Its great the way that the light has caught the exhaust, making it the highlight, both the drama of it and in an exposure sense.

(BTW did you notice how I used the term 'exhaust', thereby avoiding any "smoke / steam" debates! )

No 2 is great! As said, looks like its been taken off the latest SciFi blockbuster ...... (its clearly a molecular level time shifter machine that has been built to the exact specifications as detailed by an alien species that visited the earth millions of years ago and left the instructions buried in fossils deep inside an Amazonian sinkhole).

It will be good to hear your reports on how some of that old glass holds up!

Clearly a nicely performing lens, these look crisp and clear despite the dull conditions. The detail to be seen is impressive!

He's got a few lenses for it I'm sure .... he can't wait to find out how decentred, distorted, and soft they all are at the edges once he's subjected them to 36mp pixel peeing magnifications!!

And if none of them are any good, the K1 is suitable as a paper weight in the strongest of gales

Good to hear its all working well Chris!

Here's a bit of it in action ..... I've paired up my two RF60 / RF60x flashes onto one multi bracket, with a shoot-through umbrella. Both flashes are on the same channel and set to the same Group A. I've pulled out the Wide Angle Panel on both and moved the heads outwards a bit to create a wide sweep of light spread over the whole umbrella .....




I used TTL mode, and in this configuration both flashes combine to create a single exposure output (1/2 output from each). This also reduces recycling times as well as allows twice the power if needed.

In this case I was taking wide shots of our table and some baking fun, so needed a wide soft spread of light ......Here is the result with TTL mode and -0.5 compensation set .....

Here's a selection from a few visits to the gardens and woods in this part of the world ....

All with the Pentax K7 - the Chartwell ones are all with the Samyang 14mm F2.8 (1st five), the others with lenses as listed with the photos :


1.






2.





3.





4.





5.






6. Coombe Gardens, nr Croydon - Samyang 14mm F2.8






7. Coombe Gardens, nr Croydon - D FA28-105mm






8. Heathfield Garden, nr Croydon - F35-70mm






9. Coombe Gardens, nr Croydon - F35-70mm




Thanks for your views
Nigel

Hi Rob, the basic answer is no .... There does not need to be any visible ambient light in an exposure in order for HSS flash to work ..... You should be able to see the flash-lit parts of the scene even if the rest is totally black.

Generally when the light is dim then there's no purpose for HSS flash. It comes into it's own when needing to create a balance between bright ambient light and a flash-lit subject.

From what you described it sounds as if either the flash did not sync correctly for some reason when you shot at 1/250th, or there was insufficient power for it to be seen (eg it hadn't recycled enough).The first problem seems the most likely since you didn't get any flash light recorded.

What equipment are you using, the mode settings etc ... ?

Well thanks Algi, I feel much better now as I have to sit out all the deals yet again! At least I take comfort that my K7, so well equipped, still has its uses as an actual camera!

BTW surely we should have come up with a more descriptive term for what you're referring to than "IR Port" ....port to me still sounds like a socket.

Yes Stuart, the 5th one is at 105mm and F5.6 .... It was one of a few I took specifically to test out the close focusing and bokeh qualities, and I was mightily impressed with both, considering it's not a macro lens.

The first portrait (the HSS flash one) is at 105mm and F6.7. I usually stop down a touch for portraits just to be sure of getting the eyes as sharp as possible. So long as you stand back and zoom in then you get great OOF and smooth backgrounds, and you don't need widest aperture for that anyway.