Carpe Lux Seize the Light

During today's excursion with the Swedish Jaguar Club, not one, not two, but three XK150s showed up -- one coupe, one drophead and one OTS. This is the leaper on the OTS. It made our ten-year-old X-Type seem brand new in comparison. :-)
More images on Picasa for now.

I don't know if all of you have thought about the actual difference between framing a shot with the zoom ring on the lens or just cropping afterwards - or how much a relatively inexpensive modern telephoto lens can magnify. I shot a few pictures while out bathing with the kids that I think will illustrate this.

While out looking for the Pleiades meteor shower, I took this exposure of the moonlit landscape.

I saw this fellow crawling across our driveway the other day so I hurried back inside, gathered the camera and lens, made dinner and ate it, washed up and rushed out just in time to see him/her come out from underneath the car.

A back-lit star hangs on a wall above a bunch of red tulips

This is an image of some old beautiful glass, a Tamron 135mm f/2.5 with Adaptall-2.

This is an image of some old beautiful glass, a Tamron 135mm f/2.5 with Adaptall-2.

A frosty railroad in the snow, lit by the setting winter sun with blue sky in the background

I just pulled the trigger and ordered a Pentax smc DA* 16-50mm F2.8ED AL [IF] SDM lens from Adorama. $659.95USD was just too good a price to pass up, especially with this weak dollar.

Update 1: UPS should be delivering it any minute now. Opening this box and testing the contents will be a lot like looking at Schroedinger's cat; I don't know if this copy of the lens is a dud (too many have been) or a gem.