Use Photobucket, it's much easier.

There were some sensible questions there, well answered by someone who was enthusiastic and also kept a sense of good humour. The questions trailed off a bit, but it was very interesting.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/Pentax_645D_Aston_Martin_shoot_open_to...

Might be of interest to anyone who lives near Bristol.

It's quite interesting that still people refer to the East European CZ Jena lenses as "Zeiss" glass, almost in reverent terms, when this is actually slightly misleading.

Carl Zeiss lenses of West German manufacture were probably the best lenses ever made for 35mm cameras and deserve their legendary status. How this relates to Pentax Limited lenses I cannot say, but maybe someone somewhere has done a comparison test.

Carl Zeiss Jena lenses from the same period, and I mean 1950s to 1980s probably, are East European lenses from a budget manufacturer. This is also the same source as Praktica cameras. These are OK, but they are not expensive products and they seem to have been elevated somwwhat in reputation in recent years. I never found them to be that good, and certainly found them to be relatively clunky and crudely made.

Comapring a Practica and a Spotmatic, for example, puts the products in two very different worlds.

The final print had indeed been heavily worked, but it remains a mystery to me what people see in it. There are such magnificent Adams images and yet this very ordinary shot (IMHO) seems to receive lots of accolades.

Tastes clearly vary enormously.

Please only post a subject in one forum. There's no point duplicating it as it confuses the replies and splits them over too many areas. I'll delete the other one.

Can we get back on topic please. The OP has a serious event on offer so I think we could pay attention to that?

Can I just clarify that Bernard and muself are talking about two different things here.

I was discussing using a reversed lens on its own. Bernard is discussing revesing a lens onto another lens.

A book on macro photography could be in order to clarify all the techniques. It's far too much to cover in a forum thread.

Macro: 50mm general purpose lenses do not have flat fields like macro lenses do, but the f1.7 was the right choice for this as it is much better than the f1.4 up close. Performance can be vastly improved by reversing the lens and a reverse adapter K in 49mm size is required. SRB Griturn will have these, and probably lots of other suppliers as well. A 28mm lens reversed will give huge magnification.

Portraits: It depends on how close you want to be, but the classic film lens was the 85mm. The equivalent for digital is the DA 55mm f1.4 and I think the confusion arises here in that many photographers still get confused over focal length.

Personal choice also come into it and I always preferred the slightly longer 100mm on film. This means that my first choice would be the 70mm f2.4 which is the digital equivalent.

While you mull it over, you have a 55mm lens at the long end of your kit zoom, so see if this falls naturally as the portrait lens. If it does, then go for the 55mm f1.4 and you will enjoy wider apertures that can throw the background out of focus more easily. If you itch for something longer then you'll need to think of the 70mm or the 77mm.

Off topic post removed, please keep to the buying/selling process.