Doesn't seem to have lost any quality through the TC. Very nice.

I joined a local Photographic meetup group and they have a monthly competition. It helps me get away from my obsessive wildlife photography and having to think about different things helps with composition and stuff. This month the subject was "orange and purple". For this I just used the kit lens on my K-r and placed it all in my mini folding studio on a table. Shone some LED lights through the transluscent studio sides. The background was originally blue.
I'm new to all this (well not photography)and at the end of the month everyone votes for their favourite and an "expert" judge pick his favourites after an appraisal of all the images. I'm finding it quite fun.

Yes - they are cracking shots Neil - some of your best and I don't recall seeing them elsewhere.
Dave

Great news David and I agree about the Forum.

Well me actually! Having been using and contributing to the forum for at least two years I've only just discovered the "User Photos" and "Competion"
forums. Why I've never scrolled past "Leads to Deals" is beyond me. I've been to all the others, visited galleries, put pictures in and it was only via another thread when I read about lack of comments re: David Storm I realised something was missing. I will make an effort to contribute if senile idiots are allowed!
Dave

Ignore the above about the sky. Never noticed it before but all of the plain backgrounds are showing up stepwise gradations. Something's happened to my monitor!

Not some of the wild birds down here in Essex, it won't

David - I've noticed that you just need to wait for someone like us to sell one here or on Ebay! I've been looking at the 50mm SMC A f1.7's as I have one to sell and you find that there are string of over priced BIN's at ~£60, one or two auctions with high starting prices, then auctions with a normal low starting price that end up going for about £30 - £35 mint.
If the repair is too much it's just a question of patience
Dave

Thanks. I'm not too worried if the IQ isn't quite there at the long end but I really want to still get some wildlife shots of birds and butterflies etc. while on holiday without having to take other big lenses for that and yet another for landscapes. So I think it will be this or possibly my Panny Bridge camera which I use for that purpose now.
(The skies look odd on my monitor in the two pics sent in - is that just a cropping/jpg artifact?)

I am toying with replacing both my DA 55-300mm and 18-55mm with the Tamron/Pentax 18-250mm. I'm assuming it will be at least £200 cheaper than an 18-270mm. I have a Sigma 150-500mm and DFA 100mm Macro which covers my main use - wildlife photography plus a few decent older manual primes. This would give me an easier solution for general photography, holidays etc. Would I be disappointed in IQ and handling compared to the above two lenses it would be replacing?