As it has been just over three months since I last did this here is an update:

Weekly

1. The Number Six
2. Play
3. Heat
4. Flight
5. Self Portrait
6. Wood
7. Age
8. Reflection
9. Water
10. People Communication
11. Solitude
12. Hard and Soft
13. The Industrial Landscape
14. Motion
15. Favourite Places
16. Patterns
17. The Mark of Man
18. Shadows
19. The Monochrome Landscape
20. My Day
21. 'Something' on toast
22. Red
23. Light
24. Recycled
25. Christmas
26. Buildings
27. An abstract, subject matter: any plant in MONO
28. Watching the watchers
29. Paper Scissors Stone
30. One of My Best Photos
31. The Eyes Have It
32. Love is...
33. My Town
34. Street Furniture
35. Sky's the Limit
36. Spring
37. Movement
38. Long Exposure
39. Wildlife
40. Upside-down
41. Natural Light
42. Our House
43. Local Shop & Keeper
44. Rain
45. Blue
46. Public Transport
47. Sea and Shore
48. Tools of the Trade
49. Decay & Dereliction
50. On Ice
51. The Street
52. The Ugly
53. The Pleasure of Summer Holiday
54. Sleep
55. The World Today
56. My Home Town
57. Proverbs
58. Sweet Tooth
59. Contrast
60. Alone
61. Bridge(s)
62. A Touch of Red
63. Cute
64. Mysterious
65. Desktop Backdrop
66. Colour of Autumn
67. Evening
68. Children's Expressions
69. Architecture
70. Transport
71. Music
72. Contre Jour
73. Glass
74. Brewing up a Storm
75. Boots and Shoes
76. Still life in black & white
77. Feelings & Emotions
78. New Year's Eve
79. One Hundred Yards from Home
80. Nearness
81. Flower Power!
82. Bicycles
83. For Sale
84. A Face
85. Italy
86. An Instrument of Time
87. This Modern World
88. Reflections!
89. Abstract
90. Heavy
91. Made of Steel
92. Long Exposure
93. Vegetables
94. Woods and Forests
95. Orange
96. Used
97. Smooth
98. Protection
99. People at Work
100. Self Portrait
101. The Inconvenient Truth
102. Celebration!
103. Something Green...
104. Craftsmanship
105. Spots "n" Dots
106. Action
107. Dream
108. Smoke
109. Something bright or sparkling
110. Moment
111. Serenity
112. Hurry
113. Texture
114. Distance
115. Yun
116. Shadows
117. Street Photography
118. Its a funny old world
119. Quirky Small Buildings
120. Reading and Writing
121. Windows
122. Crystal
123. Freedom
124. Fog/Mist
125. Brickwork
126. Favourite Food
127. History
128. Weightlessness
129. Festivities!
130. Cubes, Squares, Oblongs
131. Companions
132. Steam
133. Street Portraits
134. Size Contrast
135. Culture
136. Suffering
137. Wood
138. Generations
139. The hand of man
140. A trick of the eye – perspective compression
141. The Four Seasons
142. Macro Mystery...Lets Get Close!!
143. Curved Surface
144. Ground level
145. Retro!
146. Evolution
147. Late
148. Catchlights.
149. Water of Life
150. Life in Motion
151. Optical Illusion
152. Duotone
153. Communications
154. Portray the crowd
155. Sunglasses!
156. Low-key
157. People in the Environment
158. Glamour
159. Summer
160. ND 1.8 – ND 3.0
161. Garden Safari
162. Rain
163. Dawn and Dusk
164. Painted shop front window
165. Depth of Field
166. It’s What’s on the Inside That Counts.
167. Adults at Work or Play
168. Public art
169. Stimulating the senses
170. Iconic Objects
171. A Crop can make the Difference
172. Halloween
173. Lines
174. Song Titles
175. A Treasure
176. Object Trouve
177. The Culinary (Competition)
178. The Beatles Songbook
179. ‘Adversity’
180. Low Key
181. Industrial
182. Love
183. Public Sculpture
184. Curves
185. Children at work or play.
186. Black and White Landscapes
187. Long Exposure
188. Isolation
189. Bridges
190. Surreal Competition
191. This is Me
192. Water Every Where!
193. Numbers
194. Nature breaks it’s path
195. JAPAN!!!
196. Breaking “The Rules”
197. Fungi
198. Flowers In A Natural Setting
199. No Sky
200. Age
201. Man-made
202. Sell, sell, sell!!!
203. Holiday
204. Animal Emotion
205. Three
206. Graphic Abstract
207. France
208. Freedom
209. Urban landscapes
210. Wheels
211. Film Noir Mood
212. Heat and Glare
213. Russia
214. Connections
215. A Door
216. An Album Cover
217. Perfect Timing
218. Best Macro Shots – Summer 2011
219. Street Markets
220. Best Panning Shot
221. Stripes
222. Tell Your Travel Story
223. Depicting Age
224. Breakfast
225. A Room
226. A Splash of Colour
227. All Things Two
228. Human Sporting Emotion
229. Horses
230. Twelve Days of Christmas
231. Low Light
232. Alone in the City
233. Joy
234. Bikes & Bikers
235. Literature
236. Boat and Lake
237. Night Nature
238. Rhyming Slang
239. Frost - - - -
240. and all this is FOOTBALL!
241. Close up/Macro
242. A man with a camera
243. The Passing of Time


