Spot on. I'm not worried that artificial intelligence might take over the world, what scares me is that natural human stupidity has had a long head start...

Anyway, back to eBay (and others) descriptions. Might AI be best used to check sellers' descriptions before they are accepted for the website rather than to write the descriptions themselves? AI's answers to range from "Nicely understated" through "Oh come on, who's going to believe that?" to "This is the third time this week you've been lying through your back teeth" .

Steve

Thanks, appreciated. I'm always amazed at how much small but wonderful stuff is lurking in the garden if only I can be bothered to get the magnifying glass out and look for it!

Steve

And I prefer the coloured one! It reminds me very much of a water-colour painting that an old friend and artist did as a gift for Mrs L and me and is in front of me as I type. He based it on a photo that I'd taken of a grey winter scene with snow, dark bare trees, grey-stone country house and grey sky. He asked our permission to add a subtle bit of colour to the sky and elsewhere. We trusted his judgement (heck, I just take photos, he'd been to art college and had a lifetime in the art business) and it worked brilliantly. For me, the subtle colours in your photo have much the same effect as they do in the painting (and your sky is almost the same colour as his!). I feel sure that he would prefer your colour version too, but I can't check because, alas, he died a few years ago.

MCI - new to me, had to look it up. My utmost sympathy (speaking from some personal experience of similar ).

Steve

Keep looking small. There's such a lot to be seen, mostly unlike things on the large scale, much of it almost magical and some just makes you think WOW! Best of all, you only need to go a few yards from your back door to find it .

Steve

There have been a couple of recent threads with photos of water droplets on leaves and other things in the garden. With the recent rain it seemed appropriate to add another one. This one is drizzle on agrimony (and yes, on my head, too ). A few years ago a single agrimony plant set up home near our back door and sends up a single flower spike each year. The spike consists of tiny flowers (5-8mm across). Those at the bottom of the spike open first, blooming gradually moving up the spike with each flower eventually being replaced by a small seed pod. The flowers are unimpressive from normal viewing distance. However, get to about 1:1 magnification during drizzle and magic happens - it looks more science fiction than gardening .

K3 + Irix 150mm macro + 1.4TC.

Thought, comments etc welcome as usual.

1. Drizzle on flowers



2. Drizzle on young seed pod



Steve

If you are tempted, note that the concensus from another forum is that the only ring that is of any practical use with the native Q lenses is the 10mm ring with the 06 lens. With the other rings and lenses, the length of the ring is far too long for the focal length of the lens. They might be useful for adapted (i.e. not native Q) lenses though. Still, for £14 and if you like messing around with lenses...

Steve

That's not morning dew, that's ART.

Steve

The first picture is of a Tamron lens, not Sigma... Did you read reviews of the Sigma then buy a Tamron?

But if it does what you want for £25, who cares about the manufacturer, you've got a bargain.

Steve

No need to use AI to get descriptions like that. The advertising industry has been filling print media, TV screens and advertising hoardings with that sort of thing since time immemorial. But then I'm someone who regards all advertising claims with suspicion... guilty until proven innocent .

Steve

Thanks folks. Appreciated.

These were a good reminder to me of the need to keep a close eye on the light and have a camera to hand at all times. And in case anyone was wondering, there was very little post-processing for these, basically just a bit of curves to ensure that the backgrounds were dark enough to lose background detail and to match light levels for the pair. The rest is just as it appeared through the viewfinder.

Steve