Mark, 'From your lips to (the Pentax) God's ear' on new macros, teles, and wides. The red admiral shot is especially nice with the flowers in focus. If I knew more about snakes, I'd probably be impressed by those shots too. Regards, Bob S.
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 10:38 PM, Mark C <[email protected]> wrote: > A couple weeks ago I stumbled into a remarkably golden colored hog-nose > snake. I broke out my macro setup to get a photo, but to my dismay the shots > were way over exposed. I managed to make some adjustments and was able to > get good shots in the field, but it looked my my A* 200mm Macro, which was > repaired a year ago, was again on the fritz. A few days later I was home for > lunch and spotted a red admiral butterfly on a bush in my back yard - again, > major problems with exposure, though I was able to work around them. > > Examining my old lens I saw that it stops down two stops off from where it > should - for example, set the camera body to f 16 and it stops down to f8. > But the shutter speed will be set to the f16 speed. If I use the aperture > ring, it stops down correctly. I looks like the repair I had done last year > has come undone.... > > So - I bought a "new" A* 200 off ebay last week. I've been out of town on > business this week, and just picked up the lens last night. Ran just a few > quick test shots, but I have to say it is just smashing to have what is > essentially a brand new A* 200mm macro back in the kit. I hope to take it > out this weekend - the Dot Tailed Whiteface dragonflies should be appearing > about now.... > > I plan to sell my old A* 200 off to help recoup the costs. While I am super > happy to have this lens, the only thing that is depressing is that two of my > last 3 lens purchases were to replace legacy lenses that you just can't get > anymore for the Pentax system. That would be the 200 macro and a Tokina > 400mm f5.6 (my original Tokina got clouded with fungus).... The Tokina was > only about $300 to replace - but it bugs me that I'm spending money on old > lens to maintain my lens lineup, and there are no NEW Pentax lenses to fill > the slots. Well, I plan to be first in line for that 550mm lens when it > shows up.... > > On the plus side, I set aside a portion of my income from photography to > reinvest in what is now my hobby and over the last could years, since there > is not much to buy in the Pentax world, the account got pretty flush. Not > such a bad situation - I've finally spent more on a gear than on film and > chemistry. > > Lastly - I almost wound up moving over to Nikon as a result of all this. If > I could not find a good replacement for my 200mm macro, I figured to get a > D7000 ($1200), a NIkkor 200mm Micro ($1400) and suitable Nikon flash and > cable (~$350). I put a slight premium on sticking with Pentax and won the A* > 200 by a tiny margin over the last minute snipers. Pentax once offered the > most complete lens line up of any manufacturer. With limited lenses etc they > have offered a great lineup of lenses. But they are still short of the > specialty glass - super telephotos, serious macros (beyond 100mm) and ultra > wide-angles. Hopefully they are on the way back there (and again, the 550mm > lens is a good sign....) > > Here's a link to the photos of golden hognose snake I mentioned above: > > http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/index.php/title-5 > > And here is a link to the Red Admiral also mentioned above: > > http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/blog6.php/2012/05/11/red-admiral > > MCC > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