Fortnightly Competitions

1. Vistas
2. Product Shot
3. Lunch Break
4. Something Wooden
5. Christmas
6. A Night Shot
7. Scales
8. Frozen water
9. Doors
10. Everyday Object, from a Weird, Unusual, Puzzling Perspective
11. Something Wide
12. Your Best Shot Ever
13. Reflections
14. Night
15. Fruit
16. Art in the Community
17. Hands
18. Movement
19. "The Sun"
20. Relaxation or Relaxed
21. Shadows
22. My Roots, My Place
23. The Ground
24. Menace & Foreboding
25. A bad day at the office !
26. Half and half
27. ‘The White Shirt’
28. Bonfire Night
29. Cars
30. Curves
31. Juxtaposition
32. Your Weather
33. Stairs
34. Long Exposure
35. “Design Icon”
36. People
37. Hobbies
38. Genus Loci
39. Order and Disorder
40. Industrial Landscape
41. Childhood Memories
42. Local Flora
43. Faces
44. Food!!
46. Health
47. B&W Portraits
48. Wire, string, rope
49. Science Fiction
50. One Colour
51. Industry
52. Classical Music
53. Sunset
54. Energy
55. Time Piece
56. Abstract impressionism
57. Mono/Chrome
58. Space
59. Snow & Cold
60. Spatial
61. Silhouette
62. Eggs
63. Subject Noir (Black)
64. Plastic
65. Through a Door
66. Spring is Sprung
67. The Sacred
68. An Image That Looks Good From a Distance
69. Blur
70. Leading Lines
71. Wildlife
72. Barriers
73. Square Pictures
74. Interior
75. Steps
76. Water
77. Chiaroscuro
78. A Smell
79. Five Minutes’ Walk
80. Book / Books
81. Crop & PoP
82. Preparations
83. Relaxation
84. Bits & Pieces
85. Skies
86. Golden Hour
87. Bokeh
88. Vignette in mono



Monthly Competitions

1. Fine Art Mono Landscapes
2. Generations
3. Opposites
4. RGB
5. Communications
6. Three Courses


Updated until 06-03-12

Many thanks Simon for setting us an interesting subject that inspired a fantastic set of diverse interpretations.

Thanks also for the nice set of comments and your great but probably quite difficult judging.

Congratulations to Lilly for the beautiful winning image. It is great to see you back in these competitions.

Glyn

But without a hood which will cost an extra £31 .

And also apparently post free.

Although the web page indicates it is as being in stock from my experience it is worth giving Park Cameras a ring as I have often found their web pages wrong in this respect.

Glyn

Old Hydrangea Head

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Competition%20Entries/IMGP2961-64pwa3s-small.jpg[/IMG]

A decayed and dried up Hydrangea catching the winter sun.

A photo stack of 4 shots was used to create a depth of field that covered the foreground flower head while maintaining the soft background.

Pentax K-5 with the Samsung equivalent of the DFA100 Macro
1/1250sec, F4.5 & ISO200
Tripod mounted

The focus stack was processed using CombineZP and the image has been resized using PSE10

Shot on 21/02/2012 when for a short period the wind dropped and the sun came out .

Glyn

Edit to correct typo

As a dedicated fence sitter I have been trying to keep out of this conversation but I just could not resist :

Yes of course, big, rectangular, chunky, bright coloured, big control knobs and the red & green buttons - its obviously the Pentax/Fisher-Price solution for young up & coming photographers .

Glyn

Have you got "lens correction " turned on (screen 1 of the record menu)? I found that this slows mine down considerably. It is not obvious if this is turned on in the menu. You have to go into "Lens correction" to see what state it is in.

If all else fails, and assuming that is not how you put the settings back, then the "Reset" function in screen 3 of the settings menu will put all the general settings back to default (but not anything changed in the customisation menus). This could be a pain if, like me, you like to have it setup with non-default settings so might be worth making a quick record of the existing settings first.

Glyn

Many thanks to RPLSF for another interesting subject and your great set of comments and judging.

Congratulations to georgie01 for a very nice winning presentation and alexfilipov for 2nd place.

I also loved Judith's unusual but brilliant take on the subject.

I knew I had not met the complete requirements for the competition but I just could not resist showing off the whole object .

Glyn

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Competition%20Entries/IMGP2675-2-small_200.jpg[/IMG]

I'm glad you like it. I only have a few old Dinky & Corgis and even then very few of them are my original toys but this is certainly one of my favourites. In the photo I have carefully patched a couple of places (along the bonnet edge) where the paint has been knocked off .

I suspect I have not quite met the competition requirements because you can see the whole object but I wanted some context and tongue-in-cheek could possibly just about argue that the separated wheels are masking off just a little of the host object .

I'm hoping, perhaps, to see the insides of some glorious timepiece from yourself .

Glyn

Apologies I'm a bit late coming into this thread.

Back in the summer I was looking for a decent portrait lens for my K-5 and having read a few very good reviews, including John's own excellent review (is this only available to Pentax User Plus Members?) I choose the DA70mm F2.4 limited. For performance, build quality and value for money is was for me undoubtedly the best choice.

While I have not used it a huge amount I have been very pleased with it and it is now ever cheaper (Currently on offer in SRS for £359! - I paid £385 for mine in July).

Price buster listing & graph here.

Glyn

I'm in

Glyn