Thanks Phil and Derek. After the last shot of the ford I decided to try a 10 stop filter for a 30 sec exposure on a 15-30mm lens, and right in the middle a couple on horses rode across the river! That would have been a nice image but never mind, here is the second go:


Managed to get the water smoothed out but of course the trees are blurred from movement. Trickiest part was avoiding the camera shadow as the sun was behind me, still a nice way to spend a warm afternoon skiving off work.

Thanks Richandfleur, good point about the record. These are all of the old part and the last four of a nearby hamlet in the same parish, so little change there hopefully. It was originally two settlements separated by the small river in photo 8 but since merged; the last vestige of this was an ancient small meadow by the river supposedly never to be built on but now has a surgery being built on to cope with the expanding housing around the outskirts. Another ongoing battle is to prevent the church commissioners selling the 175 year old allotments for yet more housing and the Photographic group have been drafted in to help.

The photographic club received a request for any local photos to feature in the annual village directory, so as no-one had responded I went out to take some. It was bin collection day so discreet shifting of bins and avoiding parked cars as much as possible, here are the results:


























All taken with the K1 and 24-70mm lens, most with a polariser

When the K1 came out it was found that when fitting a Sigma lens it was liable to rub against the overhang, this is because the Sigma K-mounts are wider than the Pentax ones and you can see that when you fit a rear lens cap. As a result Sigma altered the mounts free of charge to one with a tapered rim and I suppose they would still offer that. Presumably new Sigma lenses have the revised mount as standard but it is easy to check.

I am very envious, always had a yen to visit but never got around to it. These convey the dramatic beauty and wide open spaces I have always imagined.

One of the benefits of the K1 sensor is that you can crop in post processing and still retain an excellent image, so if there is a bit of vignetting that can be trimmed. However, an APS-C lens will probably show loss of image quality outside its designated image circle so even if the vignetting is minimal the loss of sharpness and distortion won’t be.

Hi, what’s the situation with the battery grip now?

What, they have suddenly stopped working? I really don’t understand people who ditch perfectly good kit at a financial loss because the grass looks greener. And then buy it all back again when they find it isn’t. More bothered with bragging rights than actually taking photos, it would probably have made more sense to spend on top quality lenses instead. But I suppose the idiots keep camera stores in business which is good for the rest of us.

I can do this with AF.C, back button focusing, clicking one exposure at a time or a couple:





And it doesn't matter about spray as I balance on the rocks, so what is the problem?

I use a polariser a lot, just recently at 24mm removing reflections and glare from buildings - I was surprised how much difference it made to timber cladding. Also have the Lee Filters SW150 set for the 15-30mm, cannot recall a problem with the polariser but the ND filters darken the image more at the edges as the light passes through more glass there due to the extreme angle. Apparently the new extra-expensive ones don’t cause this as they have a surface coating instead. Funny none of the LF ambassadors like Joe Cornish mentioned the problem before! I would say though that extending the exposure time with the ND filters is also something you cannot match post-processing so if you like the effect they are worth considering.