Wow! As a kid I read about that telescope and was amazed at the size of the mirror and what was being discovered by it. Now we've got much bigger mirrors floating around in space. But that 200 inch telescope is still rather special, isn't it??

Definitely 'lucky you' !!!

Steve

Any 40.5mm diameter filter will fit the Pentax Q lenses. Polarisers and UV filters are out there. Other types might also be around but they're not as useful for digital as they were for film. And, of course, the 01, 02 and 06 lenses have a neutral density filter built into the lens which can be activated from the camera as and when needed.

Nice to hear that someone else has a P30 from the days when it was common for it to be someone's first SLR. Still got mine. Haven't used it for ages, though. Perhaps I should...

Steve

Nice!

... But there are people close to me who would think the opposite... .

Steve

Something at the back of my mind says that there are also things you can do with external flash with the Pentax adapter but not with a cheap 3rd party one. It's to do with having a leaf shutter in the adapter. But I'm not sure what they are and might be completely wrong about it!

Steve

If it does what you want, then it's worth a lot irrespective of price .

Steve

The leaf shutter also means that you don't get the motion artifacts that the electronic shutter can give.

The Pentax adapter also has an aperture ring which controls the aperture in lenses that don't have an aperture ring or have an A setting.

And there is the ability to attach a tripod foot to the adapter (the one used by the DA*300mm f4) so it can be tripod mounted as and when needed (not advisable to use the camera's tripod socket when a K-mount lens is attached, it's designed for light-weight Q lenses).

Steve

Winterborne Farringdon is a village in South Dorset that was abandoned in medieval times. Why it was abandoned is not known, but unlike many abandoned villages it doesn't appear to have been due to plague. The village is now a field. All that is visible is the east wall of the village church (believed to be a later re-build with original window) and some lumps and bumps in the ground. A public footpath leads from the nearest town towards the abandoned village, stopping just short of it, and is part of one of my standard dog walks. Does the footpath date back to medieval times and beyond? Is my dog taking me along an ancient track that his ancestors also took long ago? It's an interesting thought...

Q-S1 + 06 lens. Late morning shots, looking slightly east of south. The grass is looking a stunning green as it frantically tries to compensate for the lack of growth during the ultra-dry summer.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve

They weren't 5 years ago, either - £240 brand new from Ricoh Europe. But it is a high quality bit of kit. It wouldn't surprise me if I got the last new one in Europe. And in case you're wondering, I'm not selling!!

Steve

Personally, I'm very happy with the way judging is done at the moment. Different people have different ideas of what makes a good photo so you never know what the judge will think about your submission. If the same person/people judges every week or month, after a while you notice what impresses them and either tune your submission to what is likely to impress or give up because you know that it won't. As it is at the moment, it is always worth submitting because of the uncertainty in what might impress the judge. That unpredictability is both interesting and important to me - even if my style of photography doesn't get this comp's judge excited, there's always the chance that it is what the next comp's judge is looking for.

As for commenting on submissions, my view is that if you want to just select a winner, with or without comment, that's fine. It's also fine if you want to write an essay about each entry and put them all in order of merit. Or anything in between. These are informal comps among online friends and acquaintances, so the less formality and fewer rules the better .

The only change I would suggest is to make Saturday, rather than Sunday, the closing day for the weekly comps. People who work Monday - Friday (as I used to do in the increasingly distant past...) might then find it easier to judge, comment and set the topic for the next comp.

Steve

I don't use Rawtherapee but do have it on the computer so have just tried to open and save a file as jpeg. It does save a .jpg file. By default, it also saves a file which contains 'processing parameters' and has the same filename as the .jpg file but with .out.pp3 added to the end. If you don't want that file (and I'm not sure what is in it!), untick the box 'save processing parameters with image' which is at the bottom left of the Save dialog. Saving then just produces a .jpg without the additional .out.ppt file.

Hope that helps. Others who actually use the program will no doubt be able to explain what is in the .ppt file and why you might want to have it as well as the .jpg.

Steve