I was quoting what it says on the Photoshop cs4 requirements page, so they have it wrong also it seems.

Getting 8 gigs of RAM now, eliminates the trouble of putting more memory into the computer later on, which can sometimes be a bit difficult, if it's very cramped inside around the motherboard. I've heard some brand computers are not easy to upgrade later on. 4 gigs at the moment though seems more than enough for just about any photo editing purpose. When multitasking, things might change though. My dualcore laptop has 4 gigs of RAM and even using only Pentax Photo Lab makes me want to upgrade (I have firewall, antispyware and AV running at all times though). Though it might just be the dualcore that isn't up to the task.

Regards
Tobio

Hi!

I've never heard that a new or newish motherboard could only make use of 2 gigs of RAM, but I'm not sure if it's so. I have heard that 32 bit Operating systems can only make use of about 3,5 gig of RAM. 64 bit systems can make use of lots more. Windows 7 has several editions and they can make use of 8 to 192 gigs of memory, depending on the edition. 8 gigs of memory should be enough for quite some time.
I thought graphics cards mainly benefit games and some 3d modeling apps, but apparently with Photoshop cs4 there are some 'GPU-accelerated features that require graphics support for Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0'. What this means exactly is a bit unclear to me but I'm sure some users here have more info on that. I'd say though that a cheap graphics card and a fast quad processor should be more than fast enough for photo editing.

Regards
Tobio

Hi!

I edit my photos with my laptop sometimes. I'd say the most important thing about laptops is the display. Quality 17" display would be good, not too big to carry along, but probably big enough for comfortable viewing. My laptop has a 15" display and it's far from great quality. Although one can usually connect the laptop to a quality external display, a good display in the laptop is worth every penny IMO, because you probably don't want to drag a large external display with you.
Also important would be the amount of RAM (though you can usually add more later), 4 gigs of that, because 32 bit operating systems can't use more than about 3,5 gigs. 64 bits opsys might be the way to go if you do some serious multitasking. A fast dual core processor should be fast enough, unless one does lots of background tasks at the same time. The hard drive should be at least 320 gigs and not too slow (I think most laptops have enough storage room, but some laptop drives are somewhat slow although you usually can swith for a bigger and faster model later). A nice range of connections, for an external display and perhaps even HDMI for example. Windows 7 is probably a good choice for the OS as it's the newest and pretty fast, Vista is slower, or so some experts say, though I never had any big problems with Vista. These are some things that come to my mind.

Good luck with hunting for the best alternative

Regards Tobio

I think Ken Rockwell's site isn't the best place for the most accurate info, as he himself admits, that he doesn't take things photographic too seriously in his 'About Ken Rockwell' section.

I was in Porvoo taking photos in -20 Celcius and the camera wasn't even fully loaded (I forgot my recharger home). I took little over 170 photos during a time about 1,5 hours in that temp and lots more when I got back inside. Good performance I'd say. I kept the camera inside my Lowepro Nova 3 camera bag when not shooting.

Thanks all for the tips I still need to think a bit for the right choice, but I'll probably go for the FA 50/1.4.

I'm looking for a lens that would be nice for mostly indoors portrait and cat photos. At the moment I have the da18-55, da50-200 and da55-300mm. Requirements for my new lens would be: Nice image quality, good blurry background and not too pricey. I've looked at some lenses that could be the perfect lens for me, but as I'm not very good in lenses, it's still a mystery which one to buy. Anyway here is a list of some that might be good for my intended purpose and I'd like to hear some ideas, thoughts of these and some other lenses too:
Sigma 50/1.4 EX DG 429.00 €
Sigma AF 30/1.4EX DC HSM 439.00 €
Sigma AF 28/1.8EX 369.00 €
Pentax SMC DA 40/2.8 Ltd 439.00 €
Pentax SMC FA 50/1.4 499.00 €

In no particular order:
Donnie Darko
The Time Machine (year 1960 one)
Tuntematon Sotilas, The Unknown Soldier (1955 version) (perhaps the best finnish movie! Seen it at least a dozen times and it still is great to watch. Great characters, Rokka is the man!! Also really funny scene where everybody is drunk. Available as book also.)
Star Wars
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
A Clockwork Orange
2001: A Space Odyssey
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Blade Runner (perhaps the best sci-fi movie ever)

Ok, then there really is a lot less noise in the K7

Hi! Good photo. Did you use the on-camera noise filter or did you filter noise in some editing program?