Originally posted by Munki I'm not saying the 28-105 will be a complete replacement for the trio. I'm noting its merits as an alternative for when the weather is a bit dodgy and you need the WR.
Mate that umbrella is genius! Have you got a work log on how to make one?
Originally posted by MJKoski Well I wrote a review in the lens review section but I guess no-one liked it when I explained in detail why. In short, the Irix has plain horrible field curvature and cannot be used to shoot sharp image of night sky wide open or even near wide open. You either get a frame where center and edges (yes edges) are somewhat okay OR mid-field which is somewhat okay. Not both.
Also, the field curvature of the Irix is further amplified at close distance which is explained plain wrong in most reviews (softer results than @ infinity). It is not that simple. Instead, the imaging field turns to sphere near camera and focus stacking must be used to get sharp results all the way to frame edges at a distance of meter or so.
Tamron 15-30 design runs circles around Irix and has much lower field curvature, better flare resistance and overall resolution at all apertures @ 15mm. That did it for me.
I'll take some pics of it later. Word of warning tho, I wouldn't advise really shooting or leaving it on for long in the hotshoe. The K-1's hotshoe is most definitely Pentax's Achilles heel, I have seen countless users show images of the hotshoe that has completely come away from the camera body, effectively ruining the camera completely. Yes you can solder back on and epox, but really once its suffered trauma like that its value is gone and so is the WR. So to attach a brolly might should like a cool idea but even a gentle amount of wind could wreak havoc!
I use mine purely to just 'dock it' for things like lens swapping when the camera is tripodded, between takes I undock the umbrella and hold it. I might shoot with it on for some rainy portrait work but only if I felt the chance of wind was low.
I'll take some pics later today to illustrate the bits I used. It's still a work in progress. What I need to do is also have something that can easily dock onto the tripod and do the same thing without worrying about the hotshoe, using the hotshoe also negates the possibly of flash as well.