Just a Hint...

Sunrise fizzled a bit, but I still had a good time watching it unfold....

Why I get up early some days......

The 4 Amigos!!!!

As you know by now I added a new lens and in an old photographic tradition I took pictures of the new guy with his new/old friends. I guess I am turning into a collector of vintage Pentax lenses. The beginning of a disease known in the photographic community as LBA-Lens Buying Addiction. It is certainly a thrill to hold and use a new guy!

Here they are at infinity focus with caps on. (L to R) K28mm f3.5, K35mm f3.5, K50mm f1.4 and K135mm f2.5. They are reasonably compact, but the 35 is just really small, making for a nice package on the camera. Would show it on the camera but I am without another camera to take a picture of my camera with....

Fully extended to close focus, still compact, though the 135 is getting a little long. It is a solid chunk of glass for sure!

And two head on. The first three have a 52mm filter thread, which makes it easy to share filters and a rubber lens hood. The 135 has a 58mm filter thread.

It is interesting to see the color difference with the 50mm coatings, there is a reddish tint to it, which I never noticed before.

Ah..... a New Lens!!!! Pentax K 35mm f3.5 (The Poor Man's Limited)

Got lucky enough to purchase a lens at a firesale price from a friend of mine (Ron Brandon aka brandrx on DPReview) it is a Pentax SMC K 35mm f3.5, one of the first series of lenses in the Pentax K bayonet mount, when they switched from their old ScrewMount (M42) style lenses. I have wanted this lens for a long time to match with my other K lenses. I have to say so far that I think it is a beauty! Color and contrast are really good even wide open and it is sharp too. I really need to put it on a tripod and try some controlled testing, but I reckon that it is at least as good if not better than my Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4.5, not bad for a 30+ year old lens!

First two shots are in the Scofield, UT Cemetery, went to visit a grave of a greatgrandmother and meet Ron to buy the lens as it is sorta midway between the two of us. Though I think it does tend to overexpose, in part due to the fact that I only get spot metering when using non "A" aperture ring lenses.

This is a beautiful place and I need to visit again early in the morning I think.

I call this "Rural Decay" because Scofield is not urban or suburban by any stretch.

We ate lunch at a small park, while my tadpole #3 was playing I saw this just a few feet from the last shot, I love the colors this lens produces!

The rest of the shots here were taken this morning in the area around my house. This lens is a great "Walkaround" lens.

I did NO color adjustments at all, just a slight exposure adjustment and two passes of USM (one at 100%, 1.5 pixels, 3 threshold, and another at 20%, 60 pixels and 0 threshold)

These guys are untouched, the first is at f5.6 or f8.

Tried to frame it the same but failed, this is at f3.5 (wide open) I think that the bokeh is reasonable both stopped down and wide open!

I love this bridge, it is on Oquirrh Lake by my home. I was combining breaking in some new hiking boots and playing with my new lens.

Unusually for Utah there was some fungi growing, I thought it would be fun to again play with the aperture/DOF. This was at f8

The rest of these are at f3.5, the bokeh is slightly nervous but not bad to my mind.

I really am impressed with the sharpness. Here is a goose that I think turned out quite nicely, again with two passes of USM.