You could look at whether you can rent a lens, or a K3, and do a little experimenting (I think that SRS does pentax rentals, although I have no idea how much it costs). My personal favourite lens for things like flowers is a DA ltd 35mm macro - a mini-wonder. You can get them pretty reasonably I think (certainly second had, like mine was) and wouldn't hesitate to recommend that lens, although it'll be more than a raynox/tubes etc. but a lot less than a K3... I've been using mine a fair bit recently and there'll be a load of pics taken with it on my flickr if helpful (albeit taken with a K3)

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In the camera menu - I think the 4th page of the 4th tab (could be wrong), you need to find 'using aperture ring', and set it to '2' I think, so that the camera is expecting a lens with manual aperture ring, then away you go...

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Very cool set. Really we'll done. Gherkin of doom is really great I think. Top stuff

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Well there's obviously the castle, although whenever I go to Arundel it's generally to the WWT wetlands centre which is there; a delightful place, and if you're patient you may well see a Kingfisher

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Nice pics - fantastic colours. That blue sky in the first one is a dream! Which lens were you using?

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I think it's definitely with making sure the firmware is up to date (you seem to be onto that). Other suggestion would be to take the battery out and leave it out fort an hour or so before replacing. Not sure if that will do anything but sometimes its helpful I think... sorry can't be more help.

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Technically 'A plant' is of course correct, if a little less specific than I was thinking... in fact it is the flower of a Venus Fly Trap. I had never seen one before, but it's actually rather lovely

Cheers all

I took this picture of a bloom tonight and, just for fun, I thought I would see if there was anyone here who can guess what it is... I'll reveal all tomorrow...




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Thank you very much everyone, much appreciated and very encouraging. In terms of editing and PP there is not actually too much gone into these (certainly no more than typical for me). The flash is very helpful for isolating the foreground and darkening the background - I then tend to just burn out any remaining background artefacts; the 'baby oak' was just taken on a white sheet of paper (you can make out some of the texture of the paper if you look closely).

Thanks again all

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Thanks Steve, much appreciated

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