Another lines person - excellent!

No. 4 for its simplicity and purity of form. Nos. 3 and 6 for the hint of lines in the sky reflecting those on the ground.

Steve

Agree 100%. Good luck!!!

Pentax record players would be able to play every previous recording format back to wax cylinders. Unlike other makes that leave you with a lot of wax cylinders and 78's that you can no longer play. But Pentaxes would take ages for the stylus to find the starting point on the record and they'd be hopeless at video.

Steve

Acqua Madonna bottles in the first one? Found one a couple of days ago when sorting out some junk at home. My wife saved it from the recycling bin, said it would be useful. Now I know why. Thank you! And a lovely photo, by the way.

There's something about the colours in all three photos that make them special. Gorgeous.

Steve

According to Yale University Library website "Earliest speeds of rotation varied widely, but by 1910 most records were recorded at about 78 to 80 rpm. In 1925, 78.26 rpm was chosen as a standard for motorized phonographs, because it was suitable for most existing records, and was easily achieved using a standard 3600-rpm motor and 46-tooth gear (78.26 = 3600/46).". Which begs the question, what's so special about a gear with 46 teeth? :::

A few years ago, before 'Digitise Your Record Collection' ads appeared in magazines, I wanted to digitise some 78rpm private recordings made by my father's band around 1950 (mostly recorded in back rooms of pubs). The only place to buy a cheap record player cabable of 78rpm was from an online DJ store. Apparently DJs would take portable record players into second hand shops to sample records before buying. Even 78s were fair game. Might still be, I'm not plugged into that scene...

Steve

An update on the Q 03 focus scale, it might be useful for anyone struggling to focus this l;ens.

Someone has calibrated the focus scale and posted the results in a user review of the lens in Pentaxforums (am I allowed to say that name here??). In essence, when you look at the scale from behind the camera and start from the left, the first 2 marks are beyond infinity, 3rd has 3ft - infinity in focus, 4th is 1ft from front of lens, the others steadily reduce the focus distance from about 6 inches to 1 inch from front of lens. This works for my copy of the lens, but of course sample variation might make other copies slightly different.

Mark 3 is clearly the most useful, but the shorter focus distances have their uses so I've resisted the urge to tape the lens at mark 3.

Steve

When I saw the McCullin exhibition at the Imperial War Museum a few years ago, the most interesting thing about his landscapes was how rural Somerset seen through his eyes could have the bleakness of a battleground. Never seen Somerset that way before (although some of it can be pretty bleak in bad weather!). The Penguin webpage for his book The Landscape notes that "The imagery of his home county, ravaged by storms, inevitably projects the associations of a battlefield, or, at least, the views of one intimate with scenes of war.". There's more than one way of seeing this green and pleasant land.

Steve

The lens that came with my first DSLR was the Pentax DA 16-45mm. A nice lens but a bit odd: 16mm FL at greatest physical extension, 45mm FL at shortest. Couldn't understand why it should be that way round, but just got on with using the lens and forgot about it. Subsequent acquisitions were all the 'normal' way round: longest FL at greatest extension, shortest FL at shortest extension. Until getting the Q-02 5-15mm recently. That is like the 16-45mm: shortest FL at greatest extension and vice versa. Which got me wondering again. So do any of you clever people have any idea:
- How backwards zooming works optically.
- Why Pentax (or other designer) would use a backwards design for a zoom lenses.
- Whether there any other fairly common zoom lenses that are backwards.
- Whether the DA 16-45mm and Q-02 are related optically.

Steve

I once asked a Dutch colleague why the Dutch were so good at speaking English. "Well," he replied, "nobody is going to learn to speak Dutch".

25 years ago I coordinated an international group that was writing a big technical report. 10 authors from 8 countries, including UK, USA, France, Germany, Japan, can't remember the others. If we were struggling to get the right English words or phrase, we turned to the German. He always got it right. His wife (a German) was a teacher who taught English and they often spoke English at home to help their children learn it.

As for Americans, they don't speak English, just various variants of American. 'Pavement' has an important change of meaning when you cross the Atlantic.

Steve

Posting these today is a thoroughly wicked thing to do. I'd be on the west coast of Scotland today and on the ferry to the Outer Hebrides (Uists) tomorrow if my wife hadn't had an operation that went wrong a few months ago, so this year's Hebs trip had to be cancelled. Not thinking about what we'd be missing was going OK until these came along. That's a huge compliment!

For me, they are so brilliantly evocative of the feelings and impressions of the place, even more so than the first Luskentyre set. There are artists who have moved to the Hebs to be able to produce works like this with paint and brush. To be able to see the potential and do it with a camera is incredible. No favourites, it's the connection with place and memories that matters for me.

Steve

There's even a Dry Stone Walling Association https://www.dswa.org.uk/about-us/ . Lots of events in May, might even be one or two on your itinerary so you could see/photograph one being built.

"...what an array of beautiful earth tone." - Thanks for the reminder of what's under out noses. When you live here, you can take so much for granted. However, seeing earth covered in white always gets the pulse racing.

Keep enjoying yourself, there's a lot more loveliness to come!

Steve