I agree on both counts.

Being stuck inside doesn't automatically mean you have to use flash. If the subject is moving, then perhaps but .....
This was taken with almost NO light. I could hardly see it ! Tripod and time exposure. 5pm in November, K3ii, PLM 55-300mm, ISO 100 f6.3 and 5 seconds.
Set up in the kitchen on the ceramic hob when Mrs.wozhere wasn't.

Very sweet in fact ! One problem with using the flash is apparent at once - those black backgrounds - nothing wrong with them, but you might not always want them so don't rely completely on the flash.

Within its limitations this is a very good bit of kit. For a TC the image quality loss is imperceptible even though it's x1.7 and its focusing is razor sharp. A series lenses love it.

It's what happens when you put a drop of vodka in the cat's milk.

Seriously, I think it is a descriptive term for the mirror arrangement. The huge concave mirror at the back focuses the incoming onto a smaller mirror right at the front, which sends the result through a hole in the big mirror and thence to the film plane. Because the film/ sensor can't see anything where the hole and the small mirror block the incoming light you get the donut shaped out of focus bokeh.

Photographic gear doesn't sit easily with dragons John - that's why he never came further up the motorway from Watford.

If you want something along those lines you can't go wrong with the SMC Pentax-FA 1:4.5-5.6 80-320mm. They tend to hold a slightly higher price than most of that vintage but it's justified. They work smoothly, have nice colours and will support huge crops, even at the long end.

My neighbour doesn't do No Mow May, he doesn't do mowing at all ! Most years he will spend two or three days clipping the 'lawn' with hand shears ( !! ) and then removing the cut hay. He even goes carefully round and over the various ant hills, one of which is quite tall now. The result is most certainly a piece of 'unimproved grassland' in which the odd surprise appears.

I certainly didn't expect to find a new clump of Cornish Heath (erica vagans) here in Middle England so I fetched the tripod with a K1 and a Meyer 135mm (for a change!).

It usually IS a heath plant down in the South West and to see it amid the Birds Foot Trefoil, Self Heal, Meadow Vetchling, Cats tail dandelion things and various grasses and rushes was quite odd.










I do like that lens. I must use it more.

Indeed - the commas especially.

As you might have noticed, I like to try things out on the assumption that if you don't like them you can sell them on. So I'm presently looking at a Meyer 300mm, a Tair 300mm an Pentax 300mm a DA*300mm and an F*300mm - Oh and a Pentax 400-600mm mirror and a Tamron 500mm mirror. I actually use a motley crew of Takumars and a Pentax 100mm macro and that's not mentioning the five shelves of things I've tried and never got round to sell on yet !

No. I have no strategy for acquisition or disposal - but I do come up with some marvelous combinations of this and that