warning, bad joke:

Newsflash: Tottenham sign new italian striker, Grabatelli. He'll run riot down there. Apparently they've also just signed a Chinese player: Lou Ting.

'nuff said.

Bret

ba-dum-tish

there were a couple about tottenham getting new footballers? can't remember....

Bret

ach, it's fine when you do your own ironing but she hides your shirts in the cupboard (I found 5-6 I haven't seen for months hiding) - and all because I lost a particular colour of jumper. Found teh bright red, electric blue, pale blue, mustard yellow, vivid orange, beige, three different greys, two different browns and four turtlenecks but not the black one I was searching for. I hadn't put it away last time. That'll remind me to search more frequently

Bret

the 50-135 is slow, I've tested one on my k5 and that was my distinct feeling. However, there's not much else like it out there....

Bret

I would not use TTL with such a flash, but that's me. Can anyone else corroborate the story of the malfunctioning K20D? Which firmware on the flash and camera?

There are no other options at this price point, this is dirt cheap and I'd expect to pay at least £100 for an external flash and normally closer to £200.

Bret

"i want to organize a tasting trip to the highlands"

Reminds me, I have some Allardice that needs QC

Bret

Ebay have promised to cooperate with teh police on this stuff.....

Bret

the 1.4 / 2x comparison was posted recently by - i think - thoughton - and the 1.4 is slightly better than the 2.x. I'm interested to see how the 100-300 behaves with a 1.4 on the back, as I will have the combo hopefully in a couple of weeks.

100-300 x 1.4 = 140-420mm / f5.6

Bret

with robocopy, try either:
mirror: robocopy /mir
Copy new stuff: robocopy /s /e
Copy new stuff up to x days old: robocopy /s /e /maxage

I use it a lot for keeping my 3 MP3 collections sync'd.

Bret

I should have a 1.4x for my 100-300 soon.

at 250mm, 1/320, f5 (!!), ISO 125:




that's on a Monopod. It really is a heavy thing; it brings the weight of a gripped K5 rapidly towards 3kg.

I can do some 100% crops, but to be honest, if you're worried about weight, then the best thing really is the 55-300 as everything else weighs a ton.

Another alternative which isn't *quite* so heavy is the Tok 80-400. Having until recently had one of those, I think it's really rather good and certainly holds its own against the 100-300, considering it's half the price - at least - and here's the proviso - on a K5. Because the 100-300 is a constant f4 and the Tok needs to be stopped down to f8 at least, meaning that where I can use the f5 of the 100-300 and complain because only the rear of the car is in focus (my fault), at f8 the whole thing works:
300mm, 1/800, f9, ISO640:



I like the compactness of the Tok (it fits in a Lens Case 4S, whereas the 100-300 needs a 4 - it's nearly a foot long) but it's still 800g or so and without the collar I'd find it unmanageable after a time. The Siggy was an opportunity to be taken and so far I'm reasonably impressed. However, it's neither cheap nor light and I can see me going for a 70-200 or even a 55-300 to complement it at some point for the times when I simply don't want to lug it around...

Bret