No problem. In my world, explanations stand (or fall) on their own merits and don't depend on who said them.

A possibly relevant observation: Back when the K3III hit the (metaphorical) shelves and UK/Euro prices were being questioned, I looked up the £/Yen and Euro/Yen exchange rates at the time when the K3III was initially announced. If importers had made forward contracts for currency purchase around that time (as would have been reasonable), the UK release price made perfect sense. All due to changes in the relative value of sterling against the other currencies. If that really was what happened, nobody in the photographic supply chain would have been profiteering at UK Pentaxians' expense, all the profits from currency fluctiations would have gone to the financial institutions.

But it can work the other way, too. I once made a healthy profit for my employer by entering a contract to buy foreign currency 6-months ahead (as required company rules), then when the time came to buy, the need had gone. The contract was binding, so the currency was bought at the previously agreed exchange rate then immediately sold back for sterling at the then current exchange rate. Sterling had fallen so we got more £s than we started with. My employer took the profit, the financial institution took the hit. And I just thought myself lucky that I hadn't lost money for my employer!

Steve

Optically, the closest FF lens to the new 16-50 is the 15-30 f2.8 and that's about the same price. Comparing with the FF 24-70 is a bit of a red herring, optics cares nothing for sensor size, but it does care about focal length and shorter seems to be more difficult to do really well. Given that the 16-50 has PLM focus and longer zoom range it's surprising it isn't more expensive than the FF 15-30. Perhaps it's counterbalanced by only needing to produce superb image quality for a smaller area at the sensor plane.

See threads about launch price of K3III, K3II, K3, K1II, K1, K5 (various) and lenses too numerous to mention. It's almost certainly a financial thing, not a pricing thing. Taxes, size of market, exchange rate volatility and trends, when forward currency purchase contracts are made so as to avoid being hit by currency fluctuations etc. etc. The spot exchange rate is not a good basis for trying to understand prices.

As for me, gotta agree with this...
Steve

Mmmmm.... fat rascals... I'm drooling - and jealous!

Steve

Strange. As I was processing the pictures I felt there was a bit of LennyBloke about them.

Not sure about hanging them on a wall, that sort of thing needs the approval of the other person in the house and our tastes aren't exactly aligned...

Steve

Nice lens, nice picture, nicely processed.

Followed by tea at Bettys?

Steve

Is anyone pleased that the football thingy is all over???

Steve

Well, not so much alien as common (at least around here) but seen from an unfamiliar viewpoint. I'll let you puzzle over which plant it is. A different take on macro compared to Coker's ultra-detailed, ultra-sharp approach.

K3 + Irix 150mm macro + 1.4TC, hand held and with a light breeze making things drift around in the viewfinder.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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2.



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Steve

Thanks for the encouraging comments, folks.

Serge - Thanks for pointing out the second picture lurking within it. Cropping as suggested does indeed work. Two for the price of one!

Steve

Good shot! It shows that whatever the lens, there's no substitute for being close to the birds. And whether you realise it or not, you're probably getting better at subconsciously predicting what the bird will do and when it will do it - even a millisecond can matter.

Too true. And there's always someone like LennyBloke selling off desirable lenses at attractive prices to tempt the unwary...

Steve

Another vote for 2 and 8. In 2, it's both the light and the poppy flowers seeming to hover above the surface of the field. In 8, it's the poppies forming a figure-8 with crossing point in the centre of the picture that makes it more than just another picture of a lot of poppies in a field. Nice!

Steve