Love it! I especially appreciate the warm sky tones, but good clean whites on the ship at the same time. Exposure balance is excellent too - is the ships body tonal level set entirely from shadow lifting Alan? I imagine pulling down the sky too much would be problematic due to the masts ropes.

Lovely positioning as well with the two high background objects on either side. I would suggest a tiny contrast boost, less so on the sky, just to 'firm up' the slightly hazy mids.

Do any lenses actually need any specific firmware to work on Pentax dslrs? Don't all da lenses work on all current dslrs?

OP, if you've got the money then get the 18-135, its got a great reputation. If not the sigma 18-250 may be the way to go,but wllojld you really keep the 55-300 in that case as well?

Or somewhere in Europe?

Thanks! I'll try that over the next couple of days, and see if I can match that up with the tubes I've got. I'm guessing it has to take away the paint that covers a specific contact on the lens mount. Thanks to everyone who has helped so much, I'm actually very much enjoying messing about with the tubes and lenses, its all been a great new experience, and hopefully will open up many more photographic potential to come.

Good question... Each tube has two levers, one short one long. The long one is connected to a spring running around half the diameter at the camera end. This long lever is pulled back to one side by the spring. The other small lever has no spring and just moves freely. This is the one that I found altered the ability to change the aperture when the lens was attached to the tube. Both levers on all tubes move freely and the springs work fine, nothing to suggest there is anything wrong with the tubes. I will try and scrape the paint around where the mount contacts are.

But I think that the small lever is being moved into the position that prevents aperture operation when mounted on the camera. Is it the case that having the contacts cleared of the paint will mean the lever will be moved into the other position when using the green button and firing the shutter, so allowing the lens to stop down at the same moment?

Thanks Andrew, and thanks to all who have commented here ... Sorry I've been diverted with extension tube issues!

I'll try a couple on mono, any ideas which ones would suit it best? No4 is the clear favourite ... I was a bit unsure with this one as if was a but duller in the lighting and I thought it was too dark, but I shouldn't have worried! Thanks again for all your replies.

How can one person get more from a sensor than any other? If its not just differences in exposure settings, ISO choices etc, what else can be different in results from the same model between individuals? Could it be a change on processing approaches that you have made with your K5 files Andrew?

I must admit, I have shied away from buying any 'aps-c' glass since getting the 18-55 with the camera ... My only other new purchase has been the Samyang 14mm, with a FF image circle. In the back of my mind was its future use as an ultra wide on FF ...

The other lenses are all FF by default purely by being so old! I don't honestly know how well this old glass will perform with an unforgiving high resolution FF sensor? I'm looking forward to finding out though!

In the meantime my browsing and dreaming is restricted to FF examples, just in order to be better prepared. What do you think... Is it better to have the lenses ready to go when FF comes, or just buy quality aps-c glass and bank on selling it all when the FF camera arrives to fund new lenses then?

I must admit, I have shied away from buying any 'aps-c' glass since getting the 18-35 with the camera ... My only other new purchase has been the Samyang 14mm, with a FF image circle. In the back of my mind was its future use as an ultra wide on FF ...

The other lenses are all FF by default purely by being so old! I don't honestly know how well this old glass will perform with an unforgiving high resolution FF sensor? I'm looking forward to finding out though!

In the meantime my browsing and dreaming is restricted to FF examples, just in order to be better prepared. What do you think... Is it better to have the lenses ready to go when FF comes, or just buy quality aps-c glass and bank on selling it all when the FF camera arrives tk fund new lenses then?

Hey, I like the deliberating and discussions! That's part of all the fun for me ... I mean, if I get these things working, well, then there's nothing else to do other than use it all to take some actual photographs ....