One of the big advantages of external flash for macro work is that you can have it at a different distance from the subject than the camera.
I generally find holding mine at arms length on a P-TTL cable is quick & easy, whilst giving a good light.

For diffusing your in-built flash Cigarette papers work quite well as they have a weak adhesive that will hold them in place, and multiple layers can be applied to attenuate the light.

Magnificent!
How do you get such small steps repeatably for the Stack? (only 8µm!)

John I think the whole point is that the camera DOES capture it rather than just display it.

I'm not sure I'd find it helpful, I have more than enough images to wade through as it is.

Almost certainly - It often seems as if they wait for a utility to request clearance to dig up the road, then rush resurface it first!

Most of the roads I use coming back from work are too rural for much work by utilities. Pot holes are therefore dealt with by low quality (cheapest bidder) patches that rarely last a few months.

I didn't see any hostility!
I've yet to investigate your link, but it could certainly prove useful on the camera clubs laptop if it works with a wide range of different RAW formats. Thanks for the suggestion.

I found the big advantage of the DA55-300 was that I could leave both my DA50-200 & the heavy F100-300 behind! (My 50-200 isn't WR)

For some of my shooting the extra reach of a 300 is very useful.
I'm not sure if I'd want to carry as much as a bigma for the reach, but I can't afford one anyway. If Amazon do the Bigma on special for a price anything like they did the 55-300 for though I'll grab one & deal with the bank manager later (Pigs will fly first I think)

I've never had any complaints with either the 50-200 or the 55-300, so I'd say other than the extra "100mm & QS" there's no significant gain.

Shots like the first & last of your 50-200 favs should be easier to get with the 300. (Lovely shots BTW)

Image modes work with JPEG (as does white balance, in camera HDR...).
If you only shoot RAW there is little point in them, all they effect is the cameras RAW to JPEG conversion. If you use RAW + JPEG you'll already start getting some use from them (Without 3rd party software).
I find for most shots using RAW is more trouble than it's worth - especially if NOT using 3rd party software.

I suspect that a lot of it is dowm to the market segment the K-01 is aimed at. The K5 is very much an enthusiasts camera, the K-01 less so & no great advantage to those who have a K5.

If your adapter is like my ones, there is a small screw holding the spring on.
It is possible to remove the spring and leave the adapter on the lens. (A little thread lock might be a good idea).
Just doing that will mean the lens won't lock into place, so you might want to make a small recess in the mount the back the lens for the locking pin.

I first did this over 20 years ago, to make my 300mm M42 more usable.

Very Interesting. I'll have to compare the spectra of my UV filters with what they've got. (I've only run the spectra on one to date and that in absorbance rather than transmission)

They do have one minor error though - the Hot mirror used infront of the sensor to reduce the sensitivity to IR does also significantly reduce the sensors response to UV. (section 2 states otherwise).
I've found this to my disadvantage in trying to record UV images

In fact many such as link have less UV transmission than most of the filters under test. This example is 1% transmission at 390nm whilst better than 85% from 410nm to 700nm.

It would be intertsing to see comparative spectra for actual sensor response against various films, but I'm not sure that would be easy to produce.