Welcome to the list, Jim! If you've been lurking for more than a couple of days you will have noticed a few simple guidelines to its usage.
I think number one is "don't believe anything that Frank Theriault, Cotty and Mark Roberts say". My premonition says that this list will grow in near future <looks over his shoulder>...:-) My personal number one is actually "remember the delete button". Just to counteract the... um... prolification. Regarding your shot and the observation of smoothness, I assume you mean the out of focus areas? I couldn't agree more. It has a lovely softness about it. Maybe you are familiar with the term "bokeh"? >From past discussions on this forum I've learned that this particular trade-off between sharpness and bokeh is indeed one of the design characteristics of Pentax and Takumars. Greetings from Oslo, Norway, Jostein On 7/11/06, jim kerslake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Just saying Hi, from Yorkshire UK. > Thought I might join your rather prolific list for so long as my mailbox can > stand it. > > I have been taking photos for a couple of months - no idea what brought it > on. Some kind of madness. > > I mostly enjoy using my father's old Pentax Spotmatic F with a broken > lightmeter. > I have another Spotmatic (not F) which actually works, but I really don't > enjoy fiddling about with that black metering switch on the side. > > I did buy myself a digital SLR recently - > (not a Pentax - sorry - I wanted anti-shake in the body at a time when > Konica-Minolta was the obvious and very affordable choice), > but I dunno - I'm more of a film type I think. > I only really enjoy using the D-SLR when I stick old M42 Asahi Super Multi > Coated Takumar lenses onto it. > So I consider the results of that to be at least half-Pentax. > > I am obsessed with old Takumar lenses, since they seem to have magical > qualities of sharpness mixed with smoothness that I can't get any other way. > They almost seem to "melt" things, like the brickwork here: > http://www.jimkerslake.uklinux.net/pentax/oiljug.jpg > > So - well - Hi then :-) > > jim -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net

