[blackcloudbrew]

With excellent results: great month

I would echo this as well. WG you got some great shots this month.

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Pinhole month wrap up...Yes July has been a long and difficult month for me. First off I want to thank all of you who took the time to view and comment on my fuzzy efforts with two pinhole lenses. While I've done enough of these challenges to be able to keep going through a tough month, your comments and encouragements have been very helpful. Second well and third fourth etc. all go into conclusions. Clearly the Skink pinhole lens (and my two other body cap pinholes) work as lenses if you don't mind dusty images, soft blurry shots, and very difficult exposure issues. I was glad that I was shooting with my K5 because my old K20d (which I still use for some challenges) would not have fared as well at the high ISO numbers I typically had to use in lower lighting situations. I did learn that I just had to tap off my OVF and use liveview for framing and composition with the pinhole lenses. That was VERY helpful. All that said, my takeaway from this month is that, pinhole lenses are interesting for occasional use but not continuous use. I'm not sure what that occasional use is but...I'll figure it out down the road somewhere. It is very simple to use though almost point and shoot in Av mode mostly (manual mode was not that helpful actually). Anyway, my images (and your comments) this month speak for the rest of the conclusions on this lens. Not much else to say except, I gave it my best try and I'm happy to be over with this month.

Review of the 07 Mount Shield Lens - Once again I first thank you all for your comments it was a comfort. I'm glad I ran this lens in sequence with the Skink pinhole because it gave me a constant and daily comparison of the two lenses. Without the 07 to provide something that approached a nice image, I might have not made it through July. I have to say that I'm both happy and a bit impressed with the 07 lens. I always thought it was a bit silly for Pentax to make it (and charge a bit of a high price for it as well) but because this is Pentax made it works very well with the Q system - and as I've found, that's a very good thing. While I doubt it will ever get a following like Lomo photography or Lensbabies, on the Q, it's a fun and useful lens and I will use it creatively in the future. Clearly it's center sharpness and soft edges are a good balance - and as I've demonstrated with the Skink pinhole this is a totally different look than other pinhole lenses. So...it's a keeper for sure. So much for the good stuff, the down side is that it's not good at night and gives no useful bokeh (or sunburst either). That is to be expected though. I wish my Q7 was back from repair for this month though as it might have been better at some of the things I put my Q through. My conclusion is that the 07 lens is one to have around on a Q, it's size and weight are next to nothing and it's very fast and fun to use - mostly - but not for an entire month.

Thanks again all and please don't send me your bills for the eye exams you've needed after review my Single in July 2015 images

[wstruth]

I originally had some concerns about using this lens this month on the K-S2. not because it isn't a prime or isn't the best zoom out there, it's not but because it was softer on the K-S2 than on my K-x or K-5. my first thoughts were that it was the extr mega pixels on the the K-S2 but when i clibrated the the focus on the lens it really uppeed the results. So

the good: its versatile, it has surprisingly nice bokeh. For my uses it was best as a pseudo macro and the long end of its telephoto range but I did manage a few shots at wide angle that I liked.

the bad: its a super zoom and has to be used with that in mind. if youwant an ultra sharp or fast lens it is not this one.

Over all it will be back on the camera again good for walk around and travel it holds its own and delivers when you need it as long as you'r not looking to pixwl peep.

some of my faves from this month (it also got 3 explored 3 on flickr) even though I missed a good portion of the month.

[UncleVanya]

I originally had some concerns about using this lens this month on the K-S2. not because it isn't a prime or isn't the best zoom out there, it's not but because it was softer on the K-S2 than on my K-x or K-5. my first thoughts were that it was the extr mega pixels on the the K-S2 but when i clibrated the the focus on the lens it really uppeed the results. So

the good: its versatile, it has surprisingly nice bokeh. For my uses it was best as a pseudo macro and the long end of its telephoto range but I did manage a few shots at wide angle that I liked.

the bad: its a super zoom and has to be used with that in mind. if youwant an ultra sharp or fast lens it is not this one.

Over all it will be back on the camera again good for walk around and travel it holds its own and delivers when you need it as long as you'r not looking to pixwl peep.

some of my faves from this month (it also got 3 explored 3 on flickr) even though I missed a good portion of the month.

I am a fan. That's one of my favorite lenses.

[g026r]

Still got a few more days to finish processing & posting, but some thoughts on my lens of the month: the Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 EX DC.

To put it simply, I was not a fan of this lens. I bought it to take shots where I needed a wider lens, but rarely get it out as it just doesn't speak to me. I hoped that a month of using it would hope me find my love for it, but that just hasn't happened.

The good things about this lens: fringing is incredibly well controlled. I think it compares favourably with my FA50/2.8 Macro, which I consider my lens least prone to fringing. Size-wise, while the lens is big, it's also quite light. It's quite wide, and it produces nicely contrasty images that look great in B&W.

Actually, let me restate that: it's incredibly wiiiiiiiiiiiiiide. (I believe that Sigma's 8-16 is the only wider rectilinear available lens for K-mount.)

Things I'm less fond of: the sharpness. I found I was generally sharpening more than I normally like to in order to get the images to a state I was happy with. I also frequently found myself unimpressed with the colours from it. I'm sure there was nothing wrong with it, and that someone with a better mastery of colour could pull more pleasing results from the images than I did, but I often found myself looking at the colours and going "I just can't see what I could do with these to make them better."

Neither good nor bad, but just things to note: Vignetting is fairly pronounced at all focal lengths, and there's a fair amount of distortion at the wide end.

I'm thinking that I might not keep this lens much longer. Partially because I'm not in love with the focal length, but partially also because I'm not in love with the lens itself.