[snostorm]

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Hi All,

This is getting interesting. . .

I've only had a few opportunities to shoot the Q with my SLR lenses. It's challenging to nail the focus, but I'm getting the hang of focusing with the LCD. MF is tricky, even with the MF Takumars and their long focus throw but it's possible, even for me. . . When I get a K>Q adapter with a tripod ring, it'll be a lot easier.

All of these were handheld, shot in jpeg, the D FA 100 and FA 50 shots were cropped to 8x10, the Takumar shots are all uncropped. All were PP'd to taste with Dnoise and Infocus only, and resized for posting.

The FA 50 f1.4 allows focusing to @ 1.5 ft, so as @ a 180mm EQ on APS-C, allows some available light close up capabilities.

FA 50/1.4, 1/100, f2, ISO 200


The D FA 100 f2.8 Macro is EQ to using a 360mm Macro on APS-C, so ultra close ups indoors are a possibility.

D FA 100/2.8, 1/100, f2.8, ISO 1250


D FA 100/2.8, 1/100, f2.8, ISO 800


D FA 100/2.8, 1/100, f2.8, ISO 640


Outside the slower M42 Takumars are small, so much more handy, the FLs are longer, and the MF feel is helpful for faster focusing. I used Pentax original M42 to K adapters. Both of the K mount lens adapters were loose on my camera's K adapter, so I stretched a small rubber band over the lens mount which added more friction so the lens doesn't rotate when focusing or adjusting the aperture ring.

The 135/3.5 Super Takumar is EQ to a 486mm on an APS-C. It wasn't long enough for the distance I was forced to shoot at, so I only took a couple of shots with it. It's rated @ 8.33 on the PF lens database.

135mm f3.5 Super Takumar, 1/200, f3.5, ISO 125


The 200mm f4 Super Multicoated Takumar is a very nice compact 200mm for use on the Q. It's EQ to a 720mm on a APS-C.

200mm f4 Super Multicoated Takumar, 1/320, f4, ISO 250


200mm f4 Super Multicoated Takumar, 1/125, f4, ISO 125


200mm f4 Super Multicoated Takumar, 1/400, f4, ISO 250


Just to give some perspective, here's a shot taken with the 47mm EQ prime from the same spot as the Takumar shots, about 15 ft away from the tree.



These shots are not as good as I can get with my DSLRs and 510mm and 714mm lens/TC combos, but, considering handheld with no SR at 490mm and 720mm EQ, MF using an LCD, and "consumer" grade tele primes that cost me less than $20 USD each 6 years ago, they're not too shabby with the Q. Shooting from a tripod would help considerably. Shooting the Q with super tele lenses, despite the very light weight is very challenging, but fun.

The one thing that's a bother though is that these 60's vintage lenses don't have the ED glass to control PF and CA, and with the very high pixel density of the Q, color aberrations that are barely noticeable on larger sensors are very evident on Q shots, especially when super accurate critical focus is hard to achieve. I've got a good method of eliminating these aberrations, and don't mind them, but more modern lenses with better color aberration correction would probably be better for the Q.

All in all, so far the Q is living up to my expectations as a digital TC. I think that when I get the K>Q adapter with the tripod ring, the A*200/2.8 and FA* 300/4.5 will do even better.

Scott

[rawr]

considering handheld with no SR at 490mm and 720mm

You did very well indeed, also given the relatively slow shutter you were using for the focal lengths involved (eg 1/125 for about 720mm APS-C!). Shot with a tripod, faster shutter speed etc these would pick up quite a bit more sharpness I expect. Very promising results.

[aurele]

you did some impressive shots here, considering the FL and the speed

the DFA seems very promising : macro tele and a very tiny DoF i'd love to see some flowers pictures with it

Very promising results.

indeed !

[knightzerox]

Really beautiful photos. I can also vouch that getting the focus right with the long focal lengths and no shake reduction can be difficult. The quality of the images seems to be good though if you get it right.

Here's one I did today, 205mm ( 1100mm EQ? ) at f/5.6 1/800 at 125 ISO of a swan. The image has had some sharpening done because of my mis-focus and a slight boost in contrast.

Attachment 108246

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Last edited by knightzerox; 09-10-2014 at 08:47 PM.

[snostorm]

Hi rawr, aurele, and knightzerox,

Thanks for taking a look and the time to comment!

You did very well indeed, also given the relatively slow shutter you were using for the focal lengths involved (eg 1/125 for about 720mm APS-C!). Shot with a tripod, faster shutter speed etc these would pick up quite a bit more sharpness I expect. Very promising results.

rawr -- Thanks!

I'm hoping that Pentax Ricoh will add SR capability for adapted lenses, so that handholding tele SLR lenses will be a bit easier. If they could also make focus confirm work, and even better -- Focus Trap (Catch in Focus) work with the CD focusing system, this would be a dream come true for adapted lens use.

