Somedays being Sicilian isn't enough

There is fashion, there is fad
Some is good, some is bad
And the joke rather sad,
That it’s all just a little bit of History repeating.

And I’ve seen it before
And I’ll see it again
Yes I’ve seen it before
Just little bits of history repeating

I have always been Sicily’s version of Eliza Doolittle. I’ve always listened very nicely, then gone out and done precisely what I want. Somehow it’s always worked out for me. Mainly because I’m Sicilian; I just keep hammering obstacles with my concrete head until they give up and clear out of my way.

Most times this works out for me. It’s how I’ve ended up with my wacky career and enjoyed all sorts of shenanigans.

Occasionally the answer is no. Repeatedly.

When I lived in Tokyo and bought every Pentax lens I could find I picked up the very first of the Pentax star lens series, the SMC Pentax-M* 300mm F4. I’ve never been very much of an ultra-telephoto guy, but it rounded out my lens lineup. Then for good measure I added the Pentax Rear Converter-A 2x-S, which gave me an effective 600mm lens on Pentax LX. Wow!

Except…I don’t believe I’ve ever taken a single usable photo with that combo in the ensuing half century. Just cannot handhold it well enough to get a shot.

Lately I’ve been dabbling in bird photography, mostly because my son is into it. And it’s something new to learn and master. So I dusted off my old Pentax K-70, put my HD Pentax-DA 55-300mm F4.5-6.3 ED PLM WR RE on it, and went birding.

Buy Me a Cup of Coffee

Now the DA 55-300 is amazeballs on my K-3 III Monochrome. On the old K-70 with its ancient autofocus and sensor…not so much. I can shoot birds with the Monochrome, but colour kinda seems the point with bird photos. Though I’ll probably try to figure out Monochrome birding at some point.

Here’s a shot with the K-70:

That’s about a 50 percent crop. And I realized that I pretty much have the zoom maxed out continually.

So why don’t I try the SMC Pentax-M* 300mm F4 and Pentax Rear Converter-A 2x-S on the K-70, which has in-body image stabilization? Surely I’ll be able to hand-hold that! Even if it’s effectively 900mm on APS-C!

Nope.

That’s like a 66 percent crop. Just…no.

But that’s the fun of learning something new. Experiment! Fail, sometimes spectacularly…

Then get right up, dust yourself off, and do it all over again.

The path to success is to Fail Faster.

Next up for me: the SMC Pentax-M* 300mm F4 on my Fuji GFX 50R, where it is a 240mm equivalent on the 50 megapixel (sorta) medium format sensor; and the SMC Pentax 200mm F4 with the Pentax Rear Converter-A 2x-S on the K-70. The 200mm is not only smaller and lighter than the 300, it lacks the dinner plate front element that makes the latter so front heavy and hard to hand-hold steadily.

Off to fail some more…