Having bought the K5iis, I'm not going to even consider commenting on your choice for fear of unleashing the wrath of the forum

Well spotted, no discount, unfortunately, just an error on my part I paid £379 not £349>

Richard, Try this link : link

I have done a timelapse with the gopro and, apart from a battery failure it worked fine. In fact I used the GoPro software to produce this (after a tweak of the images in LR). It is by far the simplest tool for putting the images together.

This set was 180 images, 1 minutes apart, 15 second exposure, f4 @ ISO 800 with the DA 12-24. It's a bit jerky and, when I do it again, I shall probably go at 30 seconds rather than 1 minute intervals. I'm trying this out because I want capture some epic skies when I'm in Iceland later this year.

The advantage a DSLR has over the GoPro is the lens. The gopro is ultra wide and fixed that way. Fine if you want that, not so fine if you want to narrow your view a bit. Plus you do still high hi-res photos to play with.

John, although I've already spent it £349 is a fair chunk of money and I am still debating the value. there needs to be £349-worth of difference between an image taken with the TC and the same image taken without and cropped to the same size. At the moment I haven't fully accepted the fact that there is.

If it was a 1.7 or 2.0 than I think it would be more difficult to get the cropped image to match up.

I shall continue to try it with all my lenses (once my camera is fixed:roll and post as many observations as I can.

I presume that can be done with a jewellers screwdriver?

Fair point. Thanks for that, it's not something I'd thought about. It was the DA 12-24 and seemed okay.

Another few pounds added to the inspection/repair bill

It is covered on the insurance but I'd rather get a quote first as it can often be cheaper than any excess and premium hikes!

The camera is just over a year old and bought with a company debit card. so no joy there I'm afraid.

Thanks for the ideas though

I was playing with the intervalometer last night trying a short timelapse (link) from my back garden.

Because it was late when I finished I left the camera on the tripod and stood it in the dining room. The tripod was extended to 5 foot and I, obviously, hadn't pulled the legs out properly. I accidentally brushed past it this morning and the whole thing fell over onto the laminate floor. OUCH

There was no obvious sign of damage to camera or lens but, when I switched it on the aperture wasn't displaying. I tried wiggling the lens only to find that it was incredibly tight and the lock button wasn't locking.
I tried another lens and it was exactly the same, it won't lock or display the aperture.

On closer inspection I noticed that all the lens contacts, on the camera mount are 'sunk in'.

So I've no got to send it off for repair. I shall contact Wex in a while and see what they can offer and I've also been recommended ACS which is in Watton (about an hours drive away).

To say that I'm gutted is an understatement, especially as I have only myself to blame



PS. To make it worse I'm not too impressed with the timelapse either

+1

and so long as there was no IQ degradation it would be worth it. However I'm not certain yet

Unfortunately the birds weren't playing today. The camera stood for 4 hours pointing at the feeder but nothing came

Expanding on MIke's point, I'm actually wondering if the 0.4 factor is worth it. With the sharpness of the DA* lenses combined with the K5 sensor I'm fairly certain that an equivalent crop would probably yield similar results. With the cropping capability of the K3 I would seriously question the merits of this bit of kit. A 1.7 might be different but 1.4 is iffy.

I'm still in 'test' mode so the jury is still out at the moment.