Cottonwood Park with the Limited's

Left the office a bit early and took a stroll around Cottonwood Park to check out my new Limited lenses reported in the previous post.  I was shocked to see the damage from last winters ice jams, the bridges over the creek that runs in from the river were totally destroyed.  The metal supports looked like pretzels and the trails have been closed.  There is work taking place to make new trails that appear to stretch the route somewhat over what it was previously, but some new bridges will still be required.

Here are some shots employing all three of the limiteds, it may be difficult to tell the difference between the 35 and 77 in these shots, but there is no mistaking the perspective of the 15mm lens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I might add, the reason for all those images of leaves is that I am trying to find an image to enter in an online competition (just the glory, no prizes) where the subject is "Leaves".  Here is one taken previously with my 105 macro lens.

Limited Lenses

Pentax make a series of small high quality prime (as opposed to zoom) lenses they call their "limited" series.  The DA lenses are for APS-C sensor digital cameras as the image circle is designed to cover that format and may cause some vignetting with a 24X36 negative/sensor size. The FA series was originally introduced in the film era and will cover the larger format, but works perfectly well with the APS-C digital cameras.

My camera bag was getting too big and heavy so time to build a light travel kit.  I already had the DA35 macro limited and I have just ordered the DA15mm wide angle and the FA77 medium telephoto.  The latter will also make a good portrait lens for available light photography because of it's focal length and fast f/1.8 aperture.

Here is the line up of the 3 Limited lenses ...the images are not quite to scale but this gives a good idea of how compact the series is. I can't wait for the two new lenses to arrive....

There are two other FA limited lenses and quite a few more in the DA series.  However, these three provide a useful focal range and will allow me a lot more portability than my regular camera kit. And, what is nice is I funded these purchases from the sale of some old gear that was no longer being used.

Thanksgiving weekend road trip

Made a quick trip to Grand Prairie over the Thanksgiving weekend to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of some friends for whom my wife, Faye, had stood up for all those  years ago.  They must have all been in kindergarten as none of us are old enough to be celebrating a 50th anniversary.

When ever we make a trip like this, Faye says "OK I'm ready, lets go!"  ..I then have a half hour wait before she actually gets to the car.  So the first couple of shots is just me doodling, passing the time.  We saw lots of game on this trip, the first was the big bull moose that, unfortunately, had snuck off into the willows before I got my camera out.  We also saw fox, coyote and deer in abundance, and just as we were reaching home, near the university, we saw a cow moose and her calf and this time the camera was ready.

Faye had wanted to take the truck but I vetoed that, Rob had also suggested that if we took the truck "Mom would be stopping all the time to pick up rocks for her garden" ...well we took the car but that did not deter Faye.  We did stop near Bijou falls to pick up some slate and you can see the cliff from which the slate had fallen in one of the shots.  Of course the main purpose of the trip was to celebrate Loraine and Albert's 50th wedding anniversary and we were joined at the dinner by an old school friend of Faye's.  After the dinner, we all went to Loraine and Alberts daughters house for coffee where I got some shots of the group.  Then a long leasurely breakfeast with Faye's nephew, with whom we stayed, then back to PG.