As Chris says.
I have often wondered why the limit of 30 seconds with the self timer? Surely it wouldn't be difficult to have a camera that you can dial in any length of exposure and still use the self timer. It would save having to remember a remote. Bitter experience I have forgotten mine on more than one occasion.

I bought the 55-300mm HD DA lens a while ago and was immediately impressed by it, for such a reasonably priced lens it's optical performance exceeded my expectations. A few weeks back I bought the Tamron 1.4x Pz MC from Daronl on this forum. This afternoon is the first time I've properly tried this combination. The auto focus was a little slower I think but the end results are bang on. The sharp detail that this combination delivers again exceeds my expectations. I feel there might be a very slight drop in contrast but nothing to worry about at all. Below is one from this afternoon shot in RAW and a couple of minor tweaks in LR.

Here's a centre crop as uploaded images are so small.

The Tamron 1.4 teleconverter arrived today, as described excellent condition and fast delivery. Thank you Daronl. It seems to work well with the Tamron macro and the Samyang 8mm fisheye. I hope to give it a proper run out later.

Taken at "Weird and Wonderful World of Wood"
at the weekend

I've been considering selling my Pentax DA* 16-50 I'll send you a message Ruth.

I like the Salvador Dali whiskers

Great result, great images. The drama and your excellent work on No1 puts it in first place me. I've just agreed with a judge, first time for everything.

My experience is the same as yours VividArt. Love the lens, I don't use filters, always use the hood, if there is direct sunlight in the frame I get bad flaring, which is annoying as I enjoy using this lens for landscape. I guess it helps explain the very deep hood. The only lens I have which is worse for flare is my Tamron 90mm macro which is a good lens until you get direct light coming down the barrel. The 16-50 DA* on the other hand is a joy to shoot into direct light sources.

Cheers David, These were shot in RAW with the Sigma 150-500mm, for fun as I developed them in Lightroom (minor adjustments) I applied the wrong lens corrections, in this case the corrections for the Sigma 8mm. For me they are greatly improved with the distorted view over the original photos.