Welcome to Picture of the Week (POTW) for the period 1 to 14 March 2018. I’m pleased to be hosting this wonderful and diverse thread once again, and all are invited to contribute.

POTW is a great spot to show off six or fewer shots you take or are editing within the thread's date range. In other words, you can post your shots from this week AND last week.

To post your great photos, just hit reply and attach away

feel free to start immediately, if not sooner

Please:

• consider including in your post any special circumstances or tips on technique or equipment which might be interesting to others.

• identify your camera and lens if that information is easily available to you.

And please invite other Pentaxians to join us.

Some rules:
1) No theme, just post your favorite pix
2) Six or fewer images per person per thread to prevent thread bloat
3) Any Pentax, Ricoh or Samsung camera, film or digital

The current host will invite a new host via Private Message (PM), but if you are interested and willing to host POTW, please send me a PM, before I contact others.

Read more at: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/129-weekly-photo-challenges/129-weekly-p...#ixzz54Wz2KBoH

If possible, the new thread will be linked to the previous one. If the thread doesn't start, please contact the host, via PM. Here are the records of recent POTW thread hosts: 390 smf, 391 smf, 392 smf, 393 smf, 394 smf, 395 smf, 396 smf, 397 smf, 398 smf, 399 smf, 400 smf, 401 smf, 402 smf, 403 smf, 404 smf, 405 smf, 406 smf,407 ramseybuckeye, 408 ramseybuckeye, 409 stubyles, 410 stubyles, 411 stubyles, 412-423 SD_Bob, 424-427 dave kitson 428-451 smf 452, 453, 454 StephenHampshire 455 Aslyfox, 456 StepehenHampshire, 457 noelcmn, 458 noelcmn, 459 noelcmn, 460 noelcmn, 461 noelcmn, 462 noelcmn, 463 noelcmn, 464 noelcmn, 465 noelcmn, 466 noelcmn, 467 Aslyfox, 469-470 aaacb 471 Madmathmind, 472 Madmathmind, 473 Eva, 474 rjbrett, 475 Aslyfox, 476 - 485 noelcmn, 486 - 488 rjbrett, 489 clackers, 490 - 492 rjbrett,

Read more at: Picture of the Week (POTW) # 492 - Covering period 22 February to 7 March 2018 - PentaxForums.com

My first two photos this week are of the large mirror windows at the Logan Shire Council here in the southern part of Brisbane. These were taken with the Cosina 20mm f3.5 on my K5, and were difficult to process until I realised that the reflections are polarised – hence the varying shades of blue in the skies. The well reflected gardens were what caught my eye.

Crotons grow well here, and this photo was taken using an Auto Takumar 55mm f1.8 at f8. I didn’t think till after the fact that I could quite possible have found another aspect with more even lighting, but the colors still show well.

We’ve had 4 or 5 days of rain and showers on and off now, and a number of ladybeetles feasting on the grass heads on the lawn in between. I took some photos with the Vivitar AF 100mm f3.5 macro and a Kenko MC 3+ close up, and not happy with the detail I was getting went back inside, and, so I thought, changed it for a Kenko Pro1D AC 5+ close up. Later on when checking the lens I found I hadn’t actually removed the 3+ filter, and had inadvertently stacked the 2. I have tried this with older close ups, and thought no, it’s not worth the effort. This does seem to have worked, and I’m surprised I got this depth of field at this magnification (1.7 according to Cambridge online calculator).

[aaacb]

Thanks for hosting rjbrett. I went to a butterfly garden last week and took these. I used a 200fg flash dialed down a bit with the 100mm wr macro and 55-300 plm.

[smf]

These images were captured with a K-S2 in City Forest at Midland, Michigan.

[rjbrett]

Gee that's some nice detail aaacb. I like the term Butterfly Garden - when people mention a Butterfly Farm I wonder what happens when they harvest them - I suppose they might be sent to collectors.

That looks suspiciously like sunshine there smf - perhaps spring is coming to your part of the world .....

