Ah, the wonderful onset of turbulence in fluid flow. Swirls, whirls and threads that appear at all scales, from a coffee cup to the atmospheres of stars and beyond. 'Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity, and little whirls have lesser whirls and so on to viscosity’ (Lewis F. Richardson, 1922).

Fascinating and, as your photos and those of the Hubble and now Webb space telescopes show, beautiful. The first one reminds me of Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam'. And yes, a snake above a bird in the 3rd. Keep it up!

Steve

Your first outing with a fisheye? I'd never have guessed. You've chosen some good subjects and produced some good pictures. The words in the sculpture in the first one seem very appropriate for a fisheye - 'Twisting, turning...'

Steve

Nice to see a picture of a song thrush. Heard 'em but not seen 'em this year.

Steve

Has anyone tried using pixel shift for macro? What about stacking the resulting shots? What I'm wondering is whether it has any advantages for fine detail such as hair and surface features. Or is it just a way of taking up a lot more time and processing power for no discernable gain. I can't try it myself as the K3 doesn't have pixel shift.

Steve

Thanks, folks.

JohnX - Adjusting focus was done by moving the camera along a focusing rack. I've got a couple of Novoflex Castel racks, not the cheapest but very good quality. The racks are fitted together as a cross, one arm for sideways motion, one for forward and back. The camera is mounted on top and the whole lot is mounted on a geared head which is clamped to a kitchen work surface. Forward and back motion is done manually via a knob on the rack. Precise control is achieved via a Novoflex Fine Adjustment Handle attached to the knob (more cost, but worth it). Markings on the fine adjustment handle make 1/4 mm movement of the camera easy. With care and patience, movements as small as 1/12mm are possible. If you want to see what crazy macro enthusiasts can do when spurring each other on, search for the thread 'Penny macro contest - revisited'. Coker and I were having a bit of fun towards the end of the thread, if I remember correctly he could get finer focus adjustment steps than me but I could get greater magnification.

Steve

In this case, it's a ladybird that has flown. And this is what it left behind - the remains of the pupa after the adult has emerged. Probably a harlequin ladybird, their larvae were crawling around before the pupa appeared. With a bit of luck, the ladybird will find its way to my runner beans and eat its way through the aphids which are breeding faster than I can remove them.

Taken with K3 + Laowa 25mm macro @ 3x magnification. Not cropped. A stack of 21 shots, about 1/4mm between shots - just about adequate for the tiny depth of field. First attempt to use this lens, which arrived from bwp_pentax today. So thanks, Ben, it's going to be fun!

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.




Steve

And to me, too. But the only gins I like are the flavoured ones that Mrs L makes (sloe, blackcurrant, redcurrant...) and you don't add tonic and a slice of lemon to them .

Steve

Thanks for looking, folks. I can't claim any credit for the 'short tube on a portrait lens' approach. Lennybloke showed what was possible with his pictures of garden plants and fruit. I was merely standing on the shoulders of a giant (and the lens and tubes were originally his, too :wink.

Steve

When I were a lad, we had holidays, not vacations. A holiday meant a week at the Great British Seaside. Going on vacation or, even worse, abroad was for people who were rich and a class or three above our status in the world. And the word 'staycation' hadn't been discovered.

And when we went on holiday, we saw things like in your pictures. It was good to see them then and it's good to see your pictures now .

Now I come to think of it, there was also something called the British Summer, which meant that a holiday wasn't all sun and heat, and it always coincided with school holidays.

Steve

A KAF Sigma 10-20 f4 f4-5.6 lens in the window of my local photographic shop this morning, with other Sigma lenses for other mounts. Most of the window was taken up with higher margin items such as picture frames and photographic accessories. But at least the shop is still there. And while they don't keep many cameras and lenses in stock, they will often have a Pentax or two.

Steve