301: Bling Extra Galaxies

Settings: f/16, 1/4, ISO 100, EOS D30, 50mm Pentacon M42, 8mm extension, 4x starburst filter, turntable, black velvet, halogen lamp.

282: Business Unusual

Settings: f/4, 1/250, ISO 400, EOS D30, 24mm Tamron Adaptall.

279: Acrylic Diamonds

Settings: f/4, 1/250, ISO 100, EOS D30, 50mm Pentacon M42, 8mm extension, 4x starburst filter, black velvet.

273: Perched Aloft

"It's just a pigeon..."
Not great, but not bad for an equivalent 1600mm lens hand held.

Settings: f/16, 1/250, ISO 400, EOS D30, Tamron SP 500mm adaptall, 2x teleconverter.

265: Night Street Discs

Nice images can be taken with a fast lens wide open and focused to the minimum distance.
The old EOS D30 definitely has some dynamic range issues: Highlights blow quite easily, even in RAW. I had to convert the CRW files to DNG using the Adobe DNG converter, otherwise RT wouldn't read the colour settings correctly (totally skewing the white balance, and giving a purplish tint to blown highlights which is near impossible to recover in post-processing.)

Settings: f/2, 1/20, ISO 400, EOS D30, 58mm Helios-44M M42. DNG RAW.

135: Skull Profile Cloud

Settings: f/22, 1/200, ISO 100, EOS D30 & Tamron SP 28-105mm f/4-4.5, luminance curve adjustment.

128: Red Hairberries

Today I've also been taking some test shots with an old Tamron SP lens on my D30; with an M42 adaptall and M42-EF adapter.
I'm delighted to see that the exposure was spot-on in nearly all the shots I took - a better show than my K10D, which is a good six years newer. I know that the oft-cited PentaxUnderexposure(TM) can be better for preserving highlight details, but I don't always want to post-process everything I shoot. I am getting to prefer the Canon's more consistent exposure, even if it blows the highlights sometimes. It's just more reliable!
I would just shoot RAW if I wanted to rework problematic exposures, although I'm not so sure that the D30 has as good dynamic range in the highlights. I would use the K10D instead, as I normally do.

I used aperture-priority mode instead of manual now, because:
1. Using an old lens with M mode requires me to first focus, stop down the lens, then select the shutter speed with the control dial until it the registers roughly in the middle of the EV meter. But stopping down a lens makes the viewfinder display go dimmer; in bright daylight this contrast can make the EV meter fade into total obscurity.
2. After testing the camera with a borrowed autofocus lens, it was left on AV mode. I didn't realise until I later took a perfectly-exposed shot with an M42 lens, then noticed the mode. I didn't think of using it like this (at least not with this camera,) but AV is definitely easier now.

Settings: f/3.5, 1/25, ISO 400, Tamron SP 28-80, EOS D30.

120: Apple Blossom & Fly

Settings: f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 400, 50mm Cosinon M42, EOS D30.

119: Hungry Snail

Fancy munching on a weed? You're welcome to it, snail. But touch something that I planted on purpose, and you go for a compulsory flying lesson.

But I do not advocate cruelty to animals! I see it simply as a matter of protecting my investment;

Settings: f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 400, 50mm Cosinon M42, 9mm extension, EOS D30.

117: Spooky Street Lamp

Settings: f/2.8, 1/50, ISO 400, 28mm M42, EOS D30.

111: Mushroom Double

Upon my egg box of corn salad seedlings sprouts a stand of tiny mushrooms. Too curious not to record in an image today, they await an identification which may never happen.
They're certainly pretty close up, resembling a group of very flat jellyfish-like creatures.

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 17mm extension, 1/4 flash, foil reflector, tripod.

Is 111 a lucky number? Today I recieved a new (old, second hand) DSLR, a Canon EOS D30. I had no illusions about its image quality compared to the K10D, but it's ideal for shooting animation with. Why?
1. They're very cheap!
2. I don't have to wear out my K10D on animation now.
3. It has a DC adapter with its battery charger, an otherwise expensive extra, but essential. Plus, it works with the 10D, 20D etc.
4. The 2168x1440 resolution (small, but still plenty of room for cropping to full 1080p HD.) Also, the small option (1440x960) can be used for 720p.

I shot the same scene on the D30 with the same lens and flash setup, but the framing is different, due to a slight move to get it into minimum focus (because of the lack of 1mm extension by PK adapter) and the different crop factor (1.6x as opposed to 1.52x)
However, it took a while to get the manual flash working, as I didn't realise I needed to tape over the four extra hotshoe contacts - as with the K10D. Consequently, the mushrooms, having grown in a plastic bag and around 100% humidity, had already started to shrivel in the dry air. But no matter, it's also interesting for that reason.

Settings: as before, except 1/200 and 16mm extension.