Favourite Places Online 
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These are some places that I frequent from time to time - not all are about photography, but most are. There's also some links to free software for image management and editing.
Australian Photographers and Photographs
Picture Australia
Use Picture Australia to locate images from the collections of Australia's libraries, museums, galleries and archives.
A Modern Vision - Charles Bayliss, Photographer
Charles Bayliss (1850-1897) was one of Australia's earliest photographers. 'A Modern Vision' is an exhibition of his work at the National Library of Australia. His panoramas of Sydney (360o) and Stawell (180o) are particularly worth a look, considering that they were photographed in the 1870s. The full catalogue of the exhibition can be downloaded from the Library's website.
Frank Hurley Archive
Frank Hurley is arguably Australia's most famous photographer having made his name on Antarctic exploration with Mawson and Shackleton and as an official photographer in both world wars. This archive at the National Library of Australia features thousands of his images.
Harold Cazneaux - Australian Observer
Max Dupain once called Harold Cazneaux (1878 - 1953) "the father of modern Australian photography." This is an online exhibition of some of his work.
Max Dupain on Assignment
A selection of images from the exhibition held at the National Archives in Canberra in 2008 featuring Dupain's work for Commonwealth Government Departments.
The Spread of Time: Photography of David Moore
Notes and images from the exhibition that opened at the National Gallery on the Australia Day long weekend in 2003. David Moore died aged 75 on 23 January 2003, two days before the opening of this exhibition.
Pentax Resources
Pentax Discuss Mailing List (PDML)
The place for discussion of all things Pentax. Ask for advice, post images for comment or just hang out. If you just want to 'lurk' without joining until you get the feel of the list, try the Archives which are updated almost as soon as a new message is posted.
PDML Member's Web Sites
Many PDML members maintain their own online portfolios. This link leads to a list of these sites on Mark Roberts' website which, in itself is a great resource.
Pentax Photo Gallery
An online gallery featuring the work of Pentax users worldwide. It's Flash-based and can be slow to load - but certainly worth the wait!
Pentax K-Mount Page
Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Page has all the information you can possibly need about Pentax K (bayonet) mount cameras, lenses and accessories. It covers both film and digital camera systems.
Pentax Auto 110 System
Pentax's Auto 110 system of the late 1970s and 1980s was the smallest interchangeable-lens SLR system ever created and used Kodak's 110 film cartridge. The cameras and lenses were tiny (the camera fits in the palm of a hand easily). The information on this site is truly extensive.
Pentax Manuals
This is the place to obtain free, high quality manuals of many Pentax cameras, including screw-mount and bayonet-mount SLRs, compact cameras and accessories. If you can't find what you want here, try Pentax Imaging, but the quality won't be as good.
Asahi Optical Historical Club
A great resource for information on Pentax equipment from the early Asahiflex to the latest digital cameras.
General Photography Resources
The Online Photographer
Mike Johnston's "all-purpose time-wasting website for photo-dawgs of every stripe, age, sex, color, nationality, description, economic stratum, and media preference. No need for brandname tribalism or fat-wallet one-upsmanship here; just a relentless cascade of cool crap about this fascinating lifetime hobby. Just try to keep up." The weblog is usually updated daily.
The Luminous Landscape
Michael Reichmann's "....comprehensive site devoted to the art of landscape, nature and documentary photography
using digital as well as traditional image processing techniques. This site currently has more than 3,500 pages containing articles, tutorials, product reviews and photographs."
Digital Photography Tutorials
An excellent series of articles on photographic techniques, image processing, colour management and much more.
The Monitor Calibration and Gamma Assessment Page
Without some basic monitor calibration, obtaining prints that match the on-screen image is near impossible. Calibration using hardware is best but expensive. This page describes on-screen methods that can give acceptable results and includes some useful test patterns.
Classic and Vintage Cameras
Captain Jack's Contax/Pentacon SLR Cameras
The Contax S of 1949 was the camera that most influenced subsequent SLR design. It was the first 35 mm SLR with a fixed pentaprism and introduced the 42 mm "screw mount", later adopted by many other manufacturers including Pentax. 'Captain Jack' also has interesting pages on Exakta and Praktina (yes, Praktina - not Praktica!).
Photoethnography.com
There are many sites featuring classic camera collections. Karen Nakamura's Photoethnography site is one of the better ones.
Matt's Classic Camera Collection
A vintage camera site done with style!
The Classic Camera
Information on 100 or so cameras from the classic era.
Something Zeiss to Say
Classic and collectable Zeiss Ikon cameras.
On-line Photo Albums
Picasa Web Albums
Picasa Web Albums (owned by Google) allow users to set up private or public online galleries for viewing images. Each account gets 1GB of free storage. The system operates via a standard web browser.
JAlbum
Top class, free Web Album software that allows creation of albums on your computer. Albums can then be uploaded to jalbum.net (or to your own web space) to allow online viewing of images. Each account gets 30 MB of free storage on jalbum.net. A vast range of "skins" are available to customise albums. Here's an example using the "Chameleon" skin.
Free Software
Absolute Denoiser Free
There are a number of specialist software applications for treatment of digital 'noise' in images. I've found this free application does an excellent job. The interface is a bit idiosyncratic and the free version works only on images in 'png' format. This is a only minor inconvenience as most image editors, such as Photoshop Elements, can read and write png files - just load your image in your image editor, save it as a png file, import it into Absolute Denioser, work on it to reduce noise, re-save it as a png file and re-import it into your editor. If you paste the new png file as a new layer on your original image and apply a layer mask you can restrict the de-noising to just the part of the image that needs it. Windows, MacOS, Linux. (Note, this program has now been replaced by NDNoise, available from the same author and still free).
Studioline Photo Basic
This is an application for managing image collections. You can add descriptions and keywords to your images then search and sort to find images matching specific criteria. You can also apply ratings to images and carry out basic image editing such as white balance and exposure adjustment. The program reads most raw formats. I liked the program so much I paid for the upgrade to Studioline Photo Classic. Windows only
Raw Therapee
This has developed into a very nice raw image processor. It has all of the features of most commercial programs and only really lacks a batch processing mode (but that may come in a future version). I've been very impressed with the quality of its rendering and now use it in preference to other programs. Windows, Linux.
Stepok's Raw Importer
Stepok's Raw Importer is a fairly basic raw importing and converting tool, compatible with most camera models. It doesn't have the range of features of Raw Therapee but does provide a powerful batch processing option. Windows only.
XnView
This program is basically an image viewer but it also converts image files from one format to another and has support for more than 400 graphics formats. It can also resize, rotate and crop, apply exposure adjustments and much more. Windows, MacOS, Linux.
The Gimp
Love it or hate it (and there are plenty of people on each side of that fence) The Gimp is a powerful image editing application which rivals Photoshop in its features. But.... it doesn't support 16 bit images, has only limited colour management and the interface is unusual if you're familiar with Windows applications. Windows, MacOS, Linux.
Serif Photo Plus
Serif often releases older versions of their products as freeware (I've used their Page Plus DTP application for many years and it's excellent). This free version of Photo Plus is not as feature packed as Photoshop or even Photoshop Elements but it still handles many photo editing tasks and includes support for layers and masks. The only downside - you need to register with Serif and you will get 'special offers' emailed to you from time to time, but they aren't excessive. Windows only.
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