Welcome to the 528th edition of Picture of the Week (POTW), covering 09 December to 23 December 2018.

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.

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.

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: 390-406 smf, 407-408ramseybuckeye, 409-411 stubyles, 412-423 SD_Bob, 424-427 dave kitson 428-451 smf 452, 453, 454 StephenHampshire 455 Aslyfox, 456 StepehenHampshire, 457-466 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 - 498 rjbrett, 499 StephenHampshire 500 smf, 501 StephenHampshire, 502-505 Eva, 506-525 Vaskebjorn, 526 noelcmn, 527 noelcmn

The series was launched by Peter Zack.

Thanks very much to all hosts and to everyone who contributes images and comments in these threads. And we warmly welcome any new contributions, especially from new joiners.

Read more at: POTW #527 - Covering period 2 December - 16 December 2018- - PentaxForums.com

[noelcmn]

My apologies, late again! Starting us off, with some images from my visit yesterday to Rietfontien Municipal Nature Reserve.

A Beautiful green Locust, a rather large specimen.


Crab Spider - K-30 with the Sigma 28-80mm Aspherical Macro lens, to which was attached a Screw-on magnifying glass


Common Duiker


Some mean looking ants in that place


A storm was brewing while I was there


A sand Wasp (I think) close to its hole in the ground

.

[Vaskebjorn]

I got up early in my beachhouse in Tunisia to discover that the sky was on fire.

[noelcmn]

Beautiful Richard! No 2 is magical! Have not gotten up early for a sunrise for ages. Maybe I should?

[aaacb]

On Saturday I decided to take photos at a concert on film. I had done this outside during daytime, this was my first attempt indoors in dim light. So, as I mentioned in a couple of other posts, I pushed film myself, Ilford HP5+ to 3200.
The place had spot lights at the front, so some musicians were lit much better than the rest. I kept the shutter speed at a constant 1/125s shutter and the lenses at their respective maximum aperture.


w/ FA 43, zx-l camera, I may try to scan it again but it's that high contrast...



w/ DFA 100 macro, ranging from imo nice to .. not so good technically, because of very thin negatives







Excited about the one or two usable results of my lo-fi experiment, but I'll probably continue to use my digital camera, limiting to the number of frames in a 1-2 rolls is restrictive.

[noelcmn]

Wow, that deserves a congrats aaacb! Especially like No 2! I'd be interested to know why you left that bit of light on the top right? seems (to me at any rate) to be unnecessary?

[aaacb]

Wow, that deserves a congrats aaacb! Especially like No 2! I'd be interested to know why you left that bit of light on the top right? seems (to me at any rate) to be unnecessary?

Thanks I left white borders for no good reason, I kept thinking how to crop it and haven't done it yet.

[Merv-O]

1.PATCO -- Woodcrest (NJ) Train Station

2. A sign of the Holiday Season

3. Graystone Place, Bryn Mawr, PA

[noelcmn]

Great shots Merv-. The windows one is super, and good for the windows thread. But I like the last one best! Wonderful details there!

A few more days before we get to the next POTW. Let's see what you've been shooting Pentaxians.

[Merv-O]

Noel,

Thank you for your nice comments. I enjoy your photos as well--the macro quality of the insect and animal diversity of your country is phenomenal. As an aside, Your name is a perfect Holiday Season segue....Enjoy your Christmas and keep on snapping.....

[noelcmn]

Noel,

Thank you for your nice comments. I enjoy your photos as well--the macro quality of the insect and animal diversity of your country is phenomenal. As an aside, Your name is a perfect Holiday Season segue....Enjoy your Christmas and keep on snapping.....

Thank you. Many people ask me if I was born on Christmas day, or close to it! To which the answer is NO! 7th Jan is quite far away from Christmas to disqualify it! The real reason is I have a twin sister, and my dad, tasked with naming us, wanted something sounding close- So Noel and Nolene was the option! She is about 10 min older than I am, and as the Doctor said to my mother-Here's a perfect gentleman- he says "ladies first". I'll claim the accolade :

And you should not go saying nice things about South Africa- Now I am obliged to invite you for a visit! When are you coming?

[Merv-O]

Thank you. Many people ask me if I was born on Christmas day, or close to it! To which the answer is NO! 7th Jan is quite far away from Christmas to disqualify it! The real reason is I have a twin sister, and my dad, tasked with naming us, wanted something sounding close- So Noel and Nolene was the option! She is about 10 min older than I am, and as the Doctor said to my mother-Here's a perfect gentleman- he says "ladies first". I'll claim the accolade :

And you should not go saying nice things about South Africa- Now I am obliged to invite you for a visit! When are you coming?

Great anecdote. As an aside, how far away were you when you took the pictures of the ant hill? Are they Army ants? Are they even ants? Awesome....I never have my camera around when I see a unique bug....

[noelcmn]

Have no idea what kind of ants they are, but not an anthill, but a hole in the ground, which is applicable to many ants. Have seen others taking leaf matter into holes like that. And it disturbed, they come out of that hole by the hundreds!

[nosliwmit]

Kind of a slow week for POTW. Must be closing in on a holiday or something...

I got up early in my beachhouse in Tunisia to discover that the sky was on fire

Wow, gorgeous sunrise!

Some mean looking ants in that place

They do look a little threatening! I loved watching leaf-cutter ants when I lived in Panama. Fascinating creatures...

On Saturday I decided to take photos at a concert on film.

Cool idea. I particularly like #2.

Graystone Place, Bryn Mawr, PA

I like the B&W too. Kind of moody, and it leaves me wondering what created the ghostly fog on the left side of the image...


I went to a World Wildlife Federation (WWF) nature preserve in Hong Kong yesterday called Mai Po. It's a wetland, sandwiched between the mega-cities of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, that is home to a lot of birds. The treat for the day was a group of black-faced spoonbills.they're an endangered species with about 4000 individuals left. Saw some gorgeous grey herons too. All of these were taken with my K-5 and my DA*300.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

[Merv-O]

Kind of a slow week for POTW. Must be closing in on a holiday or something...



Wow, gorgeous sunrise!


They do look a little threatening! I loved watching leaf-cutter ants when I lived in Panama. Fascinating creatures...


Cool idea. I particularly like #2.


I like the B&W too. Kind of moody, and it leaves me wondering what created the ghostly fog on the left side of the image...


I went to a World Wildlife Federation (WWF) nature preserve in Hong Kong yesterday called Mai Po. It's a wetland, sandwiched between the mega-cities of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, that is home to a lot of birds. The treat for the day was a group of black-faced spoonbills.they're an endangered species with about 4000 individuals left. Saw some gorgeous grey herons too. All of these were taken with my K-5 and my DA*300.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

The crab lounging on the wet sand and its contrast of bright color against that drab background is quite poignant. Well done.

As for the "fog" in my photo of "Graystone Place", I believe that was from the slight overexposure of the entry lights. I would have post-processed that (tone it down with some edge vignetting), but I liked the eerie effect as well.

Thanks for noticing and happy holidays.