Lee

welcome to the forum, I can vouch for the pentaxians. I've been here nearly a year and the members are great, friendly, good fun and most importantly only too happy to help!

PS join the sprint....or marathon.....for a reasonable F1.4 50mm......

Let me know how you get on I'd be interested in starting a website so it would be helpful to pick up some tips along the way. good luck with it

No 7 for me, great corner to capture

I have an old 50mm f2.0 lens which is my preferred lens for portraits. I rarley use it at F2.0 but end to stop at around F2.4-2.8 where it seems to be better. I shoot in manual focus when my young daughter keep still long enough! and increase the ISO anywhere up to ISO800 to avoid using flash, this works for me as I've not mastered flash yet.

I've tried my 70mm macro sigma lens as this is also fast at F2.8, but I'm always moving away from the subject so tend to stick to the 50mm lens which is old but a cracker, try experimenting with changing the ISO, this has helped me improve my portraits.

No1. for me and it could be improved if you pop back and cut down the little tree right in the middle!

for some reason I cannot yet decide I also like no2.

Greetings Gwyn, as a sort of newbie I didn't really know you, but its always nice to see someone come back.

Be safe, I'd seriously consider taking a compact and not to draw attention to yourself or collegaues as the violence seems to be intensifying. Have a safe journey and I hope you are able to provide some help and comfort to those in an awful situation

Thanks for taking the time to help with this, I really do appreciate the effort. I do want to get beyond 1:1 so this is a great help

Sorry I've not been around the last few days so didn't respond sooner. It looks like you've sorted things now. I can confirm this is a great way to meet a good pro and pick up some tips and advice, as I said before I've been 2 years on the run and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure I'm going this time (family committments) but if things change I may yet see you there!

Very interesting and informative! thanks to everyone.

I've only been into DSLR 'properly' (ie off green mode) for 18 months now so this whole concept of reversing lenses is a little daunting

Just for clarity I very rarely use auto focus on the macro work with my sigma so connections for this are not a priority. I prefer to work using the aperture setting. my macro lens is 1:1 but I'd just like to get in closer and cropping doesn't always give the desired results

Matt, Clarky, as I am a novice is there any reference material, or links to show how to set up your suggestion with reverse lenses with the reversing ring and is there a risk of any damage to my sigma macro lens in all of this?

thanks