1, 4 & 5 jump out as revealing these little beasties as never seen before! As usual, amazing stealth and steadiness, and superb magnifications.

I'd be inclined to cut the flash power a little, as where there are highlights in front of the insects, these get too much exposure and are quite glaring.

I'm getting very little time for this sort of thing lately, but I still really love it, and the combination of a Pentax DSLR with the old manual glass is always so satisfying to work with. What's really amazing is the level of total control we get over exposure, and the ability to get 100% reliable results at capture point, which was never possible on film.

Thanks Peter, Karlo and Philip....

There are actually three churches here ... Photos 1 and 8 are St Stephens, crn Gloucester Rd/Southwell Gardens .... Photo 2 is of Christ Church Kensington, Eldon Rd .... And 9, the mono window, is the Maria Assumptia Chapel in Kensington Square.

I have a colour version of the window too, so I'll put that up later for comparison. It just seemed to suit the conversation.

Philip, I specifically wanted to narrow in and cut out distractions, in what is a very built up and dense area, so the 28-105 would have been restricting here, although you could certainly create different sorts of photos with a wider view. The deep shadows lower down would bring DR challenges however at this time of day, as well as cars and objects on the pavements .

Hi Roger, the comment from Gareth is in your Aesculus Hippocastanum II thread..... He suggested a crop to improve focus on the key subject. I doubt he, or many others, would have even considered your response, which seemed to be based on scientific and accuracy aspects, rather than a traditional artistic /compositional view.

Two very different ways to evaluate and respond to the image. Two different functions of photography, even. That's not to say your images have no artistic qualities, of course not.... But it's not really the primary motivater it seems.

I take photos of flowers, and I very rarely have any idea of what they are called .... I doubt that would be the case for you.

I have to keep remembering to get out the M75-150 F4 ….. I know it is often forgotten by others as well. But every time I remember it, I'm always rewarded, both with the enjoyment of the actual photography, the physicality involved compared to automatic and autofocus lenses, and the output never disappoints. In fact it provides new surprises every time.


Here's a walkabout around High Street Kensington, with nice raking early evening light. All with the K7....

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Thanks for having a peek and all CC welcomed

It reminds me of something I'd see in the Horniman Museum, or the V & A, yes. Is "Found" a sort of photography genre? I've heard that term somewhere.

Its very odd to me, not having any sort of visual art background. I admit I don't quite get it, a strange collection artificially organised for display. Like many of the Victorian exhibits in those museums, they are an acquired taste ..... perhaps more accurately an expired taste for some!

Nicely photographed for sure .... I think there are probably different ways to view and respond to this sort of thing. I was struck by Gareth's compositional suggestion to you on the other thread, which seemed a sort of artistic response, judging the image more in pictorial, painterly terms, with 'rules' of composition as a guide. But your response suggested that you had a different set of rules in mind, more about the objects relationship to what it was near or attached to, and a more scientific, literal recording basis to the images.

There is, yes, it really sparkles, and the its a strong viewpoint with leading lines and depth. Surely this must be an exposure blend, or HDR? I can't imagine you could capture that DR in one shot .... or have the shadows on the brickwork just been raised a good amount?

A beautiful place. and a gorgeous day. There doesn't seem to have been much loss of contrast from the sunlight entering the lens, so they are all good, strong shots IQ wise, apart from the flare obviously. I think I would have probably spent time with the clone tool myself.

I think the 2nd and last ones are really good!

No 2nd Curtain guru here, I hardly ever use the mode .... apart from tests carried out in response to forum questions that is!

2nd curtain with Pentax is a flash-based feature. This causes some confusion / annoyance when people previously have experienced a camera-based approach, which might allow 2nd curtain even with a basic manual flash. On Pentax DSLRs the 2nd Curtain flash mode relates only to a built-in flash, therefore the K3II doesn't have the mode. So, the simple answer is yes, you need a P-TTL system flash with 2nd curtain sync mode.

P-TTL wireless does not support 2nd curtain sync, so for off-camera work you could try using "dumb" optical triggering, using a flash with an "OS" or "S" slave mode that ignores the pre-flashes and waits for the main flash ..... this may or not work depending on how your flash is programmed to interpret pre-flashes and the delay.

Otherwise you could go for the new, more sophisticated way, and get the Cactus V6II and RF60x flash/es (X-TTL firmware version)..... these offer automatic 2nd Curtain Sync in both P-TTL and Manual flash modes.

Or, one more way, use a trigger with a delay setting and do the maths yourself. This will be a bit experimental, but the cheapest option.

I always love the effect of trees and the leaves created by this IR technique, it has the feel of a heavy snowfall. I admit that IR images are not a natural love for me (mono too), but here there is a lot to see and enjoy, helped not the least by good viewpoints and compositions. Its interesting to see the way the various texture types are rendered.