Cheating on Pentax with Pentax

[JJJPhoto]

Recently I acquired an Olympus E-330 for a steal of a price and decided to pick up a Pentax-to-4/3 lens adapter for $20 since I have a ton of Pentax glass.

I have to say that I like the way the E-330 effortlessly meters with any Pentax lens I put on it. I'll actually go as far to say that the E-330 meters more accurately with my old manual focus glass than my K10D or DL. It also works great with newer Pentax glass in manual focus (as long as there's an aperture ring on the lens). Here is a shot I took with the E-330 and the FA 50mm f/1.4 stopped down to 2.8:



The focus is a bit off, but it was manual focus with a moving subject.

[ftpaddict]

Not bad... not bad at all!


I was kind-of hoping you'd be cheating on it with a 645 or 67.

[paugie]

I'd like to see some more cheating please.

That portrait is wonderful.

[JJJPhoto]

Originally Posted by paugie

I'd like to see some more cheating please.

That portrait is wonderful.

Well, this one was also taken with the E-330 ... this time using the Pentax Takumar Bayonet 135mm f/2.5 stopped down to f/4:

[barondla]

Nice shots. Exposure does look good. Where did you pick up the Pentax K-Olympus adapter for $20? Looked at them and they were around $180 new! Would pay $20-30 to use my Pentax lenses on E330/300. The 200 macro could be real useful with articulated liveview screen.

Thanks
barondla

Check out POINT & SHOOT CONTEST #10 WINNERS IN P&S forum. Enter #11. Any brand camera. Any subject. Enter now.

[k100d]

nice! and you can use live view for magnified focus
and the 50mm "Becomes" a 100mm portrait lens

[JJJPhoto]

Originally Posted by barondla

Nice shots. Exposure does look good. Where did you pick up the Pentax K-Olympus adapter for $20? Looked at them and they were around $180 new! Would pay $20-30 to use my Pentax lenses on E330/300. The 200 macro could be real useful with articulated liveview screen.

I grabbed one on ebay for $20 and the US seller actually shipped it fast (arrived 2-3 days) after purchase.

There are also more expensive adapters that offer an "AF confirmation" chip built into the adapter. However, in my reading online I discovered that while that adapter works great with M42 screwmount lenses, if you use K-mount lenses you have to mount them on the adapter in a weird way to avoid damaging the AF chip. The aperture arm on the K-mount lenses can actually snap off the AF chip if you aren't careful.

I just got the cheap adapter without the AF chip to be on the safe side. I also just discovered last night that that the E-330 has a "magnified" live view mode that makes manual focus MUCH easier. It's actually easier to use the magnified live view mode than it is to use the tiny viewfinder on the E-330. In fact, it's as easy to manual focus with that extreme magnified live view on the E-330 as it is to use manual focus with my K10D and Katz Eye split prism focusing screen.

Although the E-330 seems like a weird purchase (particularly for someone who used to always talk about how "inferior" the Four Thirds system is because of the smaller sensor size) but I couldn't pass it up for less than $200 and now some of my older Pentax glass has more life.

I honestly gave up using some of my old Pentax glass because of the combination of difficult manual focus (I'm getting older and my eyes aren't handling viewfinders well ... even with split prism screens) and the fact that that my Pentax DSLRs didn't always provide accurate metering with manual focus lenses.

There are some things I certainly don't like about the E-330, but I have to say I may have just found my new manual focus Pentax body ... and it's not from Pentax.

[barondla]

Guess I will have to keep a look out on ebay for the adapter. Thought I got a good deal on my E330/14-42 lens at $4oo new. Like your price even better . The chip in the 4/3 isn't as bad as many make out. Some of their controls aren't my cup of tea. Originally bought the E300/330s to use all my old OM lenses.
Using the Pentax lenses on E330 could be interesting. Magnified liveview is great for tripod work. Hard to use other wise. If I remember right E330 only has 1 mag choice 10X. They changed that on E520 to 7 or 10X. E300 has about 20% larger viewfinder than E330. Still get confused about the different liveview modes on the E330 at times. Need to use it more!

thanks
barondla

Check out POINT & SHOOT CONTEST #10 WINNERS IN P&S forum. Enter #11. Any brand camera. Any subject. Enter now.

[ftpaddict]

Originally Posted by barondla

Guess I will have to keep a look out on ebay for the adapter. Thought I got a good deal on my E330/14-42 lens at $4oo new. Like your price even better

I can get a second-hand, but excellent, E-410 + kit lens at just under $300.

A new kit is about $400 here.

[JJJPhoto]

Originally Posted by ftpaddict

I can get a second-hand, but excellent, E-410 + kit lens at just under $300.

A new kit is about $400 here.

Indeed, it seems like the Olympus DSLRs are currently the best deals in the DSLR market ... though the Olympus lenses are some of the most expensive.

I work with a website that reviews digital cameras and had the opportunity earlier this year to mess with both the Nikon D700 and Olympus E-3 and I have to say that in terms of body design and performance the E-3 is every bit as impressive as the D700 ... with the only exception being the image sensor.

Even the viewfinder on the E-3 is impressively large and similar to the viewfinders found on full-frame DSLRs.

When you compare the price of the E-3 ($1,400) to the D700 ($2,800) it's almost like Olympus is giving that DSLR away.

Although my recent acquisition of the E-330 was an "impulse purchase" because of the insanely low price, I'm starting to think I might start using two DSLR systems. That new Olympus that sits between the E-520 and the E-3 that was just announced looks like it might be impressive. I'll wait until next year to see if I'm going to actually purchase more stuff for the Four Thirds system or if the E-330 is it.

In the meantime, I have to figure out when Pentax is going to actually have the DA Limited 15mm, DA* 55mm, and the P-TTL ringflash available in stores ... and I need to figure out if I can budget for them without forcing my wife to kill me in my sleep.

[little laker]

Nice photographs JJ

It looks like Olympus almost does as good of a job with Pentax lenses, as Sigma bodies does with Pentax glass.
Like you said the metering is a whole lot better than it was with the K10 and K100 bodies, although I believe that Pentax corrected that problem with their new models.

[roentarre]

You did the exposure well. Usuaully I see noises with olympic picture posts in DPR. So I guess skill matters.

[JJJPhoto]

Originally Posted by roentarre

You did the exposure well. Usuaully I see noises with olympic picture posts in DPR. So I guess skill matters.

Any camera, even one of the new full-frame sensor DSLRs from Nikon or Canon can produce noisy images if you underexpose the image and brighten it (or "push process" the image) using photo editing software like Photoshop.

That's not to say that I'm anything special ... I'm just saying that any photographer can produce a relatively clean image from a DSLR with a 4/3 sensor if they expose properly and don't use the highest ISO setting.

Many people who complain about noisy images from DSLRs shoot at ISO 400 or 800 and then boost the exposure in Photoshop by the equivalent of 1EV or more. If you brighten an image by a full EV then it DOUBLES the ISO value (so an ISO 400 image becomes an ISO 800 image, and an ISO 800 image becomes ISO 1600, etc.).

If you expose an ISO 400 image correctly then you don't have to boost it later ... so ISO 400 remains ISO 400.

Of course, the trick with digital is that you don't want to overexpose/clip highlights so many photographer intentionally underexpose their images to avoid clipping the highlights ... but then they make their images look more noisy when they boost the exposure later on.