I bought a Hanimex 72-162mm manual zoom from my local car boot sale - £1 boxed, along with a Hanimex 135mm and a Mirage 200mm lens, all M42 screw mount. I can't actually remember whether I've tried any of them yet. Sometimes things can't be passed up.

There's also this link which doesn't seem to talk about a closing date, for 500px members: http://www.on1.com/500px/

It slightly depresses me that the PC I'm slowly getting around to upgrading to falls quite short of the minimum spec for that software.

I also despair at some of the threads I read on other forums, as others have said it's basically down to "shall I pick Canon or Nikon?", and there's often someone who comes in to suggest Sony, and rarely someone who comes in to suggest Pentax. In fact one thread I read recently asked the question "what would you do if you were in charge of Pentax DSLRs?", which didn't really come to any conclusion other than a suggestion to innovate. But if the people in their dealerships aren't giving them an even share of the promotion, it's hard to see what they can do, other than to get some new dealerships, and with the reducing numbers of camera shops these days that's not going to be easy. But armed with the information that their dealers aren't pushing their products, I would like to think it would be time for them to be offering training, trying to set up brand evangelists, that kind of stuff.

I don't tend to jump in on these discussions because I'm not that aware of the Pentax range in terms of bodies and lenses these days, and even less well informed about the other makes. I perceive the lens range for Canikon is probably better, and I cringe when I see a new Sigma advert for a lens that isn't offered with a Pentax fit - at least back in the day a lot of these smaller brands used K-bayonet to mount their lenses so it made the lens people more likely to support it.

I also don't think that harking back to pros and celebs to promote the brand is going to help, if those are people from fifty-odd years ago and haven't got the brand loyalty any more. Fred or Bill (or perhaps Nathan or Josh) are more likely to be influenced by what their mates bought than by what an admittedly great photographer (or musician or whatever) used to like back in the sixties - witness the recent comments when some modern muso featured Paul McCartney on his new single.

Once the product range is good, it's all about marketing and promotion, and in a way it's great that their marketing department is full of marketing people - I've worked in places where technical people are expected to try to market products, and it doesn't end well. Even being technically better than everything else doesn't help - look at Betamax (or V2000), better than VHS but didn't "win".

Rainy and cold.

I don't usually buy magazines of any kind, but I keep getting special offers. This one is a trial of three issues for a pound, and if I forget to cancel it rolls over into a proper subscription. So I don't forget.

Nice to see some Pentax photos in the 'Portfolio' section in the latest DSLR Photography magazine, by Derek Kind. Is it just me that looks out for Pentax in these places, and is usually disappointed?

3 and 4 are my preferences in there - for me, the random person in the first one is a bit jarring, and in the last one the gates just behind the pillars get in the way a bit. Not much you can do about some of these things - developers don't seem to consider where they stick things to ruin an otherwise perfectly good image

4 might look quite nice as a high contrast monochrome image.

Cheers, I'll have a play.

Cheers. I did a little playing with the shots, but it was mainly levels and contrast with a little sharpening. I haven't got close to a basic familiarity with PS to be fiddling with colour balance, but it's on my list of stuff to play with.

The extra interest makes the shots, I think - I've fiddled with firework shots and because of the location of our local displays, a decent reference landmark just isn't there. So having something like this makes a big difference I think. Lovely shots.

If your experience is like mine, it'll be a challenge to get much different next year, be interesting to see then.

1, 4 and 5 are my favourites there I think - I had a similar effect as 2 on some of mine due to the wind on the night, and personally I prefer the clearer 'light track' effect when that isn't there.

Once again I was out trying to find some new things to do at the local Firework display, and I'm not entirely sure. I've got a bit more foreground in some of them, but the location of the display doesn't offer much. I was playing with my new (to me) Sigma 18-200 lens, hard to tell whether it helps much, though last year I had the 70-300 and kept finding the short end was too close. As I was closer to the display this year, I found the same. I did have a go at some of the effect suggested in a recent magazine but wasn't at all happy with the results.

1.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5960a.jpg[/IMG]

2.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5957a.jpg[/IMG]

3.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5953a.jpg[/IMG]

4.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5946a.jpg[/IMG]

5.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5937a.jpg[/IMG]

6.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5932a.jpg[/IMG]

7.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5919a.jpg[/IMG]

8.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5896a.jpg[/IMG]

9. Fairground ride

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Fireworks%202014/IMGP5877a.jpg[/IMG]

There's another display this weekend at a different location, so I might scope out a decent observation spot and have another go. As always, any comments and criticism gratefully accepted.