I thought the Pentax power zoom designation was FAJ? And if you have one that doesn't work on (powerzoom bit of it) on a modern body can the drive motor be disengaged to allow manual movement with the focus ring? I'm wondering if this makes it too loose ...?

Very nice colours, especially on the first one. It would be interesting to know which lens you used and aperture etc .... I'm assuming you were handholding the camera? You've got nice and close to these lovely specimens. You must get out and do some gardening more often

Yes, thats right - I did use that last year when I was taking long night exposures at Canary Wharf ... I remember doing it years ago on film with a cable switch - it had a lock position to hold it down during the exposure. The Pentax remote is much more flexible - as you say you can click to open the shutter, then again to close (seems the most logical way to manage long exposures), or even set it that you have to hold the button down during the exposure (doesn't seem so logical due to the risk of your finger slipping and having to start again!).

So with all this plus the timer delay features we have got plenty to play with

Thanks Andrew, and thanks to all of you here who have contributed and made my job that much har ... I mean easier!

That looks better around the eye area and side of the face to me

Nice soft tones & muted colours. It appears to be sharper on the body rather than on the face, is this perhaps because of the angle of its head which is further forward - I think it loses some impact for this. I would also try a crop that moves the head further off centre.

Thanks David, those were my two main aims! Thanks also for your C & C points, always appreciated .... I do sometimes run into DR problems when shooting in bright sunlight in this sort of environment, but I probably should have dialed down the exposure - no doubt someone will pop up soon and tell me I should go get a K5 then I can massively underexpose and just whack up the shadows wildly on the computer

I had cause to shoot a series of group portraits recently, and I was in the group as well! When setting up I was thinking about how best to fire the shutter ... previously when using the remote with myself in the picture, I've just held the remote inconspiciously and fired in one shot mode - 'say cheese ... click' done. (I don't really say cheese :wink.

But I have found this can lead to unnatural results - both from the hand position where you try to disguise the remote and my own expression which can be rather forced due to concentrating more on firing the camera than just relaxing.

So when setting up the camera and taking test shots I saw the Drive Mode item for Remote Control with 3 second delay. I don't know if all our cameras have it - as well as the K7 I guess the K5 and probably K3 would, maybe some others also? I tried it out and was very impressed.

Whats the advantage? Well, you are still in the picture with the remote, you still press the remote from in front of the camera - but then the red light flashes and you get a 3 second delay ... this is time to comfortably put down the remote where it won't be seen and assume a relaxed pose for yourself. I found it good to use the natural rhythmn of a countdown to get people looking natural and enjoying it.

One other point about flash when doing this - (well, P-TTL flash at least) on the first press of the remote (to activate the delay) the pre-flash will fire ... then the main flash obviously fires with the shutter. This I also found helpful - the preflash summoned everyones attention and got them looking, and I could concentrate on encouraging a good smile at the right moment, so a helpful (although unintended) consequence of the technique.

No doubt many have experience of this, but I'm sure like me, many won't have thought of it before, so I wanted to share it and recommend trying it out. Just another way that the features and functions on our Pentax DSLRs can help us get great shots.

Thats good, please do put some more up right here, as there are so many angles and perspectives to view this place from. I regret not being able to travel that far lately.

Yes its quite striking, a good detail shot. I hope there's some more of the unique architecture in the bag John, as there must be ways to better showcase the rather special colours and shapes in this beautiful location, even under the fairly dull lighting you had .