I wont bother to repeat what everyone else has said regarding safety and the law, it has been well explored already.

instead I will relate my own opinion.

My 1st SLR was given to me as my main present on my 18th birthday. Obviously that SLR (I still have it and will never willingly part with it, although it hasn't had a film through it in some time) has tremendous sentimental value as well as (at the time) significant monetary value. Dispite this, I swore to myself at the time that I would never miss out on a photo for fear of damaging the camera. It came with me on every holiday from when I turned 18 until last summer when I bought my *istDL2. Over that time it aquired a number of scuffs and scratches, but an awful lot more photographs.

Don't forget, if you are still not confident by the time you go on holiday, your K10D has a very capable fully automatic mode. When taking snapshots you can always just set it to "all the greens" and fire away. Of course this mode teaches you little, but it will capture the shots fairly well 95+% of the time, and you can play with the settings in the more creative modes when you feel more adventurous.

No one within earshot of Peter Elgar, if they have any sense!

especially if they've seen the pics he produces with it.

this is a little annoying but is a necessary evil since the lens can't tell the camera its focal length.

Don't forget with a Pentax DSLR a half press on the shutter will take you to picture taking mode from wherever you are. When I fire up my K10D I simply check that the displayed focal length is correct and brush the shutter button. Once you get used to doing it, it's really no trouble at all and a very small price to pay for a 50mm fast prime with shake reduction. My Canon and Nikon shooting friends are VERY jealous of my £30 SMC-A 50mm SR (admittedly you can't get them for £30 anymore ) since they can't get a Canikon 50mm F1.8 IS at any price.

the CG5 is a nice mount, my Dad has a C8N on one though we don't have a pillar. Strangely the RA motor on the CG5 seems to work better if you unplug the Declanation motor. Can't explain why, and it might just be an idiosyncracy of Dad's mount, but it took us ages to figure out so thought you might benefit from the info.

Thanks Ian,

the mount is a Celestron german equitorial which came with my Firstscope 114 short tube Newtonian. Actually more acurately the telescope came free with the mount, since it was really the mounting I wanted! It has a variable speed RA motor drive. My Dad and I have improved it somewhat, with a home made adaptor to take a camera instead of the telescope and an old Pistol scope for polar alignment. The scope has really made a difference, I am now able to get it set up for 1 minute exposures at 300mm easily, and have managed 3 minutes with a little work.


I was starting to get some passable results with my old Tamron 300 F5.6, but the F2.8 lens has made all the difference and this one I'm really pleased with.

I've been trying to get a half decent shot of the Pleiades for a while now with my various telephoto lenses. 200 M series F4, 300 Tamron F5.6, all tried and largely failed.

My new Tamron 300 F2.8 was bought partly with astro-photography in mind, and when I turned it on the Pleiades this Sunday night I was not disapointed.

This shot is the result of 19 stacked 1 minute exposures at ISO 800 and F2.8.




The stars are passing through a dust cloud, which we can see here as a blue glow around the stars.

mmmm interesting, investigation is in order. I am using Gnome with Beryl.

another handy hint for those who can't decide between their favourite photos:

I found a handy little piece of software called Wallpaper Alterer

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Shell_and_Desktop/Wallpaper_Tools/Wallpaper_A...

it takes a directory full of photos and picks one at random to be your background every time you start Windows. You'll never be bored of your background again

Now if I could only find an equivalent for Linux.

indeed, it certainly isn't a general purpose lens, but the sheer quality and speed it is capable of will make it worth carrying when there's a good chance of it being used.

I've pinched an old rifle grip from my Dad and that combined with SR makes it more or less hand holdable. Naturally the weather is awful today but hopefully will get to play with it properly soon.

I've spent the afternoon playing with my new toy, a Tamron 300mm F2.8 MF prime.

It's old, heavy and the all metal casing has seen some heavy use (though not abuse from the look of it), but the optics are clean and crystal clear, the aperture is snappy and the focus is a dream, not too heavy nor too light.

I set up a Gin bottle to take some test shots and took the same shots with my 3 300mm lenses. The new Tamron, an even older Tamron 300 F5.6 which I picked up on ebay for £10, and my Pentax 80-320.

At F2.8 the Tamron has a sortof dreamy slightly soft look, as you might get from a soft focus lens. Details are still pretty sharp, but everything has a bit of a glow to it.

By F4 this dreamy glow disappears. At F4 the Tamron is sharper than the Pentax 80-320 ever gets.

At F5.6, the Tamron seems to pass the resolution of the K10D sensor, and resolution is pretty constant from there to F16. At F22 and beyond it softens up a bit, but never very much

I can't wait to point this baby at something worth photographing! will post the results as soon as I have any