You folk have been very helpful of late in giving advice on lenses for bird and wildlife photography to replace my aging Tamron 18-250.
I now have a Pentax DA 55-300 PLM lens, 2nd hand hand in perfect condition.

I have happily purchased 2nd hand - inc my K-S2 from HarrisF1 about 5 years ago - and am happy to continue to do so.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, my retirement present was a £400 voucher that can only be used in a local independent photo shop and they will not exchange it for cash!
This means that despite enticing adverts in this group and on eBay etc I need to spend the £400 on new kit.
Other threads on this forum suggest that the 18-135 or a 17-70 sort of lenses are best all rounders for general, inc landscape, use.
I don't sell or exhibit my photos BUT I do like to print off small (12"x8") copies occassionally.

I am looking at the following zoom lenses (as I don't want to lug loads of prime lenses around).
I have put them in a draft logical order - it doesn't seem to make sense to have the 55-300 PLM AND an 18-300 lens.

£360 Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro HSM C Series
£380 Pentax smc DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR
£375 Sigma 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM

Any thoughts - poilite or otherwise?

"When you shoot in HDR mode, the camera captures several pictures in quick succesion, each having a different exposure value. The software then combines these images into a single photo, which provides sharper details from both the darkest and the brightest areas.
This way you get accurate pictures of what your eyes see or even amazing artistic photos, which transform reality in high-definiton landscapes."

So, my lesson for today is to reset controls and DON'T use HDR mode when doing action shots

P'Raps I should claim that I am being creative, BUT I'm not!
I took some photos of the childen digging at the beach today and in the background there was a dog running at speed.
Looks interesting and could, potentially, be the start of a creative, experimental journey for some of you?????

K-S2, 55-300 PLM lens, 1/320th at f11

Yes, agree that the new hard plastic lens hoods do offer a better level of pretection from dropping a lens and side swipes than I am used to on my lens from 35mm film days..

Ingenious method to extricate yourself from that predicament.
Made me smile

Hope you got some great pix

I am new-ish to digital photography having used 120, 110 and 35mm film for decades previously then left photography aside for quite a while due to family and workload reasons.

What's the advice nowadays on UV filters please?

I used to have a UV filter on the lens as protection for the front element.

Are there any good makes nowadays or are they all the same and rebranded?

Does a poor filter degrade the image of these newer lenses?

I have just got an HD Pentax-DA 55-300mm ED PLM WR lens as my main lens - esp for wildlife photography (YES, I know that I will need a lonmger reach BUT need to sort out my pocket money and find a decent one at a decent price) and obviously want to protect the front of the lens.

What do you wise ones recommend please?

Nowt dirty about Chinon. Dixons specials they were. I had a Zenith E before I started work and could, eventually, afford a Chinon CEII.
It was a grand little camera - maybe a poor man's Pentax.

That's my 2 penneth about my view of your Chinon "sins"

Sorry - no I do not know about repairers.
Hopefully, someone who does will come along soon . . . .

LBA: Can anyone explain this please re how it starts?
I'm rather concerned as I have just purchased a Pentax-da 55-300mm f4.5-6.3 ed plm wr as it is a tiny bit longer and faster at focussing on my K-S2 and am now thinking about a 1.4 or 1.7 converter.......

I may be able to be treated though as I am sure I have read somewhere that a tc may not work with this lens !

Great for you. BooHoo for me. My fault.