No, I never took those photos, Honest,

Beer - in all its loveliness. You have a week to praise (or curse) it in any way you wish.

The *ist series are perishers for this. The battery contacts look fine but when out of use an invisible film of something or other builds up. Also, over time, the batteries tend to compress the terminals against the battery door so they no longer spring back to press the contacts together. Pulling them outwards with the fingernails restores the springiness and pressure. That, in turn, rubs the muck off when the door is opened and closed and the terminals slide against each other. This doesn't happen if the camera (or flash) is stored out of use.

They worked out rather well.

That's looking hopefull, thank you. I haven't looked at it yet but I found this in the list of fixes and improvements ......

January 10, 2020] • Metadata++ v1.21 Build 23

added Sony tags, Sony SR2 and SR2SubIFD
added Media protectiontype, creatorapplication, publisher
searching a text with recurse on displayed 'could not open the result file'
fixed 'find a tag', added find a tag in audio, photo, video

I had to replace my computer. I didn't lose too much but one item that can't be replaced is 'i-tag'. Yes, it's still on the internet but abandoned so although you can get the basic free version (3 tags per item) you can't get the paid-for version to unlock the rest of it. Shame 'cos it was so useful.

Can you get a straightforward tagging program now? (Forget the fancy editors like Lightroom et al). I just want to add text tags to the EXIF file and be able to search for those tags in the future.

Absolutely wonderful bit of glass and built into that rock solid 'F' series frame. I paid about the same for mine.

Great opportunity well taken.

Beautiful on all counts.

I have been remounting old lenses to M42 screw mount for a while and, by necessity, they must be used in manual or AV mode. Each lens usually needs some additional extension tubes between the mount and the camera body to account for its particular focal length. I have known for a long time that in order to make (e.g.) Jessop auto extension tubes work you need to scratch some of the black paint off the rear flange so that the pins on the camera body are shorted out but that only permits a Pentax camera to control the aperture of its own, native 'A' series lenses and so is of no use for my M42 conversions.

However, enter the 'F' series x1.7 Auto Focus adapter! I realised that if I exchanged one of the M42 extension tubes for a 'K' mount equivalent then the narrow mounting flange of the M42 tube (which isn't wide enough to cover the pins on the camera body) is swapped for the far wider flange of the K tube (which does cover the camera's pins). Scratch off the paint from this tube and you short out the pins on the AF adapter - which promptly goes to work the moment you half press the shutter release.

K1 with F series AF adapter fitted, followed by a K mount tube with an M42 > K adapter to engage the next (M42) tube, then a focusing helicoid and, finally, the converted shutter and lens assembly (in this case, with a gorgeous 105mm Trioplan fitted in it). The resulting focal length is just shy of 180mm.



The rear of the K mount extension tube showing the bare metal that shorts out the pins of the AF adapter.



The AF adapter is not supposed to work with an aperture smaller than f4.5 but this one goes down to F7.1 before it refuses to play. I have always had super pictures from this lens, even hand focusing but auto focus nails it with just that extra bit of accuracy. I am delighted with my bit of tinkering !I was intending to go out with it today but it hammered down with rain so you will have to make do with some indoor shots .....

This about 3cm long. I found it in the gutter !



This was posed on the end of a skewer (cloned out) in front of the mouth of a black plastic waste bin and lit by off camera low powered flash from the side. Using a bin like this produces a really profound black. Crop or clone out the edges of the bin and it's quite effective.



These are the last of our tomatoes from the garden and about to be made into soup.



A very close up, almost macro shot



And the rain that didn't stop all day long.



And not a hint of bubble bokeh anywhere (although it can indeed produce it).