went out at 9pm to test the equipment - 6 hours before the event and it clouded over after three shots so I took this and coloured it in!....look I was bored Ok?

I would say the same, love the first gawky one, and the third one has a beautiful purity and shape to it, and the last one seems a little over sharpened.
This sort of shot is much more difficult than it looks, as my recycle bin will testify... so easy to get blurred, underexposed birds

Wow! perfect, thanks, that's really helpful.
Hadn't considered the shadows being too long.

I wonder if I use the 135mm on about f8 and use the multi-frame setting (at last! a use) I should get a patchwork of fairly close (to the subject) shots which might look nice printed with their overlaps undisguised.
Does that sound like a good idea?

incidentally, there's a chance that the client will be standing outside his office with his staff waving! but I'll try not to let that influence my lens choice too much

Any tips for Google Earth-style pictures guys? baring in mind the equipment in my signature.
I'll have about 5 minutes and I'm hoping to get the plane down to 1000 feet but won't get too many goes at it, because it will annoy the natives.

Client wants an aerial map on his office wall, I might print several small shots onto canvases in a grid or merge them onto one big canvas.

I'm thinking: early or late to get the relief and nice colours and a fairly neutral focal length in case I need to stitch them together. maybe even the 50mm 1.7....but then, maybe the fish eye will look awsome, particularly as it's on the edge of Dartmoor.... can't decide.

I have a Metz 58 af-1 and need a cheap slave to compliment it triggered by radio trigger.
is the 2800 capable of being mixed with the metz on a radio setup?
I can probably get this for pennies so the lack of settings won't trouble me too much.

edit: I bought it anyway, I'll keep you informed, but don't hold your breath - a useless, unresponsive eBayer in China is causing me hassle so the triggers will be slow coming...

the first report finished by saying most Pentax photographers shoot (raw) PEF.
Is this true?
if so Why?
surely it is a proprietory format which could well render all your 'negatives' useless in ten years time.
Can Pef do anything DNG can't?

tried to use the Metz on the beach in the dark as a slave triggered by the on board flash set to 'controller'. I could see the Metz going off with my eye but the actual photo (which included the Metz in the image - fish eye lens) showed no flash and the picture was dark. if I set the on board to 'master' the scene is lit by the on board flash but the Metz is still (apparently) not syncing with the shutter.
the shutter was 1/20th
I gave up and went home...

just a thought, I think the Metz was set to ttl as well as slave (is that possible?) so the pre-flash communication might have concluded (because it could see the Metz) that the scene was really bright and not fired the Metz???

Blymey Don what have been doing with that pen?

nice nut!

What do you mean by lighting modifier?

I curved a sheet of paper over the flash and down behind the penny on the table to create a sort of infinite wall of light.

but then when I got in closer I had to take the flash off and fire it with my finger on a slow shutter.

Thank you, it's just a quick and dirty test to get a feel for the magnification and quality, I got the idea from this original thread: https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3835&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 where Dan was (and still is) the clear winner I think, with a pin sharp, well lit shot, closer than my slightly soft one above.

I like the test because it is more than just size, the penny is difficult to light with all the facets and getting in so close (in my case) and people in the UK at least, can really relate to it.
BTW, not all pennies have the IRB underneath the Queens head.

incidentally, for anyone considering messing around with their old lenses, the penny now looks like this (I think this is about 24x as the letters are roughly 1mm and they take up the whole sensor... is that right?)
65mm ext. tubes, tamron 70-300 at 300 f16 with the 28mm on f4 stuffed into the Tammy's hood a la Tyr.




Dan still gets the cigar

Anyone know the answer to the original focussing question? it must be better to have everything focussed properly before moving the camera