It's not really all that good - I was a bit rushed as it came over the house, but it's handy what having a long zoom already on the camera lets you grab:

[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Aviation/IMGP0080.jpg[/IMG]

There is, but it's quite well hidden.

I raised a report, and they replied very quickly:

[quote="Richard, top bloke on the support team"]
If you go to the search page via doing a search you can then choose options like you did in the past by clicking show options.[/quote]I haven't tried it yet, but it is there.

There is absolutely no need to be scared of extension tubes. All they do is move the lens further away from the camera, which effectively moves the point of closest focus closer to the lens, which means you get a bigger image.

There's no glass in them - the light just passes straight to the sensor as it comes out of the back of the lens.

You can pick them up very cheaply (indeed I'm selling some, in an auction that ends today). Then just stick the lens on them, and experiment.

It's the easiest, cheapest way of getting into macro. If you find you like it, think about spending money on a macro lens.


Yes. But it's quite difficult, and to get any depth of field, you need a very small aperture, so long exposures unless you use flash - so camera shake is a real problem.

Focusing is best done by moving the camera when you're very close.

Best is to use a tripod, but a bean bag or even a cushion would be better than nothing.

Yes, on the bit of the page that you've cunningly positioned off the screen so that you don't need to look at the adverts.

Question:

Is the "search forums" box at top right the only way of searching the forum, or am I doing what my other half calls a "bloke look"?

I suspect both, George, but to claim so would be immodest

If this is really the reason, why not have it as an across-the-board limit for subscribers as well as non-subscribers?

Otherwise you are laying yourself open to accusations of disingenuousness.

Not at all bad. I hope I can do as well at the weekend.

Ok, I've taken a few reasonably controlled shots at 300mm, just to see what the centre sharpness is like at the long end. Tripod, 2s delay, all the usual stuff.

This Picasa album shows the whole frame twice at F5.8 (wide open) and F11, and several 100% crops from F5.8 to F32.

All the pictures were RAW, converted using the default settings in ACR, and saved as quality 12 JPGs in CS3. They are all unmodified apart from the cropping, and in the case of the full frames, resizing using bicubic resampling.

It seems best at F16, and drops off after that.

From F8 to F16, though, the difference is very marginal, and although better than wide open, the latter is far from unusable.

Tell me what you think - happy to take some more under different conditions.

I suspect it's both of these reasons.

A lot of folk here have the K10D, so the natural upgrade path is the K20D which is still quite expensive.

And until recently the K10D (now discontinued) was available at very low prices, so it would have tempted a lot of people into choosing it as an upgrade, rather than to the K200D.

New Pentax DSLR users who choose not to stretch to the K20D will probably go for the K200D now that the K10D is unavailable (or very nearly so) new, so I expect you'll see more of them about in due course.