Well I'm joining you with a nice glass of Shiraz, whilst I listen to the rain and marvel at the pics I took this evening with my newly acquired DA 40mm Ltd!

Tony

Amin

I sorry to hear you've been put through this. Considering you were only acting to help others with the goodness of your heart, this is even nastier. Please feel free to attack the wine bottle, and thanks for your efforts.

Tony

The Sigma lens is great - and not just for macro. The quality is excellent for distance work even at f2.8. So much so, that I'm considering selling my Pentax 55-300mm; I've found a 300% crop of the Sigma is just as sharp as the Pentax (not scientific of course, and I'm not sure of my terminology.) Also, it's such a good feeling lens!

Anyway, No 2, but maybe a mono or duotone conversion - there are some pinks which detract slightly.

Tony

I'm an Av user. However, lately I've been using TAv, i.e. set the speed/aperture and the camera will adjust ISO (I've set the range between 100-1600). The reason is that I take lots of pics of my kids, who are always on the move. I've found that in Av the camera will keep to the longest shutter speed possible before upping ISO. This often means 1/50th, which can give movement blur.

So, by using TAv and then picking a speed somewhere bewteen 1/125 and 1/1000 (for bright conditions) I can then vary the aperture typically between f2.8-f8, depending on lens, and the camera will adjust ISO accordingly. You do have to keep an eye open and tweak the shutter speed if necessary, but the beauty is that - bear in mind that these will only be 6x4 snaps - the quality will always be good. Oh, and set the green button to programme line with speed priority, you can hit this if everything seems to have gone wrong.

But, as Scott says, enjoy and try everything at least once!

Tony

I thought I was going to get into trouble here! Gartmore - I do try to be open-minded when it comes to art, and having spent a few minutes checking his pictures on the web there are definitely some that appeal. And I don't mean to be critical of other people's tastes. I think the main problem I had was this whole edifice that was built around him and the way interviewees spoke of his work - too pretentious for me!

When I've got a few minutes I promise to delve into his body of work - and I promise to have eyes, brain and heart fully engaged!!

I suppose the main problem I had was all the praise being heaped on him. My wife's only actual comment was "Emporer's New Clothes" and I couldn't find a riposte...

I caught some of it with the missus. Unfortunately, it undid a lot of my hard work for the last year about "serious" photography versus snaps, as he was clearly just a snapper. And frankly most of what I saw I felt was rubbish and couldn't defend it! One of the interviewees (a youngish chap) was talking such twaddle it was embarrassing - there's a column in Private Eye reserved for this stuff.

Maybe if I looked at a proper collection of his stuff I may change my mind, but we turned over before my LBA funds could be hurt any more...

Tony

Someone pulled me up for moaning about the live-view, when I could just ignore it, so I suppose the same can be said here. You don't have to do it (or any PP for that matter), but if you like it, why not? Personally, I stopped doing "effects" a long time ago because all you end up seeing IS the effect. But as Bob said, in some areas this may be what you're after.

Tony

An interesting question. Indeed earlier today I went to areas as yet not explored on SRS called "Nikon". Lots of nice stuff, but nothing that made me think I should ditch my still very new GX20.

But. In the 18 months since I decided to start taking proper photographs again, I've gone Fuji S9600, Pentax K100D, K10D and Samsung GX20. From what I've been reading, Pentax K7 is not necessarily the next step...

However, in the meantime I've really got to find out how to stop life interfering with taking photographs.

Tony

Scott - I assume you'll be hunting down a new Tamron 18-200 pronto, then? Good luck mate - I know this is the Pentax forum, but at the end of the day it's taking good photographs that counts. And passion, which you clearly have. Please do let us know how you get on. (BTW - my other passion is music, and I have no problem listening to punk after a bit of opera. Let's not get hung-up on labels...)

Tony