I'm having a bit of dejavu (sp?) here so excuse me if I have already posted this. I am on the train with a slow connection and cannot check all 5 pages easily.

Face detection (FD) on an SLR is kind of pointless, you lose a lot of freedom to shoot with such a feature. You can't control the aperture as this has to come under the control of FD for depth of field (DoF) to incorporate all the faces. FD would have to predict DoF at different apertures and how far each face is. This is not a problem on a P&S as the DoF is HUGE! You will have to use liveview and scan the whole frame and majority of pixels with the FD algorithms which uses a lot of power on a large sensor. This leaves you with control over shutter speed and sensitivity only which is almost pointless as you want a high shutter speed to prevent movement appearing on the faces (FD will 'want' them sharp too).

All you end up with is a very bulky and expensive P&S with a lot of redundant features. It brings no benefit to either those who know what they are doing nor those who do not. It will not help someone who does not know or understand their equipment.

It is a pretty useless feature in a DSLR and should only be in P&S cameras.

Let's have a go then...

Wow, my text has gone!

If you want sharp buy a good knife not a camera!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

If you posted some 100% crops we may be able to gauge what you are getting at better.

I just shot a wedding with:

Me:

K10D + Grip
DA*50-135f2.8
DA*16-50f2.8 (shared)
Metz 58-AF1 + Bubble Wrap Diffuser https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/Best-Diffuser-Solutions-7030

Photograhper 2:

K10D
Tamron 90mm Macro
DA*16-50 (shared)
Metz 58-AF1 + Bubble Wrap Diffuser

I could not have lived with just one lens. Having someone helping was useful (and quite productive) but is not essential.

Unfortunately I have not uploaded any of my photos from the wedding yet. I've not uploaded a single photo for months!

The kit covered everything very well.

41 shots for the album (18 from 16-50, 20 from 50-135 and 3 from 90), plus 50-100 photos for the companion CD (which is the only part I have not finished).

Of the total number of shots I have kept, 174, 64 are from the 16-50, 107 from the 50-135 and 3 from the 90.

Indeed, the other thing is that this feature cannot work with phase detection AF systems only with full frame live-view contrast detect which is fairly power hungry on a large sensor.

The shallower DoF on an SLR compared to a P&S would also make the process a lor more arduous than actually taking a couple of shots.

I just shot a wedding and nobody was out of focus even with multiple rows. I don't think I had any shots over f5.6. Choose your focus point well and have the right arrangement and things will work (amazing that things work if you have a clue what you are doing).

Not seen these two yet. Have two Metz 58s and they are great so I'm sure these will be good as well if you are looking for a ring flash or a less powerful unit.

I've not seen Chris on here for some time, hpefully he can shed some light on this though.

It is good to know that I can export a PDF for them to aprove as I will not see them for a month and need to present my ideas to them. I hope they like the style of the work I've done.

Then when I next meet them I should be able to present the finished product.

Good to see an other person using Loxley as it gives me more confidence in their work and products.

I wouldn't print my own as I can't afford a fuji colour laserlab contraption and then getting the pictures mounted perfectly is nerve wrecking. If someone else assembles my design with a guarantee of precicion and experience then that is good.

One thing I'll add is vignette is a big problem with reversing one lens in front of an other. I tried with a 28mm f2.8 in front of a 200mm set at f11 lens and the vignette was severe.

Vignette was bad even with a 50mm f1.7 reversed on the same 200mm lens.

Just got everything set up. The software is nice and easy to use and the price is what I was expecting for the printing/assembly.

I am assembling a few screen mock-ups for them to choose but this is a little difficult as I am missing all the photos from the 2nd photographer (my partner) as she hasn't had a chance to even look at them yet.

One wedding under my belt and part way to a portfolio

It is a long time to the next one though, August...