Clarky,

Having seen some of your recent pics I was determined to find at least one decent subject. Nothing, until I found this little chap . . .
but he's all I can find at the moment. Head is a little off focus, I'll try harder next time. Lighting was difficult as it was buried in a bush and quite a few of the reject shots had bad vertical pattern noise in the shadows behind.



Hand held Pentax K10D, Sigma 180mm EX DG Macro, 1/180 @ f16, ISO 100, AF540FGZ with Sto-Fen Omnibounce.

It was a bright sunny day. The flower was in partial shade, but the boar pics are in the sun, back lit.

The soft ones, of the babes, are heavily cropped as I'm not brave enough to get close to these guys. They are truly wild and very dangerous when they've got young ones, but the restaurant owner throws maize out for them at the end of the day and they come down to feed. There's also a lot of dust around, kicked up by the adults.

These were quick 'n dirty shots, no finesse at all. Any softness is probably down to me rather than the lens and I had a bit of a problem with the shutter release, sometimes it didn't fire so some camera shake may have occured too. I should have checked all of the settings before shooting but the boar's are very timid and are easily frightened away, so I just turned the camera on and fired away.

I'll take some more next week with the K10D and mono/tripod.

My initial thoughts: Build quality is good, optics are free of flaws (that I can see), at nearly 1Kg I thought it was going to be difficult to hand hold but it seems OK.

I like it, but I need to take a few more pics to cement my affection for it. I can't afford either of the available SMCP-A* 200mm macro lenses either

Whilst I don't use AF for macro work, it's useful as a telephoto lens so AF is a bonus, which the A* 200mm doesn't have of course.

A couple of images shot today. ISO 800 was a mistake, I forgot to check the settings before shooting.

A woodland flower


Pentax *istD, 1/500 @ f8 & ISO 800 - PP'd in Lightroom

Wild Boar - I wanted to see its telephoto performance.


Pentax *istD, 1/250 @ f5.6 & ISO 800 - PP'd in Lightroom

A few more here.

I'm going to like this lens . . . a lot. When I've taken some 'proper' macro images, I'll post them.

Did the person who gave you that advice have any sound technical reason for giving it, or was he/she a salesman who would prefer you bought a new flash?

Other information, apparantly from a technical source, suggests that Pentax cameras are designed to handle trigger voltages up to 300 volts.

72-49mm apparently, the first number is the lens thread diameter, the second is the filter thread diameter. Hence 72-49 is step down, 49-72 is step up.

My twin head flash bracket would have looked similar. I got a couple of goose neck microphone/lamp stands, a couple of miniature ball heads and mounted flash shoes to the top of them. The two flash guns I had were AF240FT's with the 5P socket which facilitated cable connection back to the camera's hot shoe with appropriate adapters.

A minor difficulty was finding 1/4 inch studding to screw into the top of the goosenecks to allow the ball heads to be fitted. I think I butchered a couple of screws in the end.

I still have the goose necks, ball heads and flash shoes (modified for the extra pin). I sold one of the flash guns and thought I'd kept the other, but I can't find it. Maybe I'll have another go at it some day. It'll not be P-TTL though, only manual I'm afraid.

See, this is what happens when you (I) don't ask the right question. I was searching for "72mm step down" and there aren't any in UK.

Thanks Dan, that's exactly what I need and have ordered one.

Cheers,

Thanks Jonathan. I'll probably end up getting one from US. Theirs seem to be a bit more robust than the Hong Kong ones.

Thanks but I think I'll settle for the Sigma. I've had a short play with it today, and I like it. I only Had my *istD with me but I like the results so far. I've not done any real macro stuff with it yet, that'll come next week.

Even though the filter ring is 72mm, the front element is only about 58mm so I'm hoping I'm not going to have too much trouble using my AF140C ring flash with it, which has an internal diameter of about 58mm. I do need to get a 72-58mm step down ring though. None available in UK (ebay) at the moment, I can only find them from Hong Kong and USA.

Clarky,

You know George is right, he's always right

If I hadn't just shelled out for the Sigma (poor substitute) I'd have a go at it.

That lens is arguably one of the finest on this planet, and the next. As the advert goes, If Carlsberg made lenses, they'd probably make this one.

I look forward to seeing some images from it soon

Regards,

I think the largest filter mount I have for the AF140C is 58mm. 72mm to 58mm is a pretty big step though. Have you tried the Sigma 180mm + AF140C combination?

I'm not too worried if it doesn't fit because I have a AF540FGZ + Lumiquest Softbox to use. The ring flash will go with the FA100 Macro for when I need to travel light.