From a quick shots from a couple of quick walks round the garden to see whether anything photographically interesting was happening. All taken with K3iii + Irix 150mm macro, handheld, natural light.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve

Or the FA 77mm f1.8.

Steve

The Irix 150mm macro (Dragonfly) is very good (but manual focus, so not good if you want auto-focus!). It's my favourite for outdoor macro. There's one on MPB at the moment.

Steve

Plenty of butterflies around when I'm walking the dog and it's warm and not much wind. Quite a few flying insects in the garden, too. Not enough free time to go bug hunting with a macro lens, though .

Steve

Keep them, unless you don't have the space or really need the money you would get from selling them. You might not use them now, but one day your kids will grow up and leave home, or they will decide that being photographed by you is totally unbearable, so you will develop new photographic interests. Those old lenses might then be just what you need. Who needs an aperture ring or manual focus nowadays? Well, if one day you decide to try macro via the cheap routes of either reversing a wide-angle lens or using extension tubes, then an aperture ring is your friend and auto-focus is useless (as it is for most macro). As for landscape, camera on tripod then slow and steady with manual focus can be a great antidote to the speed and pressures of life.

Not sure if that helps. But it's my approach to most things, not just photography. Which goes a long way to explaining why my house is full of stuff, much of which doesn't get used very often!

Steve

Really good set of bird shots. Well worth the time and effort to get that tiny fraction of a second before they've grabbed the food and gone.

Did you take single shots, or continuous and select the best of the sequence?

A general seed mix will get great tits. robins and sparrows to my feeders. Also chaffinches. Can't speak for bullfinches, they're a rarity around here.

Steve

Thanks, appreciated.

Definitely a big advantage over a DSLR when walking a big dog which has to be kept on a lead and you might need to respond quickly if he lunges towards another dog or decides to try his luck with a deer!

Steve

Get your digital files turned into film - slides or negatives - at link. But why ??? Any suggestions?

Steve

Yes, definitely well timed. But what grabs my attention is the texture from the fence overlaid on the people behind and the background. I like it - but don't know why!

Steve

The blakthorn is out and so was I with dog and camera. With the amount of blossom on the trees and hedges, it could be a good year for sloes. The soft-focus, romantic, clouds-of-blossom style isn't my style (at the moment, anyway) so something harder that picked up the contrast due to the bright sun beckoned. The drops of water on petals are the remains of a short, sharp, windy and cold shower that made the dog turn round and try to drag me home. But I could see what he couldn't - the edge of the cloud, promising brighter weather soon - so we bravely carried on through the rain. And the wet and cold didn't last long so were were both warm and dry by the time we reached home.

Taken with Q-S1 + 01 lens.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve