That is the strangest lens hood/lens cap arrangement I have ever seen. Does the trick though!

That's for sure!

Well I do have the 40mm and it locks on very fast. Excellent lens. Unfortunately I can't compare it with the 35mm macro. Except to say that 35mm is not a focal length I would choose as a macro lens.

The 100mm Macro is perfect for small insects, much better to have the greater working distance.

That "jump for joy" concept was just so.....yuck......wasn't it? As corny as it gets!

More info for those who are interested in more detail about lenses. From 1982, some data on 80-200mm (or 70-210mm or close) lenses.

Decentering - Lens Name - MTF 10lpm - MTF 40 lpm (at shortest FL)

13% Canon 92% 50%
17% Konica Hexanon 87% 31%
18% Hanimex 85% 41%
10% Kiron 90% 52%
15% Minolta 91% 51%
17% Pentax-M 91% 59%
13% Sigma 88% 43%
9% Leitz Vario-Elmar 88% 56%
10% Tamron SP 89% 49%
9% Tamron 89% 43%
21% Tokina 91% 50%
43% Vivitar 91% 42%

Interesting that the decentering figures do reflect the huge increase in the number of elements to be aligned. Another argument in favour of prime lenses.

At the long end the figures are a bit worse:

Canon 84% 22%
Hexanon 79% 27%
Hanimex 82% 30%
Kiron 83% 39%
Minolta 84% 37%
Pentax-M 86% 37%
Sigma 81% 34%
Vario-Elmar 84% 39%
Tamron SP 84% 38%
Tamron 83% 32%
Tokina 85% 41%
Vivitar 77% 25%

The pentax lenses are holding up very well against the competition, even against the real heavyweights Leica and Zeiss.

My opinion is no need to ask fist if help is obviously being sought, but if anyone wants a modification removed then they can say so and it can easily be removed. No harm done in any event.

TBH I find links a bit of a bind as I'm looking at so many posts that the slightest delay and detour starts to add up the time spent....my goodness how our sense of time has changed since the Royal Mail was the only way!

16 bit working in Photoshop means that quite a few of the functions are not available, so usually we work in 8 bit.

According to fotoLibra the theoretical quality advantage of using 16 bit doesn't make any visible difference once it gets to the printed page, so buyers are not interested in the larger files. As buyers no longer want TIFFs and prefer JPEGs this isn't a surprise anyway.

Try 7 shots, 1EV apart, maybe that will help. You don't have to use them all but at least you'll be able to choose.

I'm finding these too drab for my taste. However, with the second shot here you are getting very close to a shot a friend of mine did of some cathedral cloisters.

It was very effective because it looked suitably spooky, but even the subdued HDR of that was quite a bit stronger than this one.

How far apart exposure wise are you making the shots? I would suggest 1EV steps (set in Photomatix) would bring things up quite a bit.

I have my two Pentax coffee mugs. One is an original from the 1970s and the other a green Pentax Sports Optics one.

Simply hold a Pentax....mug of coffee.