Good luck with it. I've been using a Benbo trekker tripod for years. It has the same sort of flexibility as the Neewer. As a result, I can confirm that such tripods are great for supporting the camera for low level macro.

However, I can also confirm that they do not make it any easier for a human of a certain age to get either down or up. You're on your own for that bit!

Steve

Can anyone recommend a USB power bank for powering a K3iii? The use case is big focus stacks done outdoors without access to a mains supply. Live view, wireless trigger and multiple big stacks gets through a battery. And the last thing I want is for a battery to give up near the end of shooting a big stack. Presumably astro folk face similar problems.

The idea is to have full battery in the camera and power bank plugged in, the camera to use power from whichever it wants until both are depleted. The recommended Pentax external power supply won't do the job because it needs to be plugged into a mains socket - OK for indoors but not outdoors. From other forums it appears possible to do it with the right sort of power bank. What I'm after is someone to say 'I use X power bank for just that sort of thing and it works perfectly'. Then I can buy one with confidence and not have to try to work out which power banks will work and which won't.

Steve

In the UK you can't offer different prices on the basis of age, sex, religious belief or any other so-called 'protected characteristic'. But your computer's IP address doesn't seem to be a 'protected characteristic' .

Personally, I don't have a problem with variable pricing for used items. If you don't like the price then don't buy it and if someone else does like the price then good luck to them. And you can always laugh at the buyer's gullibility - as Harry Enfield realised years ago with his comedy series 'I Saw You Coming'.

Steve

The lichen on the elderberry tree at the bottom of the garden is looking good at the moment so it seemed a good opportunity to try out the newly acquired Novoflex Castel-M focusing rack. This rack is designed for high magnification (x1 to x5 or more magnification) stacks so the Laowa 25mm macro was put on the K3iii and set to x5 at f4. That was then mounted on a geared head on a tripod, pointed in the right direction, fingers were crossed and stack shooting commenced. Here are a couple of the stacked results. To give an idea of scale, the disc at the top of the first and the cup in the second are each less than 1mm diameter.

It's worth mentioning that I doubt very much I could have done these - or at least done them so painlessly - without the Castel-M rack. Steps between successive shots in each stack were 0.018mm (less than 1/50 mm ). The rack certainly wasn't cheap, but it has definitely opened up new prospects for garden photography .

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve

To me, the first (coloured) one says 'landscape with horses', the second (mono) one says 'horses with landscape'. I think it's because in the first my eye starts with the white horse and is drawn towards the lake, in the second it starts with the lake and is drawn towards the white horse. Interesting. Perhaps there's a PhD research project lurking there for you Gareth if (when??) you decide to add some more letters to your name .

And just because everyone else is picking favourites, mine is both of the first two. The last doesn't quite do it for me, I'd like to see more of the head of the white horse.

Steve

And while you're looking for the naughty corner, keep your eyes open for a packet of Tescos breadcrumbs that I know I bought but can't find in any of the places it should be. Your old grey cells are not unique!

Steve

I like it, sharp on not . But surely they're rooks rather than crows - as the old saying goes, “A crow in a crowd is a rook and a rook on its own is a crow”. And the collective noun for rooks is ... a Parliament.

Steve

As Lennybloke says, you won't get autofocus with extension tubes. Tubes called 'auto' will allow other auto functions, but check carefully which functions are supported by the specific set of tubes you're looking at. Lack of autofocus isn't a major problem as at typical macro magnifications and narrow depth of field manual focus is more trustworthy. In fact, with tubes so much of the image is likely to be out of focus that keeping an eye on what that looks like can be just as important for the final image as keeping an eye on what's in focus. And if you ever get into focus stacking, it's got to be manual everything.

If you want more magnification with auto everything including focus, the Pentax 1.4 teleconverter will do it. It plays well with my macro lenses, although I can't vouch for the Pentax 100mm as I don't have one. It will also retain the same minimum working distance (from front of lens to subject) whereas tubes will reduce it. That might be important if you're photographing bugs and beasties that can be spooked if you get to close. However, the 1.4TC is, of course, much more expensive than tubes!

Steve

A few random things from a wander around the garden. All are quick 'n dirty short stacks (isn't that an American breakfast? ) produced simply by rotating the focus ring in small increments and keeping fingers crossed. The first is a Welsh onion in a temporary place that seems to have become permanent. The others are on some long-dead branches in an elderberry tree that refuses to die in spite of having had a bit of chain-link fence embedded in it, being sprayed with weed killer many years ago and having half of its growth removed when the fence was replaced.

K3iii + Irix 150mm macro, stacked by Affinity Photo.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

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Steve

A Novoflex Castel-M focusing rack has just arrived. Not exactly cheap but no more than the cost of a decent lens. Superb quality, of course (it's Novoflex ). All part of my quest for even smaller steps between shots for focus stacking at higher magnifications (0.005mm should be achievable) - and with a gadget that is easy to use in awkward situations outdoors (which my desktop rig isn't).

In case you're interested, this was purchased from Novoflex.co.uk, which was set up by the newly appointed UK distributor after Speedgraphic (the old distributor) closed down. It was a fairly painless experience once they got the introductory discount code working after I told them that it wasn't (they fixed it pretty quickly!). Just had to wait a couple of weeks for them to receive the item from their supplier (presumably Novoflex). It isn't clear how much Novoflex gear they will hold in the UK. That's important if you want something quickly as Novoflex in Germany won't deliver to the UK, insisting that you go through the national distributor.

Steve