The Flickr Squareisbeautiful Image Generatr

A city without cars, bikes and scooters!
A trip to Venice is truly a visit to another world...

Heavy rain across Central Europe has led to severe flooding. Here the River Ybbs in Lower Austria is held back from adjacent housing by a dam that was renewed and strengthened in recent years.

SMC Pentax 18-55mm f:3.5-5.6 AL WR
PENTAX K-3iii Monochrome

It was pouring with rain, the camera and lens were dripping wet. It's good that both are weather-sealed!

All processing, contrast control, toning, shading, cropping, down-sizing etc., etc. has been done with the tools provided in the camera.

HSS!

Everything about the art nouveau Church of Saint Leopold in Vienna, Austria, is designed to be both extremely beautiful and also practical for the requirements of a chapel in a large mental asylum. The angels, four of them in all, standing above the entrance porch, seem to be radiating a message of hope and reassurance, in contrast to the often bitter reality of the institution.

By the way, this is a very tight crop. It speaks for the lens that I was able to crop to this extent.

Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar 120mm f:2.8 (Exakta mount)
Sony a7C

Carl Zeiss Jena

A lens from the arsenal of the medium-format Pentacon Six, here in a version for 35mm film in Exakta mount.

The golden dome of the Church of St Leopold, the chapel of Vienna's former major mental institution, known in recent years as the Otto Wagner Spital, in honour of its famous art nouveau architect. The copper dome roof is in fact covered with genuine gold leaf, here in glorious black & white!

Do zoom in to enjoy the high resolution of this fine Zeiss lens!

a beautiful yellow and white iris posing in a country garden...

captured with a backgound of softest bokeh by an HD Pentax-FA 35mm f:2 AL, an up-dated version of a lens from the 1990s and one that I would happily recommend to any Pentax user, or for that matter, to users of the many mirrorless cameras on the market.

All parameters were set manually :- focussing, aperture, ASA, shutter speed, white balance. All processing was done with tools provided in the PENTAX K-1 : the RAW conversion, plus digital filters, notably "Retro", which provided the white border and an overall yellow cast, fitting to the subject.

HD Pentax-FA 35mm f:2 AL

Asahi Pentax Close-up Lens No.1

PENTAX K-1

HSS!!!

HD Pentax-FA 35mm f:2
Asahi Pentax Close-up Lens No.1
PENTAX K-1

D750 + 1.7 teleconverter + 200mm f2

I find it quite inspiring to put a wide-angle lens on the Pentax K-1 and to shoot Black & White in square format - it's like going back to the golden days of the Rolleiflex!

The camera offers extensive possibilities to alter the parameters not only in colour, but also in monochrome, both before and after pressing the button.

With the exception of slight retouching on a highlight, all processing was done in the camera.

SMC PENTAX-FA 1:2.8 28mm AL
PENTAX K-1

HMT!

Orang-u-tang baby Kendari with her mother Sari at the Schönbrunn Zoological Gardens, Vienna. Proud Mum Sari presents her baby to visitors several times a day. When they've both had enough they withdraw to spend private time together...

Taken with a lens I'm currently trying out. It's an early Tamron, and in common with other manual Tamrons, it could be mounted via adapter to practically any 35mm SLR of its day, in this case via T2 adapter, precursing the Adaptall system. It's a 135mm f:2.8 lens with a many-bladed (16?) pre-set aperture, but it comes with a dedicated tele-converter that turns it into a 225mm f:5.5, and carries the proud name "Tamron Converto"! It suffers from the weaknesses of many uncoated fast lenses of its day, even more so when the extender is mounted. That having been said, it seems to produce attractive pastell-like colours of its own, and an old-world atmosphere in black & white. Its softness at wider apertures could surely be put to good use in pictorialist-style images.

PENTAX K-1

Two images side-by-side of the same subject, this one taken with a soft-focus lens, the other with a sharp macro lens - possible options for this week's Macro Mondays' theme "Wrapping".

Exclusive wrapping paper with old designs, printed in Italy.

Do zoom right in as far as it goes to see how the soft-focus lens has rendered the details of the printing matrix. You will discover that, while the image appears unsharp, it is not actually out of focus (apart from the upper edge, where I allowed the paper to keep its curl). I invite you to look next-door to see the sharp version! I'd be interested to know your preference.

SMC Pentax 85mm f:2.2 Soft
SMC Pentax 1.7x AF Converter
PENTAX K-1

Original size 2 1/2 inches

[For Imagon users: maybe that's "Kühn's bug" sneaking away into the corner!]

Macro Mondays 12.12.2022

I've posted two images side-by-side of the same subject, this one taken with a sharp macro lens, the other with a soft-focus lens -possible options for this week's Macro Mondays' theme "Wrapping".

Exclusive wrapping paper with old designs, printed in Italy.

Do view large and zoom in to see the colour details of the printing matrix and please do compare both versions. I'd be interested to know which one you prefer and why!

HMM!

SMC Pentax-A 100mm f:2.8 Macro
PENTAX K-1

Original size 2 inches

I have walked past an abandoned piece of equipment twice each day approx 90 times this year and noticed it but "never really noticed it".
Today it was raining and I had to head for cover and share 'its' space under an awning. It's a huge device but with very intricate internals.
I had my camera with me; it got my full attention today with a lot of interesting photos taken (IMHO).
This fine piece of British Machinery will no doubt end up being sold for scrap metal, which is a tad sad.
This pic is cropped to get the square format.
A few more posted pics later will reveal what it is unless someone can guess from this image?

ODC: One of the things doesn't belong here