jean_b.

<p>I recently purchased a U2410 as well. Unfortunately mine needs to be returned because of a magenta color cast on the right side of the screen (makes my B&W images look pinkish on the right side), but that's another story, or is it? To get a luminance value of 120 during calibration using my i1 Display Pro I had to set monitor brightness to zero! No way to reach 110 with my unit. Curious where your brightness level ended up.</p>

 

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<p>It is available for the same price from B&H Photo as well. If I didn't have a perfectly functional, under-used K-7 I'd be tempted as well. The K-5's high-iso capability sure would be nice.</p>

<p>Someone locally was selling a Pentax 1.4xS that I considered buying for my Pentax A 400 f5.6. If I'm not mistaken some internet research revealed that this teleconverter was not well suited to longer focal lengths (hence the "S" designation I suppose ;-). Might be worth confirming that before buying if you come across one for a decent price (the one I saw was fairly priced).</p>

<p>Wow, it looks like a pretty nifty camera, though a bit small. I'd have to hold one first before buying, and frankly it's not anywhere on my radar right now (poor K-7 barely gets enough use already as it is ;-). However, what really inspired me to comment was the fantastic photos that the reviewer took. I suspect that given any camera he'd be able to take some some well-composed, interesting photos.</p>

Also glad to see you back.

<p>John -- I too have never seen one of your POW postings. The photos always show up as a little question mark box. Always makes me wonder what I am missing...</p>

<p>The second one is my favorite, and I like the first one as well. Thanks for the reminder to have fun with photography.</p>

<p>These look like stonefly or mayfly nymphs to me, though I would need to see them submerged in a bit of water to id conclusively. Sounds like a fun outting.</p>

<p>Michael, thanks for the tips. Just starting to learn about post-processing. I first post-processed the shot using the Pentax Digital Camera Utility, but the results were disappointing (sort of blocked up, as if contrast was too high, but turning down the contrast didn't help that much) so I switched to Aperture on a loaner laptop from work. That worked a lot better, but you've definitely piqued my interest to play with dodging/lightening some more. Unfortunately this camera has HORRIBLE purple fringing wide open at f5.6, and I was having a bit of trouble focusing already on my first outing, so I stopped down to f11 to help out there. Used my tripod as a monopod for this particular shot. Have lots of practicing to do, that's for sure! (BTW, forgot to mention in the original post: this photo was cropped quite a bit. Really glad I went for 400 mm instead of 300 mm.)</p>

<p>Really like Bob Marz's first iris shot. Here is a bird shot from my first outing with my new Pentax A 400mm. Shooting with this lens is going to be even more challenging than I expected (blurry shots, birds that won't sit still, that sort of thing).</p><div></div>

<p>I just purchased (but have not yet received) a Pentax A 400 mm f5.6. I look forward to posting some out-of-focus bird shots (between the manual focus and my learning how to handle a long focal length lens) in the near future. I've been warned that you can never get a long enough or fast enough lens for bird shots. I see that that is the case here.</p>

<p>Miserere - I like your series of four shots.</p>

<p>Howard - love the leaf shot. A lot.</p>

<p>Anirban - nice.</p>

<p>Yury - nailed the focus on the green butterfly (referring to a post earlier in the week, where focus was a bit fuzzy). Nice shot.</p>

<p>Yvon - like the single pelican on the pole.</p>

<p>Matt - is that storm shot taken with your 40 mm or the 15 mm? The distortion in the corners makes me think it's the wider-angle lens. Regardless, I like it.</p>

<p>Haig, that snail shot clearly demonstrates a mastery of panning technique...</p>

<p>Forgot to mention: my favorites are Markus's portrait, both of Matt's shots (in general I really like what you do with the DA 15mm) and Frank's flower.</p>

<p>#3</p><div></div>

<p>#2</p><div></div>

<p>Two from this past weekend and one from two weeks ago. All with K-7 and DA 21mm.</p><div></div>

<p>Thanks for posting Yvon. I have no long focal length lenses for my K-7 and have been toying with getting either the Tokina 400mm as a "training lens" of sorts to see how I like a long focal length, or just biting the bullet and getting a DA 300mm. What about the DA 300 makes you like it so much more than the Tokina (say, $1000 more ;-)?</p>

<p>D'oh, I got sucked in. :-)</p>

<p>A new 600mm f4?!? I would expect it to exceed the tonnage of my left leg. I would have been much happier with the announcement of a new 400mm f5.6, or a high quality 1.4x teleconverter to go with the 300mm f4.</p>

<p>Many great shots indeed, but "On City Waterfront" is also my favorite.</p>

<p>Try again.</p><div></div>

<p>One more from this weekend.</p>

<p>Bob's shot was a great start to the POW. I also like Laurentiu's moon shot.<br>

I think this is the first shot taken with my FA 50mm at f1.4 that I like. Mostly it is too soft wide open for my taste, but it works for me here.</p><div></div>