Thank you for your encouragement. The lichens probably would be better in colour but I only had a black and white film in the K1

The current monthly competition reminded me of black and white at the same time as Grogeman presented us with some of his excellent and
thoughtful offerings. I have always liked the way black and white makes you concentrate on the subject itself so I put a veteran Soligor 1:2.8 105mm
on the K1 and went to see what I could find in the hedgerows.

1. Elder is usually a scruffy sort of half tree, half bush that few would bother photographing in colour. Without its leaves and in black and white
however, the stems shone, as if made from some sort of metallic stuff.



2. I was even more taken by the bright, creamy white edges around the leaves of a holly bush. This particular sprig had bright sunshine bouncing
off it that contrasted with the darker interior of the hedge.



3. There is always lichen to be found on most hawthorn twigs.



4.


5. Finally, some ash keys. These stay on their trees all winter, often looking as if the tree has been draped with rubbish. Although an entire
tree full of them can look a little untidy there is a mass of detail to be drawn out that would be swamped in a colour image.



Takumar 105s tend to be quite expensive and the older pre-set aperture ones even more so. Soligor's 105mm is slightly cheaper and
my copy actually outperforms both Pentax versions. If you get the opportunity I would certainly recommend buying one.

These idiots are not going to be satisfied until one of them does something really stupid. It's like a youngster with a big knife "for self defense" only this time it's old men with nuclear bombs.

Electric cars are the current fad -- Lord help us when they all need new batteries or we need to dispose of them. They need lithium for batteries. So perhaps those who can are stockpiling the stuff until the price explodes?

I had a most interesting experience with mine. When I finished with film I put it on Ebay. Two people got themselves into a bidding war over it and it sold for £137 !
It was a good camera - but not that good.

Ah, but in Crown Green you get automatic movement - the bowl has to climb up the hill before rolling down the far side

Just to the right of this thread in the sidebar is an advert/comment/whatever saying "Ricoh has announced the new HD Pentax-DA* 16-50mm f/2.8 ED PLM AW wide-angle zoom lens", The PLM (pulse linear motor?) has given perfectly good service for years in, for example, the excellent 55-300 zoom. I wonder why they have scratched the Self Destruct Motor version?

This is driving me bonkers. It does nothing on my K3ii either - except that it shows an icon of the green button before immediately blanking the screen!

I tried that. Turn dial to B, it displays "Bulb Mode" at the top and shows the green button symbol at the bottom - also a clock symbol with "timer ON". This is displayed for perhaps a second and then it disappears. Pressing the green button does nothing at all. I can't find anything about bulb mode in settings.
Bearing in mind I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to pressing buttons on gadgets, what am I doing wrong?

All nice, particularly the 2nd one. I love your use of natural light too - why use a flash when you have a tripod?