JR at jinfinance just sent me a message today saying that they have a K>Q adapter ready now with the tripod mount, but no aperture control ring. It will apparently take about another week for the one with the aperture control. I'll be ordering one of the latter as soon as they make them available. I'm curious to how my DA lenses will work with the Q as they are at least very good optically, and would be convenient because of their compact designs (DA 18-55, DA 50-200, DA 18-250, and DA 55-300) I'm very curious as to how the DA 10-17 FE will work with the Q as it would be a 55-94 (35mm EQ) lens on the Q but with the FE distortion and considerably wider FOV than the FLs suggest

A tripod would help, but consider this -- the M42 lenses that I used here are only above-average lenses in IQ. I really only tried them because I have them and they're compact enough to be useful as easy carrying lenses. I was pleasantly surprised by the results. I have some superb long fast glass waiting in the wings to try yet: Tamron SP 180 f2.5 Adaptall 2, Sigma EX 180 f3.5 Macro, A* 200 f 2.8, FA* 300 f4.5, FA* 300 f2.8, Sigma EX 300 f2.8, and Tamron SP 300 f2.8 Adaptall 2. I'm hoping that the premium lenses will show a proportional advance in IQ potential over these lenses to what they do on a DSLR. If they do, then the results should be really impressive. . .

you did some impressive shots here, considering the FL and the speed

the DFA seems very promising : macro tele and a very tiny DoF i'd love to see some flowers pictures with it

indeed !

aurele -- As mentioned, I hope to be able to do much better with premium glass. I also have some ideas about how to work around some of the problems that I'm having getting used to using the LCD as a VF and manual focusing. If all of these work out, then I expect to get considerably better results. . . we'll have to wait and see.

Really beautiful photos. I can also vouch that getting the focus right with the long focal lengths and no shake reduction can be difficult. The quality of the images seems to be good though if you get it right.

Here's one I did today, 205mm ( 1100mm EQ? ) at f/5.6 1/800 at 125 ISO of a swan. The image has had some sharpening done because of my mis-focus and a slight boost in contrast.

knightzerox -- Nice! I've been practicing with a local Swan family also since the white birds are a challenge to expose correctly and the Q seems to blow highlights more easily than my DSLRs.

I'm looking at this: 2.8x LCD viewfinder loupes for Canon 600D 60D 7D T3i | eBay

. . .to modify for use with the Q for tele work. It will not work as is since the LCD on the Q is offset in relation to the tripod screw, and I doubt that they will make one specifically for the Q, but it would be a starting point. . .and the loupe sticks to the frame by magnets, so it should be convenient. With 2.8x magnification, it should help in MF. I currently am using a Hoodman LCD loupe with rubber bands, but it doesn't magnify, and it's a pain to attach (plus it looks a bit cobbled together ).

Scott

[Mistral75]

(...)

JR at jinfinance just sent me a message today saying that they have a K>Q adapter ready now with the tripod mount, but no aperture control ring. It will apparently take about another week for the one with the aperture control. I'll be ordering one of the latter as soon as they make them available.

(...)

The K --> Q adapter with adapter ring made by RJ is now for sale on eBay.

Price: USD59, free shipping.

RJ Pentax PK PK-A AF DA lens to Pentax Q adapter with tripod mount aperture ring | eBay

[snostorm]

Hi Mistral,

I just finished ordering one!

I also ordered one of their 2.8x LCD Loupes for the Canons. I should be easily modifiable to fit the Q reasonably, and the magnetic mount to the metal frame should make it convenient enough to use. . .I've been using my Hoodman Hoodloupe so far, and it's got some shortcomings that I hope this new loupe will address.

This adapter with the tripod mount and the loupe should make things much easier for me as most of my 100-300mm lenses don't have tripod collars, and the lenses don't have any clear area to mount one if I had one that would fit. With the extreme 5.53x crop factor and no SR available, tripod use becomes a lot more important since the image on the LCD jumps around quite a bit, and critical focus is hard to determine.

If shipping time is about the same as my previous orders from jinfinance, I should have these items in about a week, and hopefully weather should allow some serious testing with a few of my premium tele lenses, so I'll post some examples when I get something worthwhile.

In the meantime, I'll have to work out some sort of L bracket to use this adapter in ladscape mode since it appears that the mount does not allow rotation of the mount in relation to the lens, and both of my best tripod mounting schemes need the mount to be on the side of the lens instead of the bottom.

Also, looking at the pic of this adapter, it looks like it will act as a preset mechanism with FA and older series lenses with aperture rings, and though it will allow stopping down a DA series lens, you'll have to guess the actual amount that you're stopping the lens down. Perhaps not ideal, but definitely workable, IMO.

Scott

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Last edited by snostorm; 11-08-2011 at 04:35 PM. Reason: added some text.

[barondla]

I ordered the adapter also. Would have been nice if the tripod mount rotated. It appears the mount is just screwed on to the bottom of the adapter. There might be room to mount another for vertical. It would require a second adapter to gut and possibly a few holes to be drilled.

