Thanks Gary, I have the same lens but I've never managed to get it this close to a dragonfly's eyes!

Regards
David

I would go for a quality short to medium zoom, preferably made by Pentax, but there are alternatives by Tamron and Sigma. Suggestions would be the Pentax DA 16-45 (no longer made and available for reasonable cost if you look for good second-hand examples) and the DA 17-70, which is much more expensive but has a longer reach and is probably more useful for portraits.

Regards
David

Hi H, regarding lenses they clearly all have abilities that are better suited to certain types of shots than others, e.g. 100-135 lenses excel at portraits and generally have quality glass. However, regarding your observations on the kit lens, "knowing full well the 18-55 lens was not gonna really cut it", I have to say that I respect this lens and have taken some pretty decent landscape shots with it. It is never going to compete with quality primes for outright image quality, but it's perfectly capable of capturing clouds and tornadoes in detail, it's just a question of how it is used to gain best results.

There are many other photographers on here who have used the 18-55 to great effect and for many people starting out it is the only short to medium zoom they have. Most of my images with the highest number of views on the Gallery were shot with the 18-55 lens.

I wonder what others think?

Regards
David

Marvellous shots, would you mind telling us what lens was used for the macro of the eyes?

Regards
David

Could this bird be an American Red-tailed Hawk? See image below, that I took at the Chesterfield Canal Festival earlier this year.




Regards
David

I agree with Nigel's previous post, but also with Smeggy if using the K-5. In most cases bracketingis not necessary and you can get a great HDR image from a single RAW file. The most important aspect is not to burn out highlights as these can't be recovered, but pretty much anything else goes.

Regards
David

Excellent once again Gary, I have never seen one of these beauties.

Regards
David

These are just so good it's incredible! Can I have your lens please Gary?

Regards
David

These really are magnificent, I don't know how you could better them.

Regards
David

The one on the right looks far superior to me Doug, I would bet that on 'real world' shots this would make a massive difference to the overall quality of images.

Regards
David