I had a very successful shoot of some silver and pewter jewellery with my K10D, DA 18-55, a white piece of card, a home made reflector and the built in flash.

The home made reflector allowed the flash to be used with the lens set to 55mm and to be 25-35mm from the subject. It was a very narrow range which at best gives a 3:1 magnification ratio.













You can also use other surfaces such as crushed velvet, silk or marble as a background.

I don't have any shots with those backgrounds as my reflector was lost in Scotland (someone threw it away thinking it was rubbish) and I never got the chance.

EDIT: As you can see the light falloff is not perfect. It is a little dark at the front and back but that is a reflector design flaw. It took me 5 mins to construct and a further 5 to modify for the desired range and prevent light leaking. Still not back at all for less than 10p worth of materials.

Hard Work, Soft Comforts

LOL

I was going to give the 10-17 as an example but decided against it.

What focal length is it? Remember that the K10D has a 1.5x crop factor which means all lenses have a field of view narrower than usual.

18mm becomes 27.54mm equivalent FoV

28mm becomes 42.82mm equivalent FoV

So you need a really wide lens to actually get a wide shot.

I have a 1500mAh Hahnel (Pentax/Minolta) battery which gives just as many shots as my Pentax battery. Cost £20 compared to £50 for the Pentax battery.

Sadly that is the case with all the DA zoom lenses.

My DA 18-55 is absolutely fantastic, I'd be close to calling it a perfect sample. Some people have bad samples though.

Wonderful idea, glad we agree

I had a play with an M200 the other day and it is fantastic. Even without AF it is at least twice the resolution of my DA50-200 which has trouble distinguishing, anything at all and has such bad CA now that it is impossible to remove.

It is a bad lens you should post it to me, same with the A135

Sorry, always get it the wrong way round. To me it makes sense as 3:1 because what used to cover 3cm now covers 1cm on the sensor. Where as a 1:3 would be what was 1cm now covers what would be 3 which is a 3x magnification.

Easy to get it mixed up...

At the 25cm focus distance you get a 1:3 magnification. With a flash bounce and difuser to prevent lens shadow you can get some impressive shots.

Take a look at the 1:3 gallery in my picasaweb (link in sig).

Pretty damn good for £50ish.