How long before some enterprising modder removes the K mount, replaces it with K mount that has electrical connections and then does the same for the Q end? Be nice if RJ would build this.
thanks
barondla

[devorama]

I ordered the adapter also. Would have been nice if the tripod mount rotated. It appears the mount is just screwed on to the bottom of the adapter. There might be room to mount another for vertical. It would require a second adapter to gut and possibly a few holes to be drilled.

How long before some enterprising modder removes the K mount, replaces it with K mount that has electrical connections and then does the same for the Q end? Be nice if RJ would build this.
thanks
barondla

Doesn't your tripod have a way to rotate the entire head 90 degrees? No need to modify the adapter. Also, the K mount and Q mount are probably not the same interface with a different physical size. So just connecting the contacts is probably not an option.

[snostorm]

I ordered the adapter also. Would have been nice if the tripod mount rotated. It appears the mount is just screwed on to the bottom of the adapter. There might be room to mount another for vertical. It would require a second adapter to gut and possibly a few holes to be drilled.

How long before some enterprising modder removes the K mount, replaces it with K mount that has electrical connections and then does the same for the Q end? Be nice if RJ would build this.

Hi barondla,

I think that it's unlikely that one would be built with a rotating tripod collar, as much as I'd like one. . . this would add significantly to the expense of mfg, and I'm thinking that most wouldn't be willing to pay extra for this.

Accurately calibrated F-stop increments in the aperture control ring would be nice, but it's not really that necessary. It's possible since K mount lenses starting with the A series lenses use aperture lever displacement that is directly proportional to aperture opening area. The thing is, with the small sensor, we'll probably only be using a few of the wider apertures to keep from losing much resolution to diffraction, so it should be easy enough to meter wide open within a stop or two, then stop down the lens to get the correct exposure.

As for the contacts, my thought is that the 8 Q mount contacts share few if any common functions with the 7 possible contacts on K mount lenses. On the latter, only two really relay any data, and the rest are either shorted or open to make up combinations that tell the body max and min f stop ranges in different lenses. I haven't seen anything about the functions of the individual Q mount contacts, so I have no idea what they do.

For an idea of what the K-mount contacts do: http://www.robertstech.com/matrix.htm

Regardless, AE is unlikely as the aperture control is part electrical and part mechanical in the K mount. A lever in the adapter would have to actuate the lever on the lens, so some virtually instantaneous solenoid in the adapter would have to be used to do this, and this would need battery power, which the Q has little enough of as it is. . .AF is probably out of the question also for the same reason, but even moreso.

The only feasible reason to have any contacts on the adapter would be for automatic lens ID to set the SR, but it would be much easier to modify the firmware to allow manual FL selection for unidentified lenses as has been implemented in the DSRLs to achieve the same thing. I hope to see this in a future FW update. . .

Scott

[barondla]

Valid points. Guess we will have to work with the adapters that are available. Got my c>Q adapter and the K > c. Also got the OM>c adapter for Olympus. The k>c came from Cam-cor. It does not have adjustable ring for aperture control on newer Pentax lenses. Does not matter much since the RJ has been ordered.

It was dark when I got home from work, but I still shot a few night images. A few things I noticed:
1. Focusing can be interesting. Wonder if a firmware update could increase magnification past 4x?
2. The electronic shutter can only go down to 2 seconds. Wonder if fw update can change that?
3. Shooting the moon is harder than it looks! Used an Olympus 180 lens. Full moon doesn't fill the frame. When meter is on bright moon exposure and VIEW is fine. When moon is out of meter range the view goes nuts and gives totally over exposed/impossible to focus moon - even on manual exposure. Only fix I could find was put moon in very center of frame and use spot metering. Then you have a moon image that can be focused. There needs to be some mode on mirrorless cameras that doesn't tie view to exposure. My Olympus Pen does the same thing.

Will play this weekend and try to post shots afterwards.
thanks
barondla

[Mock]

Didn't really want to share this since it's not totally solid yet, but according to my Pentax rep, SR focal length input is coming when the Pentax K-Q adapter is released.
He is really impressed with the responsiveness of Ricoh compared to Hoya, they added fixes in 1.01 which he had requested specifically.

Back on topic, I've ordered the RJ adapter as well...the C-Q and K-C stuff hasn't even arrived yet.

[liukaitc]

1/100 shutter speed for FL beyond 500mm??
I think it is very easy to get blur img

[aurele]

he didn't have other choice i think, according to iso and aperture used.

[snostorm]

1/100 shutter speed for FL beyond 500mm??
I think it is very easy to get blur img

Indeed! With my Pentax DSLRs and SR enabled, I can get a reasonably good success rate at 500mm and 1/125, but without SR , it would be pretty dismal. The owl and turtle shots were with very good support, even though handheld, the frog was handheld at an odd angle unsupported, and all of the sparrow shots were from a seated position, but without any extra support -- these were the most prone to camera shake as they were with the longest lenses.

he didn't have other choice i think, according to iso and aperture used.

Aurele is correct, there was little choice since I did not want to use any artificial light this close to these animals, and I wanted to use the lowest ISO possible to retain as much fine detail as I could.

Scott