[Cerebum]

Re. printing. During the year I select my favourite images, then at the end I do a cull and print the best in a photo book. Its a great way to view my progress. I use blurb. The initial cost isn't cheap but extra pages are. I generally pay around £40 all in for a 70 page book. There is an app in the UK called Free Photo books. You pay about £6 for handling and get a glossy mag with about 20 pages. That's really nice if you are doing a project or want to give someone the gift of our genius

[Mikey Floyd]

However, for me, on-screen or projected photographs are a discipline in their own right. A lot of my better macro work has made talks and lectures of my wife significantly more engaging, and she's somewhat known in her community for excellent illustrations and photographs. And while some may serve documentary purposes, most are just photographs to catch attention. And without electronic presentation, I would never have learned about your photographs (all of you here), out of which some have been truly inspirational.
<snip>
So I highly recommend printing as a way to evolve your photography and keep it interesting. Unfortunately, at some point, it may lead to additional expenses though, even if you don't print yourself: A color-correct monitor and a tool to keep it calibrated ...




Mikey, not having any waste water treatment would likely make me think twice as well. I do collect the developer and fixer that I pour out (separately, including first rinse) and take them to the city's waste management, so only the washing water goes down the sink. The silver content of the collected fixer is still recycled, I think.

Yes definitely. Apologies if I came across as disparaging towards images that remain on the screen. That was not my intent. There are many individuals here, and just as many paths to walk, I can only speak for myself of course.

Yes, it costs money for sure. I bought the monitor calibrator shortly after the printer, and will likey at some stage upgrade to an external monitor that is more accurate. My needs here are less immediate than many others as I'm printing almost exclusively in monochrome.

Good tip about the city waste management, there must be something similar in Hobart. I'll follow that up, thanks.

-

---------- Post added 05-31-22 at 12:47 AM ----------

End of the Month Wrap Up.

It was, as always, a grand pleasure to be along for the ride with you all. The lens is a winner, nothing has changed since mid month. I'd say this is the lens that will see the most use for me over the coming months and (hopefully) years. It's my home focal length, it does everything I need, it's not too big, it's a pleasure to use, I can service it myself. What more could I ask for?

The daily requirement to produce an image has me, of course, presenting some images that would otherwise never see the light of day. At the same time, each month that I join in with you guys, I end up with two or three images that I really like, one's that I probably would not have come up with otherwise. This is a great thing.


By month's end, each month I have done this, I do get a bit ready to stop the daily routine. This is nothing to do with the lens, or the daily shooting - this is just about turning the computer on each day. I very much enjoy the give and take that we all share, however computers give me a foggy head and I generally like to go a couple or a few days between computer sessions. As such I'm going to skip June, and likely July as well and rejoin sometime after that.


I am also looking forward to pulling out the wide options and putting them through their paces over the next little while - it's as much about solving the puzzle of my ideal minimal lens kit as anything else.

I've also signed up for a 3 day (nights actually) workshop on 'Low Light Photography' during June and am looking forward to that. The only downside is that I tend to come in to the warmth when the sun goes down rather than head out into the dark and cold. (Not cold like most of you guys experience, but cold enough) and dark here is dark . Walking on a dark night without a torch is to walk by sound and feel alone. So it will be interesting to see what we come up with in our low/no light photography adventures.


Turns out that 5 'rolls of film' was a touch on the generous side for the month, I only used 4. I'm happy about that.

-


My favourite image for the month?...


My favourite imagine I took this month did not even get chosen on the 16th when it was taken. Go figure.




Edited to add: Is that really my favourite image for the month? I thought so but now I see it here in the thread I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm just indecisive Lol.

[iheiramo]

To end the month I lowball by shooting brown cardboard box But I made it thru with perfect score. I shot every day and managed to hand on to daily posting too. Well the scrore is perfect only if we count those two attributes. My commenting was lame this month and I often took the easiest road to shots. Luckily I had macro, so many of those turned ok. Some even good.

M50/4 macro is a solid lens. Main weakness is 2:1 and not 1:1 magnification as proper macro should do. But there's nice rendering. Lovely bokeh and transition in close work even stopped down. In landscape work it doesn't loose much to M50/1.7. Very good lens at decent price. Still it doesn't see much use, as I have fifties I prefer over it in general use and true 1:1 macro lens at 60mm, which is my #1 choice for macro work. I wil keep it thought. At least as long as I hang on to my set of M's. After all it's nice to take it off the shelf occasionally and take it to a little spin.

