[MJSfoto1956]

Michael, thanks for your solution. That actually might work for me.It still allows my Mestos to "live" on the camera, and when I am out, throw on the Acratech. It may be a bit bulky but allows for a no-twist custom solution. But what I am really interested in is how you lit your camera for those shots. Nice detail without washing out the blacks. The catchlights in the lens look like windows, but the overall effect looks like studio lighting. Care to share?

Window light coming from my right on white foam board. Not much else to it.

Michael

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Last edited by MJSfoto1956; 07-27-2015 at 12:43 PM.

[evilcartman]

Window light coming from my right on white foam board. Not m much else to it.

Michael

Wow. I can spend an hour with a light tent and it doesn't look that good.

[stevebrot]

Window light coming from my right on white foam board. Not m much else to it.

Michael

I have to chuckle. That is my practice as well for white-background gear shots, though I have a north-facing breakfast nook with windows on three sides and cellular shades should I need to soften the light.


Steve

[gosman]

RRS now has the L Plate for the K3. While a RRS K5 L Plate, which I have, will work on the K3, it is not totally accurate. With the correct L Plate for the K3 you have access to all of the connection port openings as opposed to a partial blockage resulting when you use a custom K5 Plate on the K3. If you only use the plate to lock on your ball head, then just a basic plate will suffice. The advantage to the L Plate is that you can change from landscape to portrait mode without having to recompose. The current RRS catalog lists the K3 conventional plate which is modular for $150.00 (US).

Jay

RRS only has the L-bracket for the K-3 body only. Not the battery grip. I don't leave home without my battery grip. My hands will not fit that puny K-3 body alone!

[evilcartman]

RRS only has the L-bracket for the K-3 body only. Not the battery grip. I don't leave home without my battery grip. My hands will not fit that puny K-3 body alone!

And they will not make any more of them. I have talked to them about this. When this run is out, they are all gone for good.

[gosman]

It is time to boycott RRS!

[RockvilleBob]

Does not bode well for follow on Pentax cameras. Mad for Camera rackets were very good. I have their K5, K5 with battery grip and K3 with Battery grip brackets. I do not use the K5 bracket and should sell it.

[stevebrot]

It is time to boycott RRS!

No...it is time to buy their product. Companies quit making that which does not sell.


Steve

[gosman]

Is this the one Bob the Rock? Mestos PD-K3HL


Pluses and minuses please. Access to all pullouts and buttons on the K-3 with battery grip.

[RockvilleBob]

Is this the one Bob the Rock? Mestos PD-K3HL


Pluses and minuses please. Access to all pullouts and buttons on the K-3 with battery grip.

That is the one I have, works fine for me.

[evilcartman]

That is the one I have, works fine for me.

Mestos is MIA. If you go to their site and put any of the Pentax products in your cart you will not be able to check out. They will not return any emails or queries, or at least that's been peoples experience so far. As far as anyone knows Mad for Camera was the only outlet for Mestos products.

It looks like it maybe their storebrand but regardless if anyone can get an answer from them that would be awesome.

While a few users of claimed the brackets by Markins etc. worked for them, those are not in fact custom brackets they are universal buy plates none of which of ever worked well for me personally.

So as far as I know and I've scoured the Internet, the only outlet for custom plates is RSS and they won't be around much longer for Pentax.

It's funny. I know I have whined and I have bitched about Pentax and Ricoh and Hoya etc. About their lack of professional features: tethering, disabeling of flash at high speeds, and other various unnecessary irritants. But I'm still around. Cranky and occasionally angry, but around. Because what you get is still a very high value feature set, even though the missing features (it's just absurd that they're missing because they're such easy things to implement).

It's like Pentax does the hard stuff and then they fail on the easy stuff. it frustrates me to no end. But if they change the bodies again and I can't get plates, that is going to be THE dealbreaker for me. I cannot even consider or comprehend owning a camera without a custom dovetail plate.

I don't want to switch to Canon or Nikon. I want Pentax to make it so I don't have to.

I'm not sure what they can do about the plates issue. Accessories are a chicken and egg thing obviously. But Pentax needs to engage the manufacturers and encourage them, help them, do whatever they need to do to make these accessories available.

If they are indeed coming out with a full frame camera, then they intend to go pro so to speak. And they need to step up their game with accessory manufacturers. This includes stuff like making the APIs and communication protocols available so somebody can write a tethering program for the newest cameras. (I knew I'd get tethering in there somehow)

It seems like accessory manufactures must feel the way Pentax customers feel a lot of the time, ignored.

I've looked into switching a couple times. The amount of money I would have to pay to Nikon or Canon to get the features I missing plus the features I already have is considerable. A great example is I love that I can pop any lens on my camera and it's instantly stabilized. They pretty much put all the features they have on every camera.

So basically that leaves me the choice of encouraging Rico and Pentax to fix the stuff I feel is broken and I think the only way I can do that is by being one of the squeaky wheels.

[RockvilleBob]

I relate to your concerns. No solution is perfect we just need to settle on the best compromise. After settling back and taking stock of what I need and what I want in my next camera I've established a need category and a want category. Since most of my photography is wildlife my need category has a single item, state of the art auto-focus. If the next Ricoh/Pentax camera has this I remain a Ricoh/Pentax customer. If it does not have state of the art auto-focus I will not buy the camera and will likely switch to either Nikon or Canon. There are several items in the want or desire category. This includes more long lenses and the L Bracket which both are impacted by third party suppliers. Pentax needs more users to get companies like RSS and Mad for Camera to make brackets for Pentax and companies like Sigma to make lenses for Pentax. It is frustrating yet understandable that Sigma and RSS focus on Canon and Nikon. The bottom line for me - I await the introduction of the next high end Pentax camera to see what the company does to get into the game. From my perspective this boils down to state of the art continuous auto focus for moving subjects. If that happens I stick with Pentax and lament the lack of Sigma lens offerings and L brackets.

[MJSfoto1956]

I relate to your concerns. No solution is perfect we just need to settle on the best compromise. After settling back and taking stock of what I need and what I want in my next camera I've established a need category and a want category. Since most of my photography is wildlife my need category has a single item, state of the art auto-focus. If the next Ricoh/Pentax camera has this I remain a Ricoh/Pentax customer. If it does not have state of the art auto-focus I will not buy the camera and will likely switch to either Nikon or Canon. There are several items in the want or desire category. This includes more long lenses and the L Bracket which both are impacted by third party suppliers. Pentax needs more users to get companies like RSS and Mad for Camera to make brackets for Pentax and companies like Sigma to make lenses for Pentax. It is frustrating yet understandable that Sigma and RSS focus on Canon and Nikon. The bottom line for me - I await the introduction of the next high end Pentax camera to see what the company does to get into the game. From my perspective this boils down to state of the art continuous auto focus for moving subjects. If that happens I stick with Pentax and lament the lack of Sigma lens offerings and L brackets.

The easy solution would be to simply "build" the Arca flange into the design of the body.
Make it square and centered on the lens in both axes.
Pentax could pull it off. CaNikon will never.

Michael

[Jake21209]

The RRS L Bracket plate is compatible with the Arca-Swiss clamp system. Arca-Swiss has a generic L Bracket model that you can then customize and B & H carries the Arca-Swiss L Bracket system. Discuss this with their tech department, they should be able to help you design a bracket that would be compatible with the K-3 or K3ii with the battery grip. Once logged on to B&H just type Arca-Swiss to find their brackets in their online catalog.

Jay

[gosman]

Thanks Jake- anyone done this yet? Please show pictures.