365: Eccentric Strands

Settings: f/2.8, 1/50, ISO 400, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension, tungsten light. Slight lighting and tone curve adjustments, noise reduction and slight sharpen.

338: Oven-Fresh Biscuits

Settings: f/4, 1/5, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2 M42, 9mm extension, tungsten light, cable release, tripod. Slight curves adjustment and colour correction.

333: Coconut Moon

333 Seems like an auspicious number; not sure why, apart from the repetition.
The coconut simply looked interesting close up, and as with things I find interesting, I often consider the possibility of a photographic record.
Plus it looks rather like the moon.

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 51mm extension, 1/4 flash (bounced,) white card, tripod.

328: Pepper Juice Purses

Not seaweed, but capsicum. The firm pockets of juice on the inner walls of this yellow pepper are very shiny, and are highlighted very effectively by lighting sideways on.

Settings: f/8, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 68mm extension, 1/4 flash, tripod. Colour and levels adjustment, slight sharpen and crop.

320: Confection Racket

I drop the M&Ms and try to trigger the camera at the right: Not easy to do, especially when you consider that all digital cameras have a slight delay between pressing the button and the shutter opening. Okay, DSLRs are pretty damn quick, but the delay is nonetheless there. Out of about fifteen tries, I got two-thirds fairly well timed, but I really could have done with more M&Ms to fill the frame. Like a whole bowl next time!

Set up with a large mirror on a table, black velvet cloth hung over from behind at a slight angle, and a barrier of upended VHS cassettes around the perimeter.

Settings: f/7.1, 1/180, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, mirror, black velvet, tripod. Levels adjustment and crop to vertical 16:9.

254: Double Thorns

Settings: f/11, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 33mm extension, 1/4 flash, foil reflector, tripod.

235: Edge of the Goo

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 26mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, tripod.

221: Brown Sugar Crystals

I thought the coarse sugar crystals looked nice on this fruit cake. Then I took this, and they look even more interesting now.
I took the photo just before I had to go out for the evening, but noticed a tiny red fibre on the image once I had copied it over. I intended to re-shoot it when I got back, but when I returned, the cake was cut up and mostly in the freezer...
Cue a lengthy clone stamp session, but it's gone now.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50m Pentacon M42, 33mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, tripod. Some cropping.

219: Poppy Heads

Until today I hadn't realised just how many seeds one of these pods can contain; I collected a good two handfuls of seeds from a small patch of these poppies. With any luck there should be lots of poppies in my garden next year.

Settings: f/4, 1/160, ISO 200, 50mm Pentacon M42, 10mm extension.

217: Walnuts on White

Settings: f/4, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 9mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, tripod.

205: Cardboard Cross-Section

Settings: f/5.6, 1/4, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 77mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, copy stand.

196: Bread and Oats

Settings: f/8, 1/2.5, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 10mm extension, 1/4 flash, white cards, copy stand.

191: Drain Frog 2

Settings: f/2.8, 1/30, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 17mm extension.

178: Crusty, Trusty & Rusty

I will not apologise for the condition of my old boots; they are fifteen years old and well used. I took a very similar photo a couple of years ago, but have revisited it here as the previous photo had somewhat inferior colour and detail.
The laces shown here are the second pair, and will probably outlast the boot by now.

Settings: f/8, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42, 19mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

173: Toasted Buckwheat

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Pentacon M42, 68mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod.

172: Another Frog

Settings: f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm, pop-up flash.

168: Buckwheat Columns

Settings: f/11, 1/3, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 77mm extension, 1/4 flash, tripod.

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.

089: Vinegar & Oil

Oil and water-based liquids repel each other in very pretty ways sometimes. It's even better when they are brightly coloured, but vegetable oil and balsamic vinegar will do here. At least it looks appetising, after a fashion.
I splashed some vinegar on a plate of glass, then used a syringe to drop some oil onto it. Quite a lot of the oil migrated outwards before I finished setting up the shot. The bright oil bubble in the centre has very good contrast and sharpness.

I used the Helios-44 preset lens on an indeterminate aperture today, so it's listed as and approximate measure.

Settings: ~f/8, 1/125, ISO 100, 58mm Helios-44-2, 10mm extension, 1/4 flash, glass & white reflectors.

066: The Year We Make Potatoes

Not the year 066, I mean 2010. As far as I know, we haven't made contact yet, or built a great big spacecraft to travel to Saturn to check out all the weird happenings there...
Crap Sci-Fi film title reference aside, we can at least grow potatoes. Check out the super furry shoots on this one - coming along nicely.
A maincrop potato like this "Desiree" variety doesn't benefit much from chitting before planting, but it's not like I have a choice; they'll just start anyway. So they're kept in the light, where they go green, short and furry instead of in the dark where the shoots go long, pale and stringy.

Settings: f/11, 1/180 sec, ISO 200, same lens as yesterday but with black background.