I can see the financial value of my lens collection dropping minute by minute... . But thankfully its photographic value remains constant .

Steve

Nice fruit, nice photos .

And proof (yet again) that LennyBloke's garden is designed around the needs of photography .

Steve

Particle tracks from the Large Hadron Collider? Or part of the World Wide Web...

I luv 'em!

Steve

Yes. It saves you the bother of taking a couple of images and doing a grad ND merge in post-processing and it lets you see the result in situ rather than after you get home then realising you've got it wrong. You could, of course, take one shot with a grad ND filter on the front of the lens. However, you'd actually need many grad ND filters to replace the full range of possibilities with the new Grad ND function, so the price they are asking might actually be quite reasonable.

Some Pentax Q lenses have a built-in ND filter (non-grad), activated from camera. Only a couple of stops but can be useful.

Steve

So that's where Richard Branson failed to launch a satellite. Interesting.

And an interesting set of photos. There's something about their colours that reminds me of a certain type of old postcard. Nice!

Yeah, I know what you mean. In my first house, you could listen to giant slugs eating the compost heap.

Steve

Serves you right for not having with you your complete photographic kit plus added telescope (just in case a comet should unexpectedly appear). Do you not realise that a photographer is not worthy of the name unless they are weighed down by a mountain of kit 'just in case'???

Having said that, I once missed a shot of a spectacular eye-level fly past by a short eared owl because the owl could fly faster than I could change from wide angle lens to telephoto .

Steve

A nice, contrasting pair. SImilar but different. Well seen, well executed. I like 'em!

Steve

A pitcher plant has recently survived a year in my care, living on nothing more than rainwater and neglect. In fact, and quite unexpectedly, it seems to be thriving. So the time was right to take some photographs before it starts to pack up for the winter. These are all focus stacks, taken outdoors in natural light (overcast, not very bright), mainly still air but occasional faint whisps of breeze to start the pitchers quivering just as the shutter fires . They seem to be doing a good job of attracting insects. A couple of the pictures show images of insects that were crawling around while I was taking the stacks. I didn't hang around long enough to find out whether they eventually succumbed to the attraction of whatever deadly stuff is in the pitcher... .

K3iii + Irix 150mm.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve

Can't argue with that, seeing as how I was doing the same earlier today . And you can see from your shots that it's right. Nothing to do with being close-up or not, of course. It's the flat lighting that softens shadows and eliminates highlights, which is often what a close-up needs.

I'll go along with much of what davidwozhere says. However, I'd also suggest standing back and allowing a bit more room around your subjects as they all either have bits cut off or are rather squashed up against the edges. You can always crop the edges off later if you want, but you can't add what didn't quite make the frame.

Re camera shake. if in doubt and without a tripod I'll do anything to keep exposure time as short as possible and reduce camera moverment. I even once (but only once!) got away with resting the camera on a family member's shoulder . As for going back again with a tripod... depends how far, how desparate for the shot, whether the light is likely to change etc. etc. Lugging a tripod around on a walk 'just in case', though, can be a pain. A monopod can be a reasonable compromise. And they can double as a walking stick, too .

Steve

If eBay won't be getting money from seller fees, where will they get it from? From my long experience of life, the universe and everything, the magic money tree is, unfortunately, just myth and legend .

Steve