I had the same issue with the 100mm macro, as pschlute says try flicking the lever. If it’s ‘damped’ then it will need professionally cleaning inside as something has leaked onto the movement. It overexposes because the camera opens the aperture to maximum to take a reading and then snaps down to the required aperture for the exposure, but if it isn’t quick enough then will expose at too wide an aperture. Try using aperture priority at maximum f2.8 or whatever it is, and it should expose correctly.

For a tenth of the Irix price try a Marumi close-up filter, on a Pentax 100mm macro lens it yields great results and on others as well. I have one sized for the 28-105mm lens with a step ring for the smaller lens. Handy to have in your bag for opportunistic shots and saves changing lenses.

Thanks Derek, and for your likes. One of the issues I struggle with is getting everything sharp from close up to the horizon. Doug did a set-up on location with me using hyper focus and it 90% worked with the wide angle 15-30mm lens; I also tried focus stacking but of course things like waves and clouds are changing between shots so I used longer exposures, but for some reason my focus stacking software leaves fringes around everything so I am still experimenting. The only time I was completely successful was with the Samyang 24mm tilt-shift lens like the rope in sand photo above and I regret not having used it more.

Another thing I took away was being more experimental in Lightroom, which I have applied to these images.

Thanks both. You are right Derek, I wasn't sure about the no.3 crop but I will change it.



I have put more images on Flickr, link

As promised here are a few I have processed so far:

















And finally for now, an ICM image from Seahouses harbour:

Well that was my experience but you live and learn. November in Northumberland has the added advantage of there being few people about, but of course there are 15 other people arriving with you. On the last morning on the beach below Dunstanburgh castle there are limited viewpoints so several crowded onto a favoured large flat rock together with a couple of Japanese photographers one of which pushed in, just ignored everyone else and kept getting in the way. At other locations this was much less of a problem as we spread out. The guy who joined us for dinner one evening with his limited edition print sets was the local Andrew S Gray, another wobbly camera devotee. All very painterly apparently, so why not just get a brush and paints?

Some of the group thought it wonderful and the taking of ‘classic’ landscapes boring and by implication unimaginative. One evening we were joined by two other ‘photo artists’, one who scanned everything he found on the beach and another ICM devotee - so-called limited edition sets of 10 A4 prints for £150. Another gripe of mine is the limited edition con which is borrowed from printing techniques where the artist makes a master like a lithograph or linoprint and which degrades over use so genuinely can only print say 50 times and the lower the edition number the better the quality. When I pointed this out and that there is no limit to the number of photo prints I was told it is limited because the photographer says so. Yea, right. Write on 5/20 and print a little certificate to go with it and some mugs think it has added value.

One of the group is on a photography course where this sort of stuff is highly rated and conventional photography not allowed, like trendy art schools in the 1960s.

Just back from this course which ran from mid Monday until midday today, and will post images when I get a chance. Someone asked me what I thought so here goes. The two tutors were Doug Chinnery and Valda Bailey, both excellent and original in their own ways, but - and this is a big but - at the outset there was clearly a lack of communication between the Light and Land organisation and the tutors. The course notes and agenda indicated there would be dawn trips and the implication, given the title, was that generic landscape opportunities would be presented; the notes also mentioned that the tutors’ particular techniques would be demonstrated. In Doug’s case this is ICM, and Valda’s abstract multi exposures.

At the first meeting Doug said there were no dawn trips planned, and only agreed when it was pointed out this was part of the agenda - it transpired that they hadn’t seen the course notes which were two years old. They also assumed we were all there just to learn their techniques, furthermore they have just set up their own courses and this was their last with L&L.

To be fair they both went along with what everyone wanted, made it clear they were available for the whole duration and on the two good mornings we went out before breakfast. There were 14 on the course so at each session Doug spent a few minutes with individuals, Valda gave one field demonstration and spent the rest of the time taking her own photos. She was helpful when asked but not once came to see how I was doing. One highlight at the demo - she said the Canon can do ten multi-exposures, the Fujifilm two, the Sony none and Rob’s Pentax does 2000! Stunned silence followed.

Doug was very knowledgeable about general techniques and helped with composition by telling you where to go and what to point at but one person complained he just took her camera and used it for five minutes. Problem was he was really only interested in his ICM no matter what the location, and waved his camera about to get blurry images and encouraged everyone to do the same. He owns one camera, one lens and no tripod because that is all he does. Devotees kept using the term Turneresque but didn’t like that I kept pointing out that Turner always had a clear focal point in his paintings. Frankly that left me cold, a gimmick applied every time despite other opportunities presented. Valda’s abstracts were more interesting but similarly does nothing else; neither were location dependent so they could have been anywhere. Once taken to a location the good viewpoints were indicated but then we were mostly left to just get on with it.

So, the positives: good company throughout the day and evening including two from Australia; driven to excellent locations timed to suit light and tides; good cafes for lunchtimes, and a two hour session on Lightroom and Photoshop. And I doubt if I would have made the effort for the dawn trips if on my own. Would I do it again? I don’t think so. I could have stayed at the same hotel all in for a quarter of the price, the group size and the tutors’ preoccupations with their own shots and styles meant that the personal tuition time I received was very limited. I went with L&L assuming they were the best; they have well known photographers but from my limited experience are more interested in their own agendas so I would only award them three out of five stars.

I too needed to clean my K50 sensor so decided I couldn’t go wrong with the Pentax sensor cleaning kit (£32.99) which worked fine. Previous to that I took the camera to LCE who charged around £20.00 but they pointed out you have to be extra careful with Pentax sensors because they are mounted on the floating mechanism as opposed to the fixed mount for Canon and Nikon. The Pentax kit comprises a sticky square bud which you just lightly touch the sensor with, and a set of disposable sheets you transfer any dust to.

Annoyingly, just after the LCE clean a new M42 adapter ring shed tiny black paint particles into the camera body, onto the sensor and behind the focusing screen - this is removable but wear lint free gloves as I found to my cost it is sensitive to finger marks which will show in the viewfinder, and are expensive to replace

So far, touch wood, the K1 seems to have a better inbuilt sensor clean mechanism.

Added my vote, some great shots in there and couldn’t resist voting in other categories as well. In the Street selection the lavender field shot made me smile - I was there at the same time, all of which was spent finding a shot which didn’t include selfie-snappers and mums posing their kiddies, and just goes to show I am no Cartier-Bresson. Anyhow, well done and good luck.