Look at the aperture ring on the lens, there should be a small button next to the letter "A"? Press that and turn the ring further to the right, this will put it into "A" mode and your camera should be able to control the aperture.

There are a few of the Cokin kits on ebay UK at the moment for around £10 each. You need an A series holder which IIRC limits you to lenses 50mm or longer, and the kit does look a bit limiting in terms of the shapes offered. I'm more inclined to make my own as that way I can do all sorts of nifty ones. Look up "Cokin pre-shaped" if you want to find a set.

I wouldn't have thought of using OHP gels for this, and there's a pack of them hanging around somewhere so I'm sure I can snaffle one to experiment with. Should get a few 49mm and 52mm discs from that!

Why am I now getting a terrible urge to combine the "Batman" logo with an old scruffy UV filter I have here? I could just print it onto some paper, then cut it out and put it in place of the glass...

Bokehman!

Thanks for that - I'll have another go tomorrow.

I was using my Pentax-F 100-300mm zoom at the smallest aperture and a dubious Jessops "PKA-fit" teleconverter I bought years ago. Might try with just the 300mm and crop it next time as I'm not convinced the teleconverter was helping!

I tried earlier, but all I got was a white circle on a black background!

Any tips for making the features on the Moon visible to the camera, or is it just too bright?

Maybe we need a thread along the lines of "Images taken with a lens costing under £xx"?

(says he with a K 55mm f1.8 that cost under a tenner )

A tripod doesn't need to cost a fortune. I picked up a perfectly serviceable Slik 500G (small, lightweight 'pod) for £8.50 on ebay. Bit faded here and there but it works perfectly and will do the business for most situations.

I've seen various versions of them, never been sure how effective they are though? I may buy one at another time as getting my 200mm f4 de-fungused is going to wipe out the remainder of this month's photo budget.

As I've finally managed to get hold of a tidy 75-150mm f4 for sensible money (£25) I thought a portrait was in order. Seen here with 80-200mm f4,5:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/IMGP1319.jpg[/IMG]

Are there any other M series long zooms that I've missed? The 80-200mm is the earlier version, so a rebadged K series lens. I don't have LBA badly enough to want the later version too!

Oddly I do have a couple of .50 calibre ammo boxes, I use them to store some of my N scale train collection as they're waterproof and will protect the contents from anything short of a major earthquake.

Here's the second flightcase:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/IMGP1318.jpg[/IMG]

This has an MG, MV1, ME Super (already seen, it got displaced from the first case by an ES II), MZ50 (with AA battery grip underneath), SF7, Pentax-M 80-200mm f4.5 zoom and Takumar Bayonet 28mm f2.8