Isn't that what a dry cabinet is meant to do? The OP's address is Vellore, India. I haven't been there so can't speak from experience, but wouldn't be surprised if humidity in the atmosphere is a problem.

Steve

The official Irix shop (link) is now selling the Irix 150mm f2.8 macro at half price - £247.39p (tax included). I've just checked what I paid for one in 2019 and now wish I hadn't looked...

Steve

As a beneficiary of some of your selling to fund a new lens, I can only praise your philosophy of high quality recycling.

It's interesting that you missed the 'feel' of the lens. If I had to get rid of all but one of my six (eek! ) 1:1 macro lenses, the one I'd keep would be the Irix 150mm. It's big, heavy-ish and no AF. But for me, it feels and handles wonderfully. Balance on the camera, touch and feel, turning the focus ring, everything seems right to me. And that can mean the difference between getting a close-up shot of a bee and just missing it.

Steve

My first thought was ET !

An impressive - and exciting - set.

Steve

With a shutter in the lens or adapter, as well as being able to do bulb exposure, non-bulb exposures up to 30 sec can be made both with the physical shutter and electronic shutter. Without a shutter, exposure is necessarily electronic and the maximum exposure is 2 sec, no bulb exposure. That's my reading of the spec, I've never tried an exposure longer than about 1 sec.

Steve

'Bulb' mode is available if you use a genuine Pentax K-Q adapter, not if a 3rd party adapter is used. The reason is that 'bulb' mode is only available if the lens has a leaf shutter (there is no shutter in the camera itself). The main Q lenses (01, 02, 06 etc) contain a shutter. The genuine Pentax adapter also has a shutter, so the camera believes that any attached K mount lens (and presumably telescope) has a shutter. Non-Pentax K-Q adapters do not have a shutter, so bulb mode is not available with them. Without a shutter in the lens or adapter, the max exposure (via electronic shutter) is 2 sec.

Steve

What that little sensor in the Q-S1 is really giving you is a lot of pixels in a small area. That means it can resolve a lot of detail (assuming the lens can provide it!) which wouldn't be resolved by a typical FF sensor. A FF sensor with the same pixel density, and thus resolution, as the Q-S1 would have about 270 megapixels. Still some way to go for FF sensor manufacturers...

Come to think of it, is anyone putting a Q-series camera on the end of a telescope and pointing it at stars and galaxies??

Steve

Nooo... The crop factor (i.e. 4.65) should NOT be included in the calculation of f stop. It's just the equivalent of taking the centre portion of a FF image after having taken the image, the focal length of the lens and the physical aperture are unchanged. The teleconverters do change the focal length so do affect the f stop. The f stop is actually 6.3 x 2 x 2 = 25.2 .

I'm still trying to find half an hour when I'm not under pressure to do other things, am still awake and alert and can sit down in peace to watch the video from start to finish!

Steve

It knew you were coming and turned up just for the Master of Fog . A lovely pair.

Steve

... And what you do with them in private.

Steve