Thank you Gary, Don Alan and David.

The glassless 2x TC is the best £10 I've ever spent on Photography gear, it's also very useful on the Pentax DFA 100 Macro WR as this lens doesn't have an aperture ring. Regards the K-3, I might repeat some shots using the same lens and glassless TC. I suspect the IQ from the K-3 will be slightly better than the K-5IIs for this type of work, whereas the K-5IIs is better for high dynamic range scenes and higher ISO's. I think that the K-3 renders colours and WB better, this is just my personal preference.

I agree to an extent Don, although you can get a more frame filling subject with a macro lens. The advantage of the DA*300 is that you can maintain some distance from the subject and therefore they don't get frightened away as they would if you are closer. For Butterflies this lens is a gem.

Cheers Alan, I was having a hard time with that particular angle of shot as the wind was blowing the grass a good 5 feet back and forth whilst the Bee was clinging onto it. I had to guess with the focussing to an extent.

It is a close call David, I prefer the K-3 for this type of work, but it's more down to personal preference for the colour rendering and extra detail that the K-3 brings. It has a warmer look than the K-5 straight from the camera, I do like this. I also find my K-3 to a slightly more accurate focusser than my K-5IIs. I only notice this with longer lenses such as the DA*300, but when taking pics of birds for example, the K-3 almost always nails the focus on the bird's eye, whereas the K-5IIs is a bit more variable with the same lens. It's not down to lens calibration as I've checked this on both bodies.

Regards
David

The portraits are fab Alistair, but where is the other crap? 1 and 3 are my favourites, 3 especially as the young woman has such a vibrant look.

Cheers
David

This must be something to do with your Browser caching pages as everything is working fine for me. I would suggest clearing down your Browser cache, all Browsing History, Cookies etc. If you're using IE you can do this by going into Internet Options and clicking the 'Delete' Browsing History option on the first tab that is presented in the pop-up window. Not sure how to do it for other Browsers.

Regards
David

Thanks to Nigel and Andrew.

On the third one Nigel the stem was lying in the position you see it in the image. I did think of rotating the image to make the stem a diagonal, but it didn't look right, so I left it as it was and did a letterbox crop instead.

Thanks Andrew, I appreciate your feedback as I know you are not a fan of the insect shots! You're right, this lens pairs so well with the K-5IIs and is even better with the K-3. For these shots I also paired it with a 2x TC with the glass removed, but with the aperture contacts in place, this enabled me to get just a little closer without sacrificing any image quality.

Best wishes
David

I've been out in the garden again........

Here are three shots taken in the garden today with the K-5IIs and DA*300, with the assistance of a monopod. Hope you like, please provide feedback / constructive criticism.

Taking a Rest





Clinging On





Common Blue on Plantain Stem




Thanks for looking!

Regards
David

Hi Peter

Not sure why this has happened, I've never had this issue in 3 years of downloading images. The image data must think it is oriented as a landscape image, the way to fix this is to load it into an image processing program (any will do), rotate it and re-save it. When you upload it should the be oriented correctly.

Regards
David

Apologies, I made the mistake of getting the newsletter mixed up with the articles on the home page. I thought I'd read about this on the home page but it was actually on a newsletter article.

Regards
David

Echoed from me, especially regarding Bill whose work I admire and whose support for this site in terms of posting images and contributing to the Forum has been excellent in the last couple of years.

Regards
David

The K-5IIs will give you significantly more dynamic range than the K30 does. If you shoot landscape, or a lot of images that have high dynamic range then yes, it will bring benefits. Also, as you probably know, the K-5IIs doesn't have any anti aliasing filter, so will produce images with a little more detail and sharpness.

The other main differences are with the camera bodies and the available features. The K-5IIs is a magnesium alloy body, so feels more robust and solid. It has a top LCD which the K30 doesn't have and there are various other differences between the two.

My understanding is that the K30 is based on a different hardware / software architecture, that is also used on the K-01 and the K-3. This brings benefits such as focus peaking, but also introduces some not so desirable features such as a different shake reduction method for video which does not work as well as the system used on the K-5 series. Also, whilst the K30 is more flexible when it comes to different video modes, the output video quality lags some way behind the K-5 series.

Only you will know whether it is worth upgrading to the K-5IIs from the K30, it may be worth trying to have a go with one if you know anyone who owns one near to you.

Regards
David

I have used numerous lenses on my K-3 and it definitely responds to high quality glass. I think the lenses mentioned will be fine, it's also worth checking out some of the older classics, for example I have a Pentax-M 28mm F3.5 which works particularly well on the K-3. It's a very sharp little lens and the K-3 makes the most of it.

When you have your K-3 it is worth trying to acquire some higher quality glass, the resolution and detail available in the K-3's images can be quite startling, but only with the best lenses.

Regards
David