Welcome to the 558 edition of Picture of the Week (POTW), covering 15 July - 29 July 2019. Let's see what you have been shooting these past two weeks. 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, 526-538 noelcmn, 539-545 aaacb

Read more at: Welcome to the 557 (POTW), covering 8 July - 22 July 2019 - PentaxForums.com


Bled Swimming Challenge is the biggest Open Water event in Slovenia. The competition is a part of Austria Open Water Cup and it is supported by Slovenian Swimming Association. The event has professional and recreational nature. Everybody can take part in it – from professional and recreational swimmers to families which like to spend their free time actively.

Grand Bled Swimming Challenge (5000 m) The race takes place in the western part of Lake Bled. The start and the finish are in Mala Zaka. The course has a shape of an incorrect rectangle and it leads you to the island and back. It is marked with 4 buoys. If you want to finish the marathon successfully, you have to swim 4 laps counterclockwise.

There will be time limit of 2 hours and 30 minutes.Small swim challenge 1250 m If you want to finish the marathon successfully, you have to swim 1 lap .No time limit.
Some highlights:warming,waiting- strong team of Swimmers of the Republic of South Africa was present ,jumping into water on positions,start from water,swimming along the outside of the buoys so that the buoy is closer to the left side of the body,Slovene remote swimmer Špela Perše was the 16th at the World Championship in Gwangju in South Korea for five kilometers (58: 12,10).And 1 st at Bled, cheerful British girls

[aaacb]

Thanks for hosting, eva

I haven't shot much, and most of the little that I did was on film, so all I have is this one with the gr iii. I processed it in darktable to clone a distracting sign out and to darken the parts of the walls closer to the camera, especially the left side.

[smf]

Thanks for hosting, Eva.

I'm a fan of daylilies, raindrops on flowers, and insects which aren't bothering anyone or anything. So this scene was a jackpot. (A katydid is in the background.)
The lens on my tripod-mounted Pentax K-S2 for this shot is an smc Pentax-M Macro 1:4 100mm.

[noelcmn]

Thanks for hosting Eva, ever so interesting images you started us off with, and gratified to read South Africans are part of the equation there. Its been mentioned on a local radio station here. Particularly like 4th one, and the last one is hilarious. Those must be the South Africans . Fabulous shots from aaacb and smf. A quick contribution from me, not much shooting, as it's been a hectic couple of weeks at the Orphanage where I also work, and looks all set to continue.


A rather late or too early brood of goslings at Zoo Lake


And the coots are always there


Playing with a plastic balloon that had some lights attached


Playing around with the decor at the 60th Birthday party I attended of one of my congregants- these are small- for the Texture challenge for DIC.


And one from yesterday- Copying smf and his fabulous macro shots

[rtmarwitz]

D FA 100 on the K-1ii -- handheld. Just some of "this and that" a couple days ago around the place I call home. Not sure about great, but it was fun for me.

[eva]

D FA 100 on the K-1ii -- handheld. Just some of "this and that" a couple days ago around the place I call home. Not sure about great, but it was fun for me.

Welcome.Thank's for posting here. Nice series.Like them a lot.

[rtmarwitz]

Welcome.Thank's for posting here. Nice series.Like them a lot.

Thanks Eva!