Thank you all! Most appreciated.

Yesterday evening and last night there was an amazingly powerful Northern Lights display, and luckily the evening started with clear skies in Trondheim. I had wanted to test my newly acquired HD DA15/4 lens for aurora photography, because I wanted to see if it was as useless for this task as most people have reported. The DA15 needs to be stopped down to f5.6 to avoid koma, and that is partly the reason why many write it off for aurora photography. With the K5 a slowish lens like the DA15 can be used quite successfully for Northern Lights IMHO. The DA12-24, on the other hand, is superb for Northern Lights already at 12mm and f4. Somehow the aurora images from the DA15 have some qualities that appeal very much to me, and I also enjoy this tiny lens very much for daytime photography. What do you think about the DA15 aurora images vs DA12-24?

1. DA 15 f5.6 ISO 3200 4.0 sek



2. DA 15 f5.6 ISO1600 4.0 sek



3. DA 15 f5.6 ISO1600 4.0 sek



4. DA 12-24 f4 ISO 3200 4.0 sek



5. DA 12-24 f4 ISO 1600 10 sek

I forgot the most important thing

link

Pentax SMC-FA* 4/600mm IF&ED for sale in Norway. I do not know if this is a good price, but the lens looks like it is in good nick.

I have never found Kodak Porta 160 or 400 to have muted colours. Well, obviously these films are nowhere near highly saturated films like Velvia 50, but I find the Porta films superbly versatile and very good also for landscape.

This image was shot with Kodak Porta 400 on the Pentax 67ii and scanned on a modest Epson flatbed.

The Kodak Porta 160 and Porta 400 are excellent colour negative films. I have used the Porta 400 quite a lot, and this film has a fabulous dynamic range (I believe Tim Parkin tested the film and found it to have about 19 stops DR), great colour and it is very scanner friendly. I would recommend the Porta 400 as a good choice for a colour multi purpose film.

I want to buy a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 filmscanner in good condition.

An exquisite set. Very conceptual. Thank you for sharing!

I have three FA* that I am eager to test on a 24x36 DSLR: FA* 24/2, FA* 300/4.5 and the FA* 28-70/2.8. Besides that I have some nice manual focus lenses that I hope will function well on fullframe, amongst them: K28/3.5, A50/1.2, M100/2.8 and the Voigtlander Ultron 40/2. I dream about the FA limited trio, but first I need to start saving for a fullframe.

I need to add that I am very happy with the results I am getting from my K5, but I believe that for my main photographic interests: Landscapes, Northern Lights and night photography, a fullframe DSLR would probably give better results, and I could make use of some of the lenses that I do not use much on APS-C because of the x1.5 FOV.

Yes it is the MyPentax Gallery at the Ricoh website. Thank you for clearing that up!

BTW: Here is a link to the MyPentax Gallery: link