Went to a concert in Ilfracombe back in October. I have not really done any PP or taken many photos since then, just been too busy which is a shame.

Emily Autumn, she is a very good Violinist/Pianist. I like her purely instrumental stuff both modern and classical.

The show is a bit weird.

I am very glad her violin was kindly painted as a focus test chart or focus target as it was rather dark.

Suffer the Bear



Behind the Screens



Calm on Stage



Pose for the Camera



Playing for You






A Passion for Playing



Softly Sung (well, sometimes)



Rock on the Harpsichord



Weird but entertaining.

I just have the small Arctic Butterfly designed for APS-C without interchangeable heads. I use my Metz 58 AF-1 in modelling mode off the camera to check for sensor dust (really shows it up if there is any). Plastic bag is way OTT. I swap lenses everywhere and Don't really worry about it. The back of the lens is easy to clean so just point the camera down.

I really hope they release it. It is quite a big step up from what canikon offer.

Arctic Butterfly here and never had anything it can't get rid of. Takes a few seconds and does not blow stuff everywhere.

If it will mount K-mount lenses it would be awesome. An adapter would be very easy to produce as all it would need to do is set the register distance to 43mm to take K lenses.

Unfortunately the first picture is from the new Pentax X70 Bridge camera

I fell in love with the DA*300 on Saturday. It is the best lens I have ever used. I'd be hard pressed to find anything wrong with it even if I went looking specifically to find fault. It is so well balanced on a Kx0 with BG. Can't wait to use it propperly.

It could get even better with the 1.4x teleconverter when released.

The Tamron 90mm Macro makes a very good portrait lens as it is softer from f2.8 to f5.6 but had very nice bokeh. Then for macro work it is very sharp from F5.6 to F16 to get the depth of field required. At about F8 I get moire as it outresolved my K10. It is the lens that convinced me to not buy cheap lenses.

That screen is definitely not square, it is a 4:3 screen like on almost all cameras. The black edge makes it look square.

I'd still rather have the K10 or K20 sensor in a DP1 type body with a 28mm equivalent lens as a pocketable camera.

I did see a few people, lenscape and nathanservi82. Was so distracted by all the equipment that I was not being particularly sociable, sorry about that. If anyone else from here went I was to one in the big black trenchcoat and hat, somewhat hard to miss.

I spent a bit too long selling stuff to people and trying to stop myself buying anything. I was far more successful at the first and completely failed to save myself from buying some things. I think a lot of people had that troube, especially lenscape who I overheard saying "I'll take four!" . It may have had something to do with some Pentax underwear...

I'm pretty sure the 60-250s they had were duds as most of the demo stuff they had had a problem. One of the demo K20s was missing some of the write cirquitry which meant that it took minutes to write a raw file to the card, and it didn't help that it was set to mchinegun mode.

I knew it would be dangerous to go back to SRS, especially on an open day with lots of stuff to play with. My other half and myself spent a long time looking at everything on offer.

I was looking forward to the DA*55 and it was the first thing I played with on arrival. I was not impressed by it though. It is a really nice, well buily lens but I have four lenses that cover 50-55mm, two are F2.8 and wonderful wide open, one is F1.7 but sadly manual and the other is the kit lens. The extra two stops on the 55 are not that usable, focusing was not accurate enough on either of the cameras we have nor on the K20 demo body. Purple fringing occured at F1.4 but was gone by F2. Focus accuracy was much better at F2 because of the extra DoF but I didn't feel I could trust that lens to get me the shots I need.

The DA*60-250 was huge! Personally I did not like the handling nor the range as it overlaps too much with my 50-135 which is positively tiny in comparison (slight exageration). The tripod mount was in a stupid possition that prevented the comfortable use of the zoom ring. Others there agreed that it was in a silly place, got in the way and they would remove it asap if they had the lens. Unfortunately the spacimens they had were preroduction and misaligned so the images were hazy with halos. The other thing I didn't like was the zooming extends the lens rather a lot. I was hoping it was internal zooming like the 50-135.

The ring flash caught my better half's attention as she does a fair bit of macro photography. The controls on the flash seem quite limited but then you notice there are other settings on the flash ring itself. Gives quite good creative potential as you can set side flash only, one third one side and full the other and finally both bulbs full (selectable on a 5 way switch two settings for each side). There were only two of these flashes left and one went so we ended up getting the last (painfull hit 1)
Out of all the lenses on display only one felt really special, the DA*300. Nothing else was different to what I already have nor fely as good. It is almost perfect in shape, quality (build and optical) and size (it is the biggest lens I could possibly fit in my bag). Unfortunately I couldn't let go of it so ended up taking an other painfull hit to the wallet. Hopefully I'll get some good use out of it, it is my new favourite lens. It would be perfect to couple with the 1.4x teleconverter which will be a must have for this lens (640mm equivalent f5.6).

I forgot to pick up any freebies though.