Dragons!

Just returned from a holiday in Tenerife and this little chap would make an appearance most evenings on our hotel balcony!

I believe this is a Bougainvillea, also a very common sight but to me the depth of field in my shot is not so good. Edit: Just checked the Exif data on this shot and the aperture was F8, Macro. Is this too wide for Macro?

Nobody got anything to say about my pics?

Like the lizard, but would prefer it if you had included the tail, or perhaps had got more in front of him. . TBH flower shots don`t do much for me, and cannot coment on macro dof but clearly the stamen to the right is out of focus.

Davex.

Thanks Davex. Had I got more in front of him I would have fallen off the balcony He always kept his tail hidden, possibly as a lever for a quick exit!!

The lizard's head is out of focus. It looks like you've focussed on the body and just taken the shot expecting DOF to fix it. f8 is OK for macro, but if you want more of your subject in focus you need to set it accordingly. f16 & f22 are my preferred apertures.

The flower shot too is out of focus at the main points of interest (to me).
it looks like the area in focus is at the base of the stamens.

It's just occured to me that you might have used AF for these shots and that you might have a back focussing issue as both of theses images are focussed behind the point I would have chosen.

Certainly with any animal shot, you need to try and get the eyes in focus.

Thanks Peter but what is a back focussing issue? Yes, they were both AF.

Read about it herelink

Not sure if you can adjust Front/Back focus on the K-M but it will give you a idea of what it's about.

Thanks Tel. According to the link you sent only the K20D offers that function.

Not necessarily. I often shoot macro stuff at f/8 or wider, even f/2.8 now and again. Depends on the look I want.

For example: https://www.pentaxuser.com/photo/user-1387/Dragonfly-1006 , taken at f/5.6.

Dan

Dan, if only I could take shots like that I better buy a better lens/camera

The K10D has a facility too but it's not as complete as that which is implemented in the K20D. The K10D has one adjustment that is applied to all lenses. The K20D has the same adjustment, but it can also deal with 20 lenses individually.

I've no experience of other Pentax DSLR models that might have this feature.