Apart from any entertainment value (???) of these sort of threads, is it a waste of time commenting on issues like this, or do views expressed here somehow get transferred to the relevant departments of the companies involved?

Cheers.
Philip

A few months ago I did this, but sort of the opposite way round - an adapter to allow manual use of my Pentax lenses on a Sony Nex body. I ordered the adapter on eBay, from a seller in China (the country, not the pottery), for about £12 with free P&P. I think it took less than two weeks to arrive. It is all metal, seems well-made, and works perfectly.

Cheers.
Philip

I agree that these are interesting photos, and I don't mind the tight crops. From experiencing several of these museums, the exhibits are often closely surrounded by other stuff, whether it be equipment or the modern trend for information boards and display screens, all of which can detract from our attempts to capture good images.

Do you think that the indoor shots from 13 to 18 might benefit from a few gentle tweaks of the sort available in most picture software - brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpening, and perhaps a slightly cooler white balance?

E.g.



Cheers.
Philip

These were taken with the little F 35-70 zoom in June this year at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire:

The Entrance:



The Mansion House:



The Lake and Pavilion:



The Orangery Shadows:



(The last one was selected as the winner of the General Mono Competition, three weeks ago at the club I belong to.)

Cheers.
Philip

In my opinion, the only aspect that actually matters is honesty. Provided that a photographer does not make false claims about his/her results, it really doesn't bother me how the photographs were processed.

Cheers.
Philip

This just might be of interest to someone using the Opera Browser.

Because of the lack of the Back Button function here, I upgraded from Opera 12 to Opera 25, as suggested. Having used it for a couple of weeks, I still prefer the way 12 works, so I have gone back to using that older version, intending to put up with the PU Back Button problem.

However, something I didn't know until now - if I hold the mouse button down briefly, with the pointer over the Back Button, it reveals a list of the previous pages recently visited, making it possible to go back easily via that list.

Cheers.
Philip

Another good set of images Nigel, all of subjects that I enjoy. It is a great little zoom which amazes me with its accuracy and speed of AF.

Cheers.
Philip

Stu, the shooting settings of the shot of the people in the woods - ISO 800, 1/13s, f/7.1 - suggest quite dim lighting so, as David has stated, some negative exposure compensation (at least a stop) would be required.

Also, 1/13s is rather slow for focal length 70mm so, even with SR, there could be some softening by camera movement.

It might also be worth setting up AF Fine Adjustment for that lens, to ensure that it is focusing accurately - it is in Custom Menu 4-26 (refer to pages 126-7 of the manual).

Cheers.
Philip

Very nice images, David. No doubt someone will say how good the mono shot is, but for me the colour ones have a real atmosphere, creating the feeling that I am actually there.

Cheers.
Philip

You don't give an indication of how much you can spend. However, if funds are fairly limited, how about the DA 50mm F1.8 for portraits as well as low light city work, and the DA 55-300mm for nature?

Cheers.
Philip