Still undecided on June. Maybe I should just chill out, keep shooting daily and not demand so much from myself. In the end the May provided some nice shots thought I didn't put so much effort into them. Just collect what's available and keep recording everyday life events. We'll see tomorrow.

So some favorites from the month. This one for the reflection and water colour.



This one is probably the best landscape I've taken from the stable towards the lake. There's this big salt marsh area that often leave empty space in compositions, but in this it's hidden by the bush on the foreground. Also horse fills the foreground with interest.



This is one of those "oh I need a shot for today" shots. Just reached out to snowcat model and placed it on keyboards. You can't get any lazyer, but it turned out to be fun shot.



This is something that I actually put some effort into and it provided. Simple and lovely.



This was no accident either. I saw the light and black backdrop provided by the box on the table. I did brighten the yellow to make the handle stand out more. Very pleased on how this turned out.



I expected some other shots from that day to make it, but lens did render this very nicely and I couldn't resist.



And finally this one for incredible pop. The horse is jumping right out of the frame. Also nice flow on the mane.

[garywakeling]

Well that was a fun month with an extremely solid hunk of glass and metal. This lens feels about twice as heavy as you would expect. The addition of the focus limiter helps to reduce the amount of hunting when in macro mode. It also gives excellent details when used as a short telephoto. The only weakness seems to be the need to always use a lens hood when shooting in to the light or flare can really spoil the images. The special magic trick seems to be the really nice, almost swirly bokeh when focused on subject at around 2-4 feet away, the background really gives a lovely bed on which the subject can pop out. I probably missed out on using it's macro features as much as I should have this month, however it was so good I think I will single the lens on the K3 on another month just to show me how it handles more as a macro lens
Some pics that I liked from the month









the special trick


Roll on next month
Apologies for my lack of commenting lately, life is getting back to some sort of normality and I hope to have more free time to annoy you all with picture commentary

[Tsuken]

May with the SMC Pentax-DA 16-45 f4

... it's a good lens. To be fair it's probably a very good lens.

... I don't find it an exciting lens. But it is very useful, and it can assist in making some good photographs. I feel quite pleased with a few this month, for instance... but I still can't get excited about the lens.

I don't think it cost very much (was a present, so I don't know how much). It's quite light, not too big. It's got quick-shift focus, which I've found handy a small handful of times. It's not WR - which I've found the opposite of handy, quite a large number of times. It's a zoom lens, so you can do zoom-bursts, which is cool.

16 mm is really good to have. 45 mm is pretty good. In the middle there it has 21 mm which is excellent.

The lens does impart a nice je ne sais quoi to images sometimes. But sometimes not. So I dunno what that's about. Maybe it's not really anything to do with the lens.

Verdict: I'm glad I have it; mainly for the 16 mm end tbh. So yes, a DA15 would be better ... but ... way more dinero, so I'm comfortable with this, for as much as I seek that degree of wide-ness.

Faves from the month:


Bursting cranes by -Occasionally Focused-


Lying in wait by -Occasionally Focused-


Golden slivers by -Occasionally Focused-

[Jeff]

I have completed my second month, not missing a day. It is certainly a challenge but one I've enjoyed immensely, not least because of all of you here! I'll see June brings - I suspect it will be a zoom, perhaps the 18-135 on the KP. My hands are full of arthritis (I've contracted viral arthritis for the second time after Covid-19 in January - I had it in 2013 after another viral infection) so the lighter body is easier to handle. So until the virus stops attacking making my body attack itself it'll be light stuff all the way! I had the K-1 and 50/1.4 AW out the other day and I do miss using it, but it's a step too far at the moment. Thanks again folks - it's been wonderful. Here are a few of my favourites over the month in case you missed them..! ; )

I like the 31/1.8 a great deal - on either the KP or the K-1 and it'll be one that I keep forever. I think about the 21/2.4 but I just know it will be too wide for my taste, and the 31 is plenty wide enough on the K-1 and tight enough on the KP - the best of both worlds. And its rendering is at times magical, like 3D.

