[joip]

Please do. It's not an exclusionary group, by any stretch.

Sorry to read of the fraud; that is such a pain (we've had that a couple of times, and I know how much re-organisation and admin is needed afterward).

It's worth getting a on SD card reader for your iPad if you don't have one. There are some really good photo processing apps available.

Which processing apps do you recommend?

[dakight]

What to say about the DA 18-270... After my experience with the 55-300 I approached it with some trepidation but I was pleased in almost every respect. The lens is sharp from end to end and wide open to f8 or f11; I never went past f11. This lens is compact, not much longer at 18mm than the 18-55 kit lens but it extends into the next county when zoomed out! The only real downside was it's propensity to hunt for focus under certain conditions. For long shots in marginal light I found myself switching it to manual focus which can be done with a small slide switch on the upper left side near the mount. This my first experience with a lens having an internal focusing motor and I have to say, I'm a believer. Focusing was utterly, eerily silent and reasonably fast for a long lens. I am planning to take it with me next week when I go to Oregon.

[todd]

My A70-210 review... Didn't know what to expect going in so I was pleasantly surprised. It took quite a bit of getting used to, mainly because as Sara noted, the focusing and focal length therefore, (unless locked in close focus at 70mm) is very butter smooth and fluid. Forget keeping a certain focal length while hand holding this lens cuz it's all over the place while you focus! Again the only times I could keep the focal length I wanted was either at 70mm or 210mm where I could press or pull while focusing. Also due to the type of lens it is, even if a focal length was set at 70mm for example, if I changed the focus (for compositing) the framing would change.

What else... I didn't mind the size and weight at all and used it a lot as walk around on my sling strap. I think the large size actually benefited me because I noticed early on in the month that I could get really slow shutter speeds hand held, even though SR was not enabled... Something about the balance of that large and heavy thing in my hand was working for me in that regard for sure...

I really enjoyed the close focusing ability with this lens... One of these days I must get a true macro lens.

Towards the end of the month I realized that I wasn't using F4 enough.. I was pretty much always stopping down to at least f5.6... I suppose in nice light most lenses do pretty well in this regard but yeah this one does too... I really enjoy shooting into direct light (if you hadn't noticed hahaha) and this lens isn't great at this compared to some others I've used, but it's not awful either...

So I'll stop there.. I will brag once more how I got this lens, the A50/1.4 and A28/2.8 all in mint for $50 total, so the last three months I spent Singling with these lenses was a lot of bang for buck imo, even though I will probably end up not using them much down the line... Though I will probably give them all some attention again whenever I at last get to go FF digital... They really helped me get over my MF aversion.

And special thanks to Sara who helped stupid me realize that my copy of this lens wasn't broken and simply focuses past infinity hahaha...

A few shots from the month...

[Tsuken]

Which processing apps do you recommend?

Nowadays, for simplicity and quickness, I tend to use snapseed. Previously, when I was actually doing all of my photo work on my iPad, I used Photogene4, and before that Filterstorm, which allow more in-depth processing than snapseed (though snapseed's "structure" control is an excellent thing)

[UncleVanya]

Which processing apps do you recommend?

I don't use an iPad but I do have an Android tablet and phone and an iPhone. I use Pixlr for simple edits and Polarr for more complex editing. Polarr can do raw development.

[wstruth]

My Review of the Sigma 17-70 HSM macro

I fondly remember this lens on my K-X. It was not meant to be a comparison month for me but I do have to compare it to my 18-135. On the K5 the Siggy seemed a notch better but on the K-S2 I would go with the 18-135. Maybe its a firm ware thing i don't know, and none of this is scientific, but over all the lens was softer than what I had remembered. Neither of the 2 lenses were outstanding and they are what they are: consumer zooms with a little extra reach. The 18-135 improved when i did some focus adjustment but the Siggy did not seem to back or front focus.

The Siggy admittedly like to do work with a lot of light. Good light seems to bring out the sharpness it can deliver. Interestingly I got better results when using the Pentax shake reduction instead of the lens's so maybe a lens failure? or old lens not playing well with a new camera? don't know for sure.

I posted my last photo about starburst because I really did have trouble getting them to show. So overall OK but not great i'm now trying to palm it off on my daughter with her lavender Kx. Some pics I liked this month ( of course now that i am looking at some of them again i may reconsider...):

[jcdoss]

Mini review of the Pentax-M 35/2
The lens is small. 205g and 4.2cm in length. It’s maximum aperture is f/2. This is one of the reasons I came to Pentax… small and light cameras and lenses that render good to excellent image quality.


Me and My Camera taken with Sony NEX-6 and Pentax-M 35/2 by Jason Doss, on Flickr

I don’t know if I learned anything this month that I didn’t already know. It’s a fantastic lens, but I did learn it performs quite well at infinity. Some of my lenses do not, however this lens got a healthy workout on our Grand Canyon Traincation and performed very well.


Grand Canyon taken with Sony NEX-6 and Pentax-M 35/2 by Jason Doss, on Flickr

Unlike many of my shorter focal length lenses, I don’t think it’s quite as hot at macro distances. Not to say that it’s bad, but I think either of my 28mm choices might have bested it.


Tree Frog taken with Sony NEX-6 and Pentax-M 35/2 by Jason Doss, on Flickr

Wide open is OK, but again, I think my M28/2 lens might be better. It’s more expensive and a bit heavier, so there’s a trade off as usual.


Wesley taken with Pentax K-x and Pentax-M 35/2 by Jason Doss, on Flickr

The only frustration I experienced was at a night time event, and I think it was probably more to do with my K-x than the lens. Focusing in low light proved very hard, and I ended up binning 75% of the images I shot that night despite feeling confident I had the shot. I don’t experience this problem with EVF based cameras, but I’m trying to use my DSLR more just because I don’t want to switch to Sony entirely. And, to round out this topic, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have had a similar problem with another lens.


Time to Go! taken with Sony NEX-6 and Pentax-M 35/2 by Jason Doss, on Flickr

Thanks for listening.

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Last edited by jcdoss; 10-02-2015 at 05:45 PM.

[Tsuken]

I don't use an iPad but I do have an Android tablet and phone and an iPhone. I use Pixlr for simple edits and Polarr for more complex editing. Polarr can do raw development.

Snapseed, Filterstorm, and Photogene will all handle RAW files, and seem to do a pretty respectable job - though not up to desktop standard.

[robgski]

Finally catching up, so here's the last picture of September, taken with the 21mm. The weather hasn't gotten much better since I took this picture.