There are a few of these on the sage plant, about 3mm long but no idea what they are. K50 + Pentax 100 mm macro lens with Vivitar 2x teleconverter and ring flash on tripod.

I especially like the first one, you must have risked life and limb to get that close!

Impressive sharpness for hand-held! What extension tube did you use? This is something I am looking into, I currently put a Vivitar 2x tele converter on the 100mm macro lens for similar magnification but a tube would of course reduce the amount of glass. I see that a current Pentax extension tube set is featured in the K-1 brochure and global website but only apparently available in Japan, and I would like to retain some contacts with the lens for auto exposure settings.

As the Sigma has shake reduction (3 modes, off, static and panning) I always turn off the in-camera SR to avoid conflict when hand-held, and both for a static tripod shot. I have found that over a long distance the Sigma loses sharpness at 500mm and it is reported that it does better at say 450mm; also I use back-button focusing in case there is manual fine tuning needed. Depending on what you are photographing, if you have the time try live view to eliminate mirror flap, with a remote switch or timer. On the last point I tried two photos at full stretch, one exposed when pressing the button and the second with the 2 second timer - it's surprising how much difference that made!

There are user-defined modes on the exposure dial which I make use of; for instance for the Sigma 150-500mm lens I have set SR off, spot focus, back button focusing, TAV mode etc. so with a simple click it will all be ready. I believe the K-3 has three such, so plenty of choice to suit different situations.

The developer would have commissioned a flood risk assessment which uses historical data; anything built in a flood plain must allow the water to flow freely underneath. The government is forcing development in rural areas by setting housing targets in each locality, the planning authorities have to work with this. On top of which housing developers employ very expensive planning lawyers which local authorities cannot always afford to challenge at appeal. The government policy is that if the market is flooded (excuse the pun) houses will become more affordable; this is flawed on two counts, houses have fixed construction and land value costs both of which have escalated by energy targets, and developers aren't interested in selling houses cheaper so hold back development to retain the demand. Developers (who happen to be generous party donors) have been pushing hard for green field land access because it's cheaper to build on and supports more expensive houses. So we have extremely gullible politicians having their strings pulled by large developers and we are all suffering as a result. Add to that the roads, community buildings and other infrastructure required as a result plus large swathes of solar and wind farms springing up our green and pleasant land is being destroyed faster than at any time in history. And no I have no allegiance to any political party, just an angry and frustrated Englishman.

Interesting that a single photo can trigger a debate!

They are timber frame so will float anyway!

Take a look at one first if you can; it is no doubt an excellent lens but quite heavy which is the price you pay for an f2.8. Probably OK for studio work but for more general use I opted for the 28-105 instead.

Thanks Nigel.

With there now being two models without built-in flash would the dinky AF201 FG be a good substitute? I am thinking of a 'just in case' portable unit for fill-in flash and also whether it would work like a built-in flash as a trigger to a larger remote unit. Any views?