[pepperberry farm]

following up on the DA21:

I didn't know if maybe it was simply a light issue and if there wasn't enough, the AF simply could not help itself...


it isn't light:

vs

there are four shots in flickr - all at the same distance, similar lighting (strong daylight); to get even close to infinity focus (at 20 ft), the lens is stopped all the way down to f22; at progressively wider apertures, the focus falls off quickly... manually focusing does nothing to help, as these four shots of the adirondack chairs are all manually-focused (AF would not lock)... no PP on these four shots (right out of the camera)...

additionally, I tried a little closer focusing:

at 2':

and at just over 4':

both shots under indirect lighting, at f8; shots not processed, except for crop for clarity's sake.... when the AF does focus, it does it well...


so, a brief summary: AF is hopeless at infinity, and when manually-focused at infinity, it does not focus at all for anything beyond 6 - 8 feet....

it seems this one will need to go in for service...


on the other hand, I just bought a Tamron SP 151B (17mm f3.5).....

---------- Post added 08-08-16 at 02:31 PM ----------

with all that in mind, I'll be putting the DA21 Ltd off to the side for now - I'll send it in for service later in the month (or in September)....

I'll be switching lenses to my copy of the Tamron Adaptall-2 02B; 28mm f2.5 - I've had it for a bit and have yet to properly put it through its paces... so we'll see how it turns out...

[wolfiegirl]

on the other hand, I just bought a Tamron SP 151B (17mm f3.5).....

---------- Post added 08-08-16 at 02:31 PM ----------

with all that in mind, I'll be putting the DA21 Ltd off to the side for now - I'll send it in for service later in the month (or in September)....

I'll be switching lenses to my copy of the Tamron Adaptall-2 02B; 28mm f2.5 - I've had it for a bit and have yet to properly put it through its paces... so we'll see how it turns out...

That lens does not look well.

I will be interested to see how your tammy goes. It's sposed to have a good rep.

Also interested to see what you think of the 02b. I personally hated it.. lol

[pepperberry farm]

That lens does not look well.

I will be interested to see how your tammy goes. It's sposed to have a good rep.

Also interested to see what you think of the 02b. I personally hated it.. lol

hated the 02B? why?

[wolfiegirl]

hated the 02B? why?

Resolution broke down the minute you cropped.

Interestingly, my ozunon is also starting to frustrate me a little. I'm on the k-s2, so any resolution issues are purely the lens and not the camera body. I can get *some sharp shots, but many aren't up to par for me. Going to go out soon and give the puppies another photo shoot in full day sun to test the lens out some more.

Speaking of puppies, more photos and the story of Larry, our new wolfie is up on the dog blog (link in signature below), for anyone who's interested.

[pepperberry farm]

Resolution broke down the minute you cropped.

we were out in the garden for a bit; me with the 02B:




this is also the 20,000th shot on my K-3...

[Sandy Hancock]

Your DA21 definitely has a problem. Mine locks autofocus on distant objects with no trouble at all.

Wide open:

[wolfiegirl]

we were out in the garden for a bit; me with the 02B:




this is also the 20,000th shot on my K-3...

So i take it you're happy with the lens?

[pepperberry farm]

Your DA21 definitely has a problem. Mine locks autofocus on distant objects with no trouble at all.

agreed - I bought it used and it would occasionally hunt at distance, but now it won't even do that much... off it goes...

So i take it you're happy with the lens?

I think so - I like it's handling over the Sigma Mini-Wide II that I singled with a few months back, and so far it seems to be a viable 28mm option...

[wolfiegirl]

agreed - I bought it used and it would occasionally hunt at distance, but now it won't even do that much... off it goes...



I think so - I like it's handling over the Sigma Mini-Wide II that I singled with a few months back, and so far it seems to be a viable 28mm option...

good for you! =) I think I prefer my other tamron 28mm. but i've already singled that. and at the moment I'm not really keen on going wide. I'm still hankering after that 70-300mm - if I can remember where I put it...

[robgski]

Between work, family, and online classes after work , I'm not getting much shooting done, nor can I edit and post daily, so I'm taking this month off, I might post once in a while, and I 'll try to comment more frequently.

[dakight]

Who's planning to shoot the Perseids this week? I'll be looking for dark skies after midnight Friday morning and hoping for clear weather. I'm thinking I'll set the camera up for interval shooting of 15 second exposure every 20 seconds or so. I won't be using Astrotracer for this because I don't care about the stars per se. Any suggestions on strategy would be appreciated!

[severalsnakes]

Who's planning to shoot the Perseids this week? I'll be looking for dark skies after midnight Friday morning and hoping for clear weather. I'm thinking I'll set the camera up for interval shooting of 15 second exposure every 20 seconds or so. I won't be using Astrotracer for this because I don't care about the stars per se. Any suggestions on strategy would be appreciated!

If the skies are clear (and it doesn't look like they will be, unfortunately), I will be out there. Your method sounds like the one I used for the Leonids last year, and I didn't capture a single one, even with the fish eye, but I saw plenty! C'est la vie.

[OzzRod]

Who's planning to shoot the Perseids this week? I'll be looking for dark skies after midnight Friday morning and hoping for clear weather. I'm thinking I'll set the camera up for interval shooting of 15 second exposure every 20 seconds or so. I won't be using Astrotracer for this because I don't care about the stars per se. Any suggestions on strategy would be appreciated!

I'm thinking about it David, as I've never even seen the Perseids before. Only trouble is this shower favours northern hemisphere observers; southerners can only expect much smaller hourly rates at best. Plus it will be difficult for me to access a northern horizon without light pollution.

I was planning to try consecutive 10-15 minute exposures (no Astrotracer). I tried this with the Delta Aquarids a couple of weeks ago (they're well placed for southern observers), but while I saw about 5 per hour over two hours, they were all over the sky and I got no photographic trails.

[dakight]

I've seen estimates of up to 200 per hour for this year's shower but most sources I read say that's probably way over hyped. Somewhere around 80 per hour is more realistic. Even at that rate I should be able to get something! The 24mm on the K-1 has a pretty wide FOV so hopefully something will show up. 15 minutes sounds like a really long exposure but that should increase your chances of scoring a trail. Maybe I'll try 30 second exposure and takes them as fast as the processor can feed the card. The K-1 should be ready to fire again in pretty short order. The K-5IIs took a little while and the K-50 was absolutely glacial! I would think that 5 seconds should be plenty of time for the image to get written to the card and the camera be ready for the next shot.

---------- Post added 08-09-16 at 08:06 PM ----------

If the skies are clear (and it doesn't look like they will be, unfortunately), I will be out there. Your method sounds like the one I used for the Leonids last year, and I didn't capture a single one, even with the fish eye, but I saw plenty! C'est la vie.

That's not very encouraging!

[southlander]

Re the write speed, turn off the long exposure NR which does a dark frame subtraction and puts a big gap in between consecutive shots. Then consider taking a dark frame at the end (lens cap on)and then stack all the images in post processing. You should get a good noise outcome as well as some nice contiguous star trails.