Time to invest in the 18-55mm WR?

Welsh Water seem to be playing with the levels again. It's low, but I think they're letting water out of the upper reservoirs to top up the lower ones, so no submerged dam yet. There are a lot of fence ends which are usually under water though, and in one place I think it's probably down to the original course of the river.

Definitely send it to Network Rail, they're getting seriously fed up with having to deal with stuff like this and photo evidence will stop insurers from attempting to duck the bill.

Shh, there's a sunny evening in Mid Wales. Thinking an after-dinner blast up the Elan Valley may be called for with a view to seeing if water levels are still dropping.

Deciding on which lens to take may be a long process however!

I find my little Slik 500G perfectly acceptable for most long exposures. It's a bit low and probably wouldn't cope with big lenses or high winds but I only paid £8 for it. It's also light and small enough to take anywhere.

As for a remote release, there are plenty of cheap infra-red ones on ebay from Hong Kong which are perfectly usable and feel pretty well made too. Try to get the sort with a single button as there seem to be some sellers programming remotes with loads of buttons which were originally intended for camcorders. The extra buttons won't work with a DSLR, plus they're bigger than the single button type.

I'd go for having Pentax repair it and buying an 18-55mm DA L to fill the gap for the time being - I've seen these lenses split from kits for £20 on ebay before now and they're very good performers. You will have to buy a lens hood but there are plenty of 3rd party copies on ebay for around £10 delivered which fit as well as the Pentax one.

Alternatively as the K20D has weather sealing you could do a lot worse than spending around £60 for the 18-55mm WR from SRS and hanging onto it for damp conditions. The optics are identical to the DA L version but you get quickshift and a lens hood included.

I have seen a couple of lenses on the Dimitrov K-mount site which appear to have been converted to match one of these - I forget which, but he reckoned that they were very well-made 3rd party conversions of standard lenses rather than genuine factory items.

I'm still tempted to have a go at something like a bright yellow ME Super (with the original black leatherette on the body) if I see a working one for under £20. It would indeed be a one-off, although the colour is still up for debate! I already have a very nice silver ME Super so I would have no qualms about respraying a scruffy one in a custom colour.

Hmm, I can see myself doing that around town here! Most of the buildings are from between the 1880s and 1920s and a lot still have ornamental ironwork/stonework intact. Will wait for the Tokina lens to turn up as I can combine the project with testing the lens (and the Super A) that way.

I am making a conscious effort not to end up with another roll of black and white photos of the Elan Valley (as I seem to have rather a lot of those...)

Mind you, with views like this you might just understand why:




One of the machinery buildings at the base of Caban Coch dam - Victorian industrial architecture in the Welsh countryside.

I may have solved my black ME Super problem...

I've bought another one! This one supposedly works ok but has flickering LEDs. A bit of reading around suggests that this can be cured by cleaning the contacts or replacing the batteries. £24 bundled with a Tokina AT-X 28-85mm zoom which from what I've read sounds like quite a tasty piece of kit in any case. That'll most likely end up on my Super A which is currently undergoing a film test after new seals.

They do if you put them near Pentax owners. Then it becomes "Poor Canon/Nikonites, they don't get in-body shake reduction"...

They also seem to have some odd ideas about lenses. Apparently the Samyang ones which I've seen some impressive shots from here are considered the lowest of the low on their forums.