Another wonderful set. Butterflies and now dragonflies, 2 of my favourite summer insects to watch and photograph. Thursley common is where I go for Downy Emeralds and Keeled skimmer but I didn't make it there this year so have missed seeing them. Well done on finding a resting Downy, I've only ever seen them flying. I did manage to get to see some norfolk hawkers and I always look forward to that, the eyes contrasting with the body colour is great to see.
Have you ever had/used the DA*300 on the K3? If so how does it compare to your 150-450 for flight shots?

Of course I meant 2Kg.....

Cheapest way as it's your back garden is probably online at the uk site for butterfly id's link
A completely over the top book would be Collins Butterfly guide, (£13.50 at nhbs.com +P&P which I think was £2.99). Otherwise I started walking around with the FSC Guide to the butterflies of Britain (link), which is a laminated sheet giving a good pictorial guide to our butterflies. Usually a few pounds at a local wildlife reserve shop or national trust shops

A very good selection there. I'm surprised the 150-450 has been used to take some, I know the DA*300 was good for this. Like you I also love butterfly photography but I think a 2lb lens might be a bit unwieldy for me.. I'm impressed.

A great set of them beauties. They have a habit of being just out of reach for me, but at Lackford Lakes they are surprisingly close. I 'found' Lackford Lakes last oct and can't have been in the hide for more than 15mins when the Kingfisher appeared did lots of posing, this side, that side.... It was great, but the lighting was poor. So I've been back about another 5 or 6 times, sat for hours, not a bl**dy thing! Same thing happened to me at Lakenheath fen at their, as it was then, new hide. Kingfisher popped by did a bit of posing, since then hardly a shot except for the fleeting 'blue flash'... Got to enjoy it when it all comes together though.

For someone like me who likes to use a built in flash for convenience when shooting macros the weakening or removal of them is a real disappointment. My K3 and Canon 7D are reasonably powerful for built ins and allow me to use a lower ISO but my Olympus E-M10 is a bit weak at 8m (ISO 200) so even weaker than the KP so I have to bump up the ISO to cope. However it's better than none... I tried that option with my Olympus E-PM2 which has a cute little external flash but no built in flash. I just couldn't be bothered finding it, attaching it, adding the diffuser and then taking the shot and ending up relegating the camera to the cupboard...

Lovely set. That Rudge ulster is a beauty. I was lucky enough to see one recently and was talking to the owner and I thought he said it was a 1936 ulster with a left hand gearchange. He said he couldn't get used to it as most of the classics he has are righthand. I thought 'great a classic for me' (being brought up on lefthand gears). Now I see that your photo is a righthand gearchange and reading around it seems they changed to righthand around the time of these. Damn, looks like I need to go back to the drawing board and do some more research! Still gives me time to save up some pennies....

All very nice. All I can say is everywhere I've been going in the southern half of the UK has had a lot of butterflies. I was just out this morning trying to photograph the Purple Emperor and couldn't help commenting on the stunning number of woodland and grassland butterflies. However it's only one persons perception!

I believe if you have auto ISO enabled in Manual mode it's selects TaV mode. Set ISO to a fixed value in manual and it should then register manual mode.

Thanks for that link. I'm now reading thru the users comments. Sounds good so far. My K-30 is hardly used these days and doesn't seem to have a value on the 2nd hand market worthy of its feature set so I might give this a go. More for interest than anything as I don't have any KAF4 lenses yet.