That pile of triggers deserves a picture - my imagination is boggling!

Bee flies are flies that mimic bees. Their larvae are parasitic on the larvae of specific species of solitary bees and wasps. They lay eggs in the hole used by a bee, when their larvae hatch they consume the bee larvae. Then they metamorphose into the fluffy flying thing, mate and the cycle starts again. Dotted bee flies (which is the species I usually see, dots on wings are clear in the 2nd picture) do a lot of hovering low above the lawn, probably looking for bee holes in which to drop their eggs. They usually hover for just long enough to get a camera pointing in their direction but not to focus. Fortunately, they sometimes keep returning to about the same spot so a bit of patience can be rewarded by a hovering shot.

An English Nature survey about 20 years ago found that the dotted bee fly is "locally frequent with many strong colonies" in South Gloucestershire although in North Gloucestershire it was "rare with colonies small". Keep your eyes open and looking low, you might see them until early May.

Steve

Better to ask someone like SRS or Wex who will be selling the thing rather than forum members who might buy it (or be waiting until the price drops :wink.

Perhaps it's the result of hedging against sterling/euro currency exchange risk (buying forward, that sort of thing).

Or perhaps it's the market working as markets do - sellers try to keep the price up, buyers decide where to buy, sellers drop the price to get an edge over competitors if they find that they aren't selling enough, and so on.

Whatever it is, the Ricoh UK store has £1,899.99, the Ricoh Europe store has 1,999.99 Eur which is about £1,700 at todays exchange rate. And that's better than lenses in the Ricoh stores, which seem to work at £ = Euro. So it doesn't look like UK retailers are responsible for the difference.

Anyway, for me and perhaps many others it's the same as when I buy a car. If I'm part exchanging, the price of the new (to me) car is irrelevant. All I'm interested in is how much cash I hand over for the total transaction (mostly but not entirely the difference between the new and trade-in prices). SRS has said they'll be doing generous part exchange deals. Perhaps that will cancel out the £200 difference.

Steve (who will not be buying a K3III unless his K3 stops working or the price of the III (Euro or £:wink drops dramatically!)

Nice shot of the bee. I find bee flies trickier than bees. A bee is on a mission and fairly predictable (even if uncooperative...), a bee fly is much more likely to do something seemingly random and flies much faster than the average bee.

My memory was failing me when I said that I sometimes use HSS with bees. It's normal sync with the Pentax AF160FC ring flash, which unfortunately doesn't support HSS. I'm still going to try it with bee flies if they return after the cold spell.

Steve

But with a distinctive song - high-pitched chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff (or slight variant), repeated until it gets bored. Easier to hear than to see - hear the song then try to find where it's coming from.

Steve

+1!!

Not had a bong on our living room window yet, but it will come...

Steve

Import duty on lenses, like cameras, is 0.0% (VAT is, of course, 20%). Here it is officially. It might have been different pre-Brexit. Worth noting, too, that when buying from abroad the import tariff takes into account 'country of origin', which relates to where the product was made. For Pentax kit bought from the EU, the 'country of origin' is surely not the EU. But thankfully, 0.0% duty applies to the countries that make Pentax kit as well as to the EU . Pity it has to be so complicated . Getting rid of stuff like that is one of the benefits of a single market...

Steve

Not with bee flies, sometimes with bees. Might give it a try if they bee flies appear again after the cold spell that's just started. Thanks for the suggestion.

Steve

Early April, a couple of warm days, so it's the annual bee fly fest. Mainly dotted bee flies at the moment. According to an English Nature report, the dotted bee fly "does best on open unimproved or semi-improved grassland... bare or very sparsely vegetated ground, exposed dust patches...", which is a fair description of the current state of my lawns.

The little things are always a challenge so a good way to get the eye in for the start of the flying insect season. They don't stay still for very long, suddenly darting off at great speed in an unpredictable direction. Even when they appear stationary, sharp pictures are still elusive because they are usually vibrating as a result of flapping their wings furiously.

Anyway, here are a few of the best from today's stalking. K3 + DA*300mm + 1.4 TC + a lot of luck.

Thoughts, comments welcome as usual.

1. In spite of what it looks like, this one is actually flying backwards having just fed from the flower. From which you can deduce that I was late pressing the shutter button...



2.



3.



Steve

Anyone like to try doing a part exchange with a non-UK supplier?

Steve

Agreed that there should be no duty payable. Shipping would be £6.50 ("products from £100" in the quoted extract). However, when I bought a lens from them a couple of years ago there was an extra charge (about 5 euro) for having paid with a Visa credit card. And now there's the possibility of the delivery company adding something for having to deal with post-Brexit paperwork. Note also that in spite of the pricing on the website, prices are actually in Euros and that is the price on the invoice, so the sterling price might vary (it's in very small print at the bottom of their Delivery FAQ). And before pressing the button, think long and hard about how difficult and costly a warranty repair might be. It would have to be done in the Netherlands. I took a chance with a manual focus lens, you might think differently with a box of complicated electronics that's called a camera...

Steve