That's a Sparrowhawk.

Both are f4, so 60-250 for versatility, 300 for extra reach.

If you only plan to take photos of flying craft, I'd say the 300mm would be better. If it's going to be a mixed bag of ground and air shots, then the 60-250mm will give you more opportunities.

I bet you're glad you didn't have to carve it onto a stone tablet.

I keep all of my photo's on my PC, organised by Lightroom.

After a shoot I use FreeFileSync to do a mirror backup of my PC photo repository to my Netgear ReadyNAS system to add new images and delete any discarded ones. The ReadyNAS back's up to USB attached 1Tb drives each night.

At any one time I have three copies of everything, once all backups are finished.

Vary occasionally, I backup my photo's to tape also. These tapes go into a fire safe, so even if my house burns down, I'm covered . . . I hope.

I think it's quite possible that somebody will buy it at that price, whether it's worth it or not.

The 18 blade round iris has surely got to produce beautiful bokeh.

Any of the Pentax 100mm lenses will serve you well, including the older MF lenses. AF is not necessary, or even desirable, for macro work.

The 50mm 1:1.4 lens is not a macro lens, but can be made to perform in a macro mode by adding bellows or extension tubes, but it needs to be stopped down for sharpness. True macro lenses are much sharper wide open than any lens on tubes/bellows.

A cheap macro solution is to get a 50mm 1:1.7 or similar and reverse it with the aid of a reversing ring. Trouble is, once you are hooked, and you will be, you'll always be wanting a 'proper' macro lens.

You will need a working camera to attach it to though .

Welcome to the forum.

The DA has quick-shift focussing to facilitate MF in AF mode without changing any switches.
The DA includes a lens hood.
The DA has a metal lens mount.

The DA-L version . . . doesn't. It has no quick-shift, no hood, 'though one can be purchased, and a plastic mount.

I believe that they are optically identical.

Sounds like you got a good deal. The 1:3.5 is said to produce a superior image quality to the 1:2.8 version.

Stunningly beautiful, well done and thanks for sharing them.

Well done, and it's good to know that we can pick a winner too.

A well deserved 1st place I think, but don't forget, that image would probably have won no matter what camera/lens combination you used (within reason). It's the photographer that sees and creates the image, the camera is just a tool for capturing it.