Originally posted by boriscleto That's why it has a spring clip.
That's sort of what I finally figured out.
I just spent an hour composing a reply with illustrations, and when I went to post it said my message was too short (it wasn't) - try again - and all my work was vaporized.
Stupid me; I should have known better and copy pasted to a text editor before trusting this forum set up with it. It's happened before - apparently one of my java scripts expired since the last time I posted.
After several more wipe outs, java tweaks and re pastes (got it saved this time) it seems that ajax.googleapis.com does the trick.
I'm not a big fan of google, but apparently it's allow that script or don't post to this forum. Oh well... here goes:
This isn't going to be what the original was, but in short:
It was quite a relief to discover just how easy it is to release that little spring clip lock mechanism and remove the ring; had read where some people using the knock offs had their rings about weld themselves on to their camera.
The only issue I've found is getting the lens wound in to the body with enough torque so that it doesn't want to unscrew when I focus - which it was doing. My focus ring was quite tight and sticky at first, but a liberal sacramental anointing of Ballistol and running it back & forth several time seems to have loosened it up appreciably and now the lens is staying put while I focus. Someone mentioned oiling the aperture leaves - how do you get to them in order to do that?
I discovered that this 35mm WA pre-set can be stopped down in M setting and the camera won't hold it open against my will as it does with other lenses. I'm re familiarizing with the operation of the double set and stop rings.
In order to compare FoV between this WA lens on the K-100D and the pocket Optio W80, I stood in the same place on the back porch and took identical shots at our victory garden.
Using the 100D I stopped it down to f16 @125th, ASA 400, and got a blackout. Opened up to f11 and got a good enough exposure to see how much garden fit into the frame - the next one would have been f8 but no need to.
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Then took the identical shot with the Optio:
We are getting a lot more FoV with the 35mm than we did with the 50mm, but still not as much as the Optio. I can live with that I guess.
From there I moved into our little "Wylde Orchard" - a patch of woods in which I discovered some old wild apple trees struggling amidst the jungle overgrowth, so I cleared around a few of them and last April experimented with grafting. The fruit of most wild apple trees is inedible for all intents and puposes, but you can graft just about any variety into them so we're giving it a whirl and I take photos periodically to keep track of growth on the grafts that took.
It was overcast and the light wasn't really great, so for the heck of it I decided to try the flash again for a little fill in.
Dave, I think it was, had mentioned that although it was problematic, the unregulated, hyperactive, full power all the time flash could be compensated for to some extent by stopping down the aperture.
Lo and behold; now I have a lens that can be stopped down - so down I stopped and popped a flash.
Much to my pleasure and surprise, at f11 it came out a lot better than I had expected.
All I had to do with this one was to crank up the contrast and sharpness a little (focus is still pretty dodgy) re size it and add text:
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That worked out so well that I decided to conduct further experimentation in the dimly lit garage.
Using the lawn tractor as my subject at about 2m, I deployed the flash and let fly - still set at f11:
Since that seemed a bit underexposed, I opened it up to f8 and took another crack at it:
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Note how well focused the junk in the background is; now that's some serious DoF! A major improvement over what I was getting with the aperture stuck open all the time.
While shooting the tractor, sometimes the flash would fire and sometimes it wouldn't. I didn't see or hear a strope re-charging sound like some of the old strobes used to do, and I noticed a funny little flashing icon in my top LCD screen that looks like my Av button [+/-]. I didn't think that the Av button does anything in Manual mode, but I pushed it anyway and then the flash would fire with the shutter again. What's up with that?
Thanks again for all of you teaming up to try and help me get a clue; I actually think that I'm starting to at least sense a hunch here.
I still miss that good old reliable through the lens light meter on my K-1000, but now that I've figured out how to set both f stop and shutter speed (the whiz wheel does seem to work for that in M mode) I can at least guess at what settings to use, like I used to do back when I was shooting a lot of film. Now with digital feedback, I don't have to wait for a roll of 35mm to be used up and developed to see what I did right, and where I went wrong. By that time it was usually way too late to make corrections on the fly like we often can do with digital.
The transition has not been without frustration and angst, but it now appears that it might actually be possible.
Now to go out and take lots of pictures, keep experimenting, and hopefully that course I signed up for can build on what you guys have helped me learn. I'll try to keep you posted as we go. Still open to further suggestion!
Thanks again!