I use Meyer Optik old glass regularly. It needs a belting sharp contrast before you get coloured fringes off either the 135 or 200. The 300, I admit is not too good !

From the 'drive' button of the 4 way controller I selected remote trigger with continuous shooting. I focussed a DA 55-300 on a bees' nest, disengaged the AF to keep the focus and pressed the remote button. The thing went off like a machine gun. How the hell do you stop it? Press the remote again? Nothing. Press the shutter release - it stops but the second you let go it's off again. I resorted to pressing the shutter release and with it held down, turning the camera off ! The manual is silent about this. The K5 manual says to press the remote (haven't tried it with the K5). Any ideas please?

Both the rear converter-A 2xS and the K T6 2X work very well with M42 lenses but the slight quality loss (and fall in available light) is inescapeable - it comes with the territory whatever sort of converter you use. The light must travel further so it's intensity falls and it spreads out twice as much as when the converter was not there. As well as magnifying the image, it will magnify all the faults of the lens on the front, so you want at least a Takumar f1.4, or a Helios 44M-4 or 44M-7 or similar.

No, he's trying to figure out how to build a nest in it.

Have a look at link It sounds full on expert but this one time Pentax User member is a wonderful teacher.

All of them are just lovely - and beware the old glass - it grows on you!

The only complaint I have with mine is that the playback zoom button (ISO button) is right next to the shutter release so that when you try to zoom, you inadvertently cancel the entire playback by hitting the far larger shutter release. Have you tried some hard crops yet? That big sensor really captures the detail.

That's the classic complaint about ringflash. An attempt to get round it was to have the two halves of the flash operate independently to provide a bit of control.

That's a great idea to hold an ugly-bug ball with a dedicated thread

Nigel, I recall you saying in an earlier post that you have nothing to do with *cables* and flash? If you put your flash on the end of a cable with an A4 sized softbox velcroed onto it, you can hold that in one hand and the camera in the other. You can therefore change the distance and angle of the light on the fly whilst focussing a macro lens by rocking backwards and forwards rather than having to use the focus ring. Your images are bang on, however, in every respect.

They are all perfectly harmless .......... until they bite you