Installed and initial impressions are that it seems to work OK on Win7x64, and it opens K-5 II DNG's too.

Now to find the time to play with it.

Welcome to the PU forum Richard. Curiously, you have the same name as my son.

Other than the various Pentax 200mm 1:4 and 1:2.8 macro lenses, Sigma made a non-OS version of their 150mm and 180mm lenses which you will occasionally find for sale second hand.

Voigtlander also made a 125mm APO-Lanthar macro lens in Pentax fit, but they are very rare on the used market.

I can certainly vouch for the IQ if the Sigma 180mm 1:3.5 lens, it's superb, and no, it's not for sale .

ebay or Amazon would be my first choice for used filters.

I have no personal experience of HiTech filters but I believe that Lee filters are more colour neutral. That said, it's not difficult to remove slight colour casts in PP.

On sunny days it's good to remember the "sunny 16 rule" (Google it).

Basically it suggests that, in good sunlight and using an aperture of f16 (reasonably small), to get a correct exposure the shutter speed should be set to the reciprocal of the ISO speed.

Given that your lowest ISO is either 80, 100, or 200 depending on your camera, 1/80th, 1/100th, or 1/200th second shutter speed (or the nearest you can set it to) and an aperture of f16 will give you a correct exposure.

If your lens can be set to f22 or even f32, these are 1 and 2 stops slower than f16 and your shutter speed would need to be set to 1 or 2 stops slower to achieve a correct exposure.

Therefore if you are using either f22 or f32 on a sunny day, your slowest shutter speed will be 1/40th or 1/20th at ISO 80, 1/50th or 1/25th at ISO 100, and 1/100th or 1/50th at ISO 200.

From this you will see that the slowest shutter speed you could use on a sunny day and get a correct exposure at f32 and ISO 80, is 1/20th sec.

As others have written, a neutral density filter is your only sensible option to achieve slower/longer shutter speeds. I'd rule out the use of a pin hole as IQ suffers too much IMHO.

Hope that helps you to understand why your images were overexposed.

Some nice pics there well done, but I have to offer a minor correction. The "Telegraph Pole" is actually a high voltage power line.

Agreed Mike, though the M image is at f22, the Schneider image is at f16. I'm not sure that makes much difference to the sharpness though.

I used live view on the K5 to focus these.

Interesting exercise though, I just need to find some bugs that aren't hiding away from the heat to do a proper test.

I've been playing with my latest arrival, a Schneider Kreuznach Componon-S 50mm 1:2.8 enlarger lens.

These are images of a sea salt crystal measuring approx. 6mm square at its base.

First, an image from the Componon-S 50mm, reversed on bellows at f16 (smallest aperture available).



K51_8442.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr

Next, an image of a different, but similarly sized crystal with the same rig, but with a reversed smc Pentax-A 28mm 1:2.8 lens at f16.



K51_8445.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr

Finally, my smc Pentax-M 50mm 1:1.7, at f22.



K51_8457.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr

From this test of the 2 x 50mm lenses, I think I prefer the results from the Pentax-M 50mm to that from the Schneider lens.

That's what I meant SMeggy.

Time to dig out an old PC and start playing with Linux and Darktable I think.

It seems that Lightroom is also available as a Adobe Creative Cloud app.

Does this perhaps signal the eventual end of the standalone software?

I hope not.

Is it available with a genuine Pentax rear cap?