The colours come with the territory but the focussing and the composition don't. They are both spot on!

These are wonderful.

Apart from the red lifebelt container competing with the sun, the deep saturation of the colours are lovely.

Been there. Got the T shirt. Didn't get pictures anywhere near that good though.

I like the one with the water trough particularly as it adds a tiny touch of the unexpected.
Is it a 'standard' crop or have the sides been squeezed slightly? Just a teensy bit wider might help?

My step daughter and son in law only just made it back home to Sheffied from Coventry. We had no snow here. Just a jolly good frost and 1 degree all day. My contribution is a chilly swan on the main gallery.

Having found the composition I had to wait and wait and wait for the bee to arrive

I was exceedingly happy with a Pentax SMC A 2.8 28mm and then I discovered the older, M42 Takumar version. They have the added advantage of being inexpensive and the disadvantage (?) of manual operation. I can't afford anything with a smaller number than 28!

I'm NO portraitist so maybe I ought not even comment? (answers on a postcard please).

At risk of offending your son-in-law, the impact would be increased considerably with just the three blood relations - they make a stunning group. With just those three, only the middle one presents a lighting problem due to her facing slightly away from the camera. If each were suitably bribed to cooperate with your directions you could even up the lighting piecemeal.

The SMC A 1.7 is a great lens and your first attempt showcases it very well indeed (in my inexpert opinion).

The P30n has a diagonal split screen - I found it even harder than the standard one. I found that you need to shove your eye right into the viewfinder frame to be able to see both halves clearly but I suspect that John's comment about differential visual acuity (blimey-that's good!) is more than half of the argument. I had to give up on it eventually because my results were becoming ridiculously out of focus even though I'd have sworn the images were good in the viewfinder.
Oddly, with a *istDS and a K5 I happily use manual focus most of the time but even there, I find that the focus confirmation bleep/ icon is much more reliable than my Mk1 eyeball (and the diopter slider is hard over to the left on them both).
I can still operate a Watameter split screen rangefinder and an Exa iiB SLR split image viewfinder so the quality of the equipment must also have some bearing on the phenomenon.