Ah. Sorry but I have one already - good lens too.

Old Taffy wrote :
One of my stepson's daughters, aged about three, picked up his compact camera off the beach towel and dropped it into the bucket of seawater that was nearby.

Ahh. How sweet!

That's exactly what I have in front of me right now - or rather the empty glass it was in. The whiskey is now in me to chase the damn runny eyes and nose cold out of me.

I couldn't agree more about a hood. With=fantastic; without=frequently washed out.
Also you can use deeper hoods with cropped sensor cameras which would almost certainly result in vignetting on a full frame job. On my (already deeply recessed) 50mm macro lenses I always use a Takumar style 49mm metal hood intended for a 135mm lens, which leaves the actual front glass at the bottom of a very long, black tunnel. It provides lovely rich colours.

If it's for GCSE purposes then cracking reproduction brilliance isn't being looked for is it? (irrespective of what YOU might like).
So what's wrong with the humble -and good- DA 18-55?

Cor! That's quite something!

Thank you for your encouragement.
Derek - there is a link at the end of everything I post - I just tried it.

Wet and cold weather normally produce a lot of water droplets which I love to photograph.
Here are few recent ones ....

1. First port of call is always my collection of potted alpines because they have lots of moss in them.



2. This and the previous one were taken with a tiny DOI 50mm enlarging lens on the end of a Pentax bellows.



3. Same pot but a Vivitar 100mm prime substituted in place of the DOI



4. The final three were taken with a classic Pentax 'A' series 50mm macro
This is the spent seedpod of a sage flower with an appropriately coloured backdrop for a Photocrowd contest called "Aqua"



5. The 'A' 50mm macro can produce some nice flares too. This is on a fir tree in the garden.



6. Same fir tree where the droplet has formed and reformed for so long it has affected the end of the pine needle.



1 to 4 used a tripod; 5 and 6 were hand held.

Ah, Coventry. They won the City of Culture 2021 competition. This is probably why they are digging up so many roads - great holes and diggers everywhere. I think they are mining for all that culture they will need in a couple of years' time.

I know how to LOSE a lot of cash with photography - I have LBA.