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Last edited by rjbrett; 03-10-2018 at 03:07 AM.

[nobody]

Hi guys, some B&W street photos today. Hope you'll enjoy.

[jcdoss]

Are any of you playing with the 52Frames folks? It's a weekly themed photo sharing group that seems fairly active. I just joined last week so no solid opinions yet, but it would be cool to hook up with some of you guys if you're on. You can find it via FB groups, or their main website.

This week's theme is "sky" and I have two candidates below. Not sure which one I should enter (only 1/week is the rule), so which do you think? Photo needs uploaded in about 36 hours.

Both taken w/K-1 and M35/2.

Cheers!

[mohb]

Trying out a Miranda 24mm that I got off Ebay - takes a bit of getting used to, I'm used to AF and zoom

[nobody]

Are any of you playing with the 52Frames folks? It's a weekly themed photo sharing group that seems fairly active. I just joined last week so no solid opinions yet, but it would be cool to hook up with some of you guys if you're on. You can find it via FB groups, or their main website.

This week's theme is "sky" and I have two candidates below. Not sure which one I should enter (only 1/week is the rule), so which do you think? Photo needs uploaded in about 36 hours.

Both taken w/K-1 and M35/2.

Cheers!

@jcdoss
Both of them seems to be burnt in highlights but if I have to choose I would prefer the second one. Try to postprocess to reduce highlights and increase the contrast. Thats my advice.

[paulh]

I have two candidates below.

Nice shots Jason - I also prefer #2. I'm not involved with 52 Frames, but I am a member of a similarly-themed Flickr group, "52 Project": 52 Project 2018 | Flickr There are a few of us PF'ers on board there.

[jcdoss]

Thanks guys. I was also partial to the second one. I'll try and tone down the highlights some more before submitting. Paul, I just joined the group you mentioned. See you there!

[rjbrett]

Thank you for those Nobody – they are so very nice. I’ve been watching videos and reading tutorials over the last week that describe street photography as difficult to master, and also talk about the importance of the quality of blacks, whites, and contrast in B&W photography, and these look to me to be ticking all those boxes.

I like the second one also jcdoss – maybe the vertical format helps emphasise the swirl of the clouds from the right hand top corner, leading the eye and helping to tell the story of the rising sun.

That Miranda does look nice and sharp, and I like the colors. It’s reminding me of my Cosina 24mm, but the Cosina has more barrel distortion. I often choose the Cosina for that very distortion as much as the field of view, and have only just learnt how to correct it in processing. Have you corrected these?

Interesting looking fungi by the way!

[nobody]

Thanks rjbrett for your opinion. Much appreciated.

[MikeStnly]

A lot tougher walking a horse than a dog, especially in the snow. After 2km of walking my buddy Darryl was a bit red in the face. The horse wouldn't keep still and I had to manoeuvre him around to get a nice backdrop.

K3-ii with DA 40 MM Ff/2.8. 1/200 at f/5.6 ISO 200 shot in MTF program mode with focus on horses eye.

[MikeStnly]

Are any of you playing with the 52Frames folks?

Interesting site, thank you for the link. Some awesome shots there, will have to give this some thought.

[noelcmn]

Thanks for hosting again rjbrett, wow, some wonderful stuff already for this weeks POTW. Welcome Nobody, to PF and POTW in particular. Lovely shots those! Hope we see more of you around the Forum.
It's been a hectic week, but I was able to visit Northern Farm for a few hours, known for its bird life, and cycling/exercise routes. Wonderful place, and though I did not get to the hides, I was able to get a few keepers, including a troop on Vervet monkeys, many of whom were watching me keenly. A few more visits definitely on the cards. My contribution is from that visit.




And the Pin-tailed Whydah is always a delight to see


As are the butterflies


Egyptian Goose on the loose


The place was overrun with cyclists


Quite chuffed with this one- shot with the Sigma 170-500mm. It was hobbling along rather fast, and I knew if I tried to change lenses I would lose the opportunity. It was gone a minute later.