[IMG][/IMG]

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---------- Post added 05-31-22 at 01:08 PM ----------

Re. printing. During the year I select my favourite images, then at the end I do a cull and print the best in a photo book. Its a great way to view my progress. I use blurb. The initial cost isn't cheap but extra pages are. I generally pay around £40 all in for a 70 page book. There is an app in the UK called Free Photo books. You pay about £6 for handling and get a glossy mag with about 20 pages. That's really nice if you are doing a project or want to give someone the gift of our genius

Thanks for the link - I've since saved it.

[jersey]

It is raining, yay! (I am really happy) so I will most likely shot some security subject at home.

I am pretty happy with this month. 70mm Ltd is brilliant lens for airplane spotting, crisp, sharp, great details and works nicely even wide open. No issues with it and it is so light and small. And it works pretty well for other purposes, even as walk around lens though I needed to think and walk a lot with it to get shots I wanted. I am happy I decided to keep it.

As for favourite shots, I think those three:

[Chris_K]

I had skipped yesterday and today it was more convenient to take the GR3 for a walk ao I'll call it a month. The DA 40/2.8 is a great lens - very good optical quality, nice to handle, nicely sharp from wide-open, good bokeh... but somehow it didn't catch on with me. I think the main reason is that the focal length is not that far from the DA35 macro (which I own and like a lot) and I see no direct advantage of having such a compact lens. Thus, it's going for sale. Anyway, I took with it many images which I really like. Thank you all for your feedback. Below are some of my faves.

[Cerebum]

Well, the 18-135mm surprised me. I know it is reliable and steady but the image quality is really quite good, for a kit lens. It still wasn't good enough to choose it over the 20-40 for a recent festival though.

[JensE]

Two new lenses to put on the sic roster - ordered new. Unusual, but not the first ones. I promised to sell at least three . I resisted the weighty eighty temptation, as well as the K3-III. On the first one, I'm fairly sure after comparing it with my Sonnar 180/2.8 again, mechanically.

[JensE]

and dark here is dark .

Have fun and enjoy the darkness - my most beautiful night sky shot ever was a spontaneous single exposure with the slow Sigma 8-16mm on the KP, on a business trip weekend off. None of my planned, carefully exposed, filtered, stacked, tracked and blended other night skies with much more suitable equipment come even close. Reason: It's been taken in your corner of the world (closer to Gary though).

[Riggomatic]

Made it through May with the SMC-K 200mm f4. I enjoyed taking shots at the minimum focus distance, just to blur the background away at f8.

Other than that, it will go back in the cabinet for now.


A few of my favorites this month:

[blackcloudbrew]

Try film! Its a whole new obsession. I have a Pentax MX for everyday shooting but my favourites are two TLRs, a Yashica mat and a 1946 Zeiss ikoflex. I develop (mono) in my kitchen and scan the negs with a macro lens. Its the complete opposite to pointing and shooting. There is no pixel peeping, its film, no pixels lol, so everything comes down to exposure, composition and the character of the film (things non photographers see). Each film has different characteristics (light/shadow detail, grain structure)and these can be further impacted or manipulated by the characteristics of different developers. I am far less obsessed by the end result, its all about the making, taking and baking there is also a mindfulness aspect in both shooting and developing, you can't rush it. Initially, because of the learning curve, film took over but things are levelling out and I think I am a better photographer than I was, purely because it has forced me to stop and think

Much like doing a sic series with Ms and Takumars

I do shoot film almost always B&W, although not lately. Not a bad idea either. I have a Pentax 35mm body, several 6x6, 6x7, and several 645's so it's not too hard to pull out one of them and shoot. I can develop at home too, just got out of practice. Thanks.

[iheiramo]

Made it through May with the SMC-K 200mm f4. I enjoyed taking shots at the minimum focus distance, just to blur the background away at f8.

Other than that, it will go back in the cabinet for now.

200mm really should be a macro lens or at least close focusing. That would make it a lot more usefull focal length in camera bag. Too bad those are so rare and expensive.

[garywakeling]

Have fun and enjoy the darkness - my most beautiful night sky shot ever was a spontaneous single exposure with the slow Sigma 8-16mm on the KP, on a business trip weekend off. None of my planned, carefully exposed, filtered, stacked, tracked and blended other night skies with much more suitable equipment come even close. Reason: It's been taken in your corner of the world (closer to Gary though).

Not fair, please share the shot so I can try and track down the location