have the wide-open performance I seem to get with my Tamron, so I would not be gaining much by buying them as I would have to stop down, and I would be spending quite a bit of money.

Well I suppose I could spend the money on more models instead