So you commissioned a statuette of Mrs loadoftripe???

That last one stands out for me. A flower against a dark background - a cliche, but it works.

Candy floss is still available. Apparently you can get pots of it in supermarkets. If you are really desperate, you can buy a candy floss machine and never be without the sticky stuff again .

Steve

The 300mm f4 + Pentax 1.4 TC on a K3 kept me happy for many years. They play very well together and the image quality is very, very good. No SDM problems, either, and I believe that the lens can be converted to screw drive if SDM does fail. The reason they aren't on a K3 now is that I eventually got a K3iii. However, compared to the K3 I haven't found much difference with the 300mm + TC attached (the K3iii was acquired for other reasons).

Another possibility is the Sigma 100-300mm f4 + Pentax 1.4 TC. Image quality is very, very good and it works well with the Pentax 1.4 TC. I got one in order to have a zoom with f4 all the way to 300mm. If I'd had one before the DA300mm f4, I'm not sure I'd have wanted to get the DA300mm as well (OK, I lie, the pull of a prime would have been too much to resist for ever...). It is screw drive, though, so not so good for when you don't want to be noticed!

Steve

Ooh, it's one of them, whatever it's called. Always worth a photo if and when they decide to bloom. And you've certainly done it justice. Lovely photos.

Steve

Nicely done. Those poppies are stunning - nature's gift to photographers!

Steve

I believe! Hallelujah!!!

Steve

There are both frogs and newts in the pond at the moment. It will be interesting to see how the ecosystem develops. The previous pond (which this one replaced because the liner leaked) used to be a frog pond, then palmate newts arrived and the frogs almost vanished. The first creature to discover the new pond was a solitary water boatman. Then the rest arrived with spring.

Steve

Pond skaters have set up home in the recently renovated garden pond. Lots of them, always on the move. It's fascinating seeing them skating around, sending a network of ripples across the surface. So inevitably, the day came when seeing was replaced by photographing. And here are some of the results (best seen big). K3iii + DA300mm f4 + 1.4TC.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve

Good job it is a shafted lens. If it didn't have a screw drive shaft, it wouldn't be possible to convert it to screw drive . Isn't the English language wonderful???

It definitely seems OK optically from the look of those pics.

Steve

So.... The Manfrotto 454 is definitely well built and very good if you are wanting precise positioning to take a single shot. However, if you want to take a series of shots with the plane of focus moved by a specific amount each time (i.e. for focus stacking) then you will need a rack which has been designed with that in mind. What the 454 lacks is a way of making a series of precise and tiny steps of predetermined size. The top of the range for manual (i.e. not motorised) focus racks are the Novoflex range. Unfortunately, they are top of the price range, too. FWIW, I've got both the Manfrotto 454 and Novoflex racks. However, there are now some significantly cheaper racks from Chinese manufacturers that are getting good reviews from people who know what they are doing. Dig around on macro forums and you'll find the same brands cropping up time and again.

And don't forget that once the camera is set up where you want it, the plane of focus can be changed by simply rotating the focus ring rather than moving the camera (obvious of course, but easy to forget the basics when tempted by new toys!). A forum member (coker - haven't seen him here for a while) used to post superb focus-stacked macros using a M-series lens and a home-made device for making a series of small, fixed rotations of the focus ring.

As I said, it's a slippery slope... And I started at the same place as you, by buying a focus rack to take better close ups of flowers.

Steve

Spot on! Keep trying things, keep experimenting, keep enjoying it!

Then when you've worked out what all the fuss about CCD sensors is all about, please tell me. I've never had one and am willing to be convinced that I've been missing out on something remarkable and profound. However, since the sensor itself is mono (i.e. colour-blind) and the colour is a matter of the Bayer filter and post-processing, I'm not yet convinced that what people see (or claim to see) is really due to whether the sensor is CCD or CMOS.

Steve