jonhock

Hi Stan, I feel like I'm still trying to get back in the "groove". Last September I broke an ankle and missed all of the trekking through the woods in the Fall. Winter came and we didn't get much snow. I feel Winter needs snow to be interesting. I did finally find a manual macro lens last January, an old Sigma 50 mm 2,8. It has a "zen" coating on the barrel which gets sticky over, I manages to get it pretty clean with alcohol. The lens was really great, but Friday night I got it out after not using it for a month or two, and the focus ring was really tight. I think that zen coating reared it's ugly head between the barrel and zoom ring. Anyway, I want to use it Saturday so I attempted a fix, it will work but I had to disconnect the zoom ring from the turning part of the barrel. I'm looking forward to Spring, what's happening with you?

When in doubt buy both.
But, really, I'm not the guy to look to for detailed lens comparisons. Right now I'm mostly using the DFA 100.

I agree, very good deal. And it's a macro lens. I think that's the widest macro lens available, at least in the Pentax line. I like that because it's a useful focal length. I had a couple 100mm macro lenses, and didn't find the length useful for much else. Maybe that was just what I was shooting at the time, but I just never connected with the length, always to long or too short. Anyway, I think you'll have fun with that lens.

Sorry to hear about medical bills, that's no fun. Last year I hit the out of pocket maximum on insurance on January 2nd. This year has been much better, but it's Wedding expenses for my daughter. I was able to pick up a Sigma 17-50 2.8 because she wants me to take "getting ready" pics before the photographer gets there, just about a month away now. That 35 macro sounds fun, hope you got a deal. I've got a few old manual lenses and early auto focus lenses that I've picked up cheap but just don't use them much. I half heartedly look for manual focus macro lenses. People are always stating in the forums that you can pick them up with reasonable prices. I very seldom see them and when I do they go for way more than I would pay. I'll close with wishing you more lenses and NO new medical bills.

I used the K-5 with, you wouldn't believe it, the much maligned el-cheapo Tamron 70-300mm LD VI Macro. I used the Metz 58 AF-1 with a StoFen pointed straight up at the ceiling.

The shot was RAW(PEF) and developed using my own workflow script that combines UFRaw and ImageMagick. The eyes got just a touch of contrast and saturation improvement in GIMP and that was all.

Hey, if it works *shrugs*
And the journey's half the fun too, so hopefully you had fun with making the conversion

About 3 am, it hit me that what I meant to say was Japanese Hydrangea and when I looked at the photograph I took, that was wrong too. Even more embarrassing is that I posted a shot of a butterfly sitting on a Lantana blossom. Lantana is common around here. The pup will be 13 this Thanksgiving. Sweet to a fault. Smarter than me, can identify plants accurately with just his nose.

Sounds like you're having a ball Stan. It's a lot to learn on the manual lenses without using a flash!.. I rarely use flash so I can only imagine. I recently got an A 60/2 and have been experimenting with "catch in focus", it's pretty cool. Hopefully we'll be seeing some of those K10D photos soon. Fortunately, Pentax Forums is a real help!

Wow, congratulations! I think you'll like it, and I hope you have a larhe hard drive on your computer. Hey did you get that 19-35 lens? I do prefer auto-focus lens, I get better results, but I've obtained some M42 lenses and really like using them too, that's th best thing about digital, I can take unlimited photos to try different settings or compositions and load them on the PC, look at them, delete what I don't want, and it didn't cost me anything more than the initial outlay. You can get to know your lenses at lot faster. I hope you did get that 19-35, 19 is pretty much the same FOV on the digital as 28 is on the film. Sounds like you'll be busy this week, I hope the weather is good!

No problem, I've never seen it implemented in such a way either, usually it's just written out or phrased as "lower 48" or something