[wolfiegirl]

No shot from me for this last night in May. 600+ epic photographs and a battery later, my K-1's dance recital baptism of fire is done and now there remains only to get the pictures off the cards and preferably onto at least two external drives before I go to bed.

Yowzas. I can't imagine the amount of hard drive and ram required to deal with this. Makes me happy just to stick with my q and k-50. The 20 megapix of my ks2 gives me enough headaches. I can't imagine having even more data to store with a k1!

[pathdoc]

The raw files are in the neighbourhood of 40MB each. I topped out a partially full 32GB card and spilled some shots onto card 2. It wasn't horrendous, mostly because it's not the sort of thing I do very often.

[wolfiegirl]

40mb images. Sheesh!

[pathdoc]

40mb images. Sheesh!

I'd make Western Digital and/or Seagate rich if I did this day-in/day-out. However, this year it's just two short excursions into K-1 trigger-happiness and then mostly back to carefully shot (and reshot, and reshot) JPEGs, with the ones that turn out horribly scrubbed at once. Looked at another way, though, they are little over twice as big as the largest, richest JPEGs (some of which have nudged 20MB), which isn't too bad. On my *istDS (6.1MP CCD sensor), the largest JPEGs come in at a little over 2MB but the Raw files (.PEF, because the camera doesn't do .DNGs) are usually around ten. A fivefold difference.

I've taken precisely two pixel-shift shots with the K-1. Those were about 140MB each. You want to be sparing with those unless you have a desktop tower with several fairly large hard drives, and LOTS of external storage.

[pathdoc]

FINAL REPORT: Pentax SMC-M 135mm f/3.5

This lens was bought by me about a year ago. Sitting on a shelf in the camera store, it was so short I thought at first it was a 3x teleconverter. When I saw what it actually was, I pretty much bought it instantaneously (after checking it over for the obvious flaws, of course). It is, by a whisker, the shortest 135mm lens I own, though it is not as narrow as my SMC Takumar 135/3.5. Its ergonomics are beautiful on any Pentax body.

First of all, let me state that this is a lens which had to wait far too long to excel in its natural environs, which IMO is outdoors on a sunny day, and too often got stifled by the fact that I was simply too tired and busy to photograph something. As much as I might have put extension tubing behind it and close focus filters in front of it, it isn't really happy trying to be a macro lens (though it can produce stunning results when you have the lighting right). The MFD is long, extension tubes don't change it that much, and only closeup filters really enable this lens to get in close. The included hood on my copy is a bit sloppy, otherwise nice to have on board, but sometimes does interfere with screwing anything other than a circular 49mm filter onto the front. That being said, once you do (by whatever means) get it in close, the fact that it has f/32 can be very handy (bring flash or a tripod).

The best shot for this month was the last, and it shows what the lens can do in natural bright sunlight. Because of its inability to signal explicit aperture data to the camera, this is a lens whose flash applications are best saved for bodies with true analogue TTL (especially close up), or when chimping is an option, or when the photographer has a flash-capable light meter handy and can line all their ducks up in a row before they push the shutter button. Unfortunately my AF280T is currently refusing to behave either in thyristor or analogue TTL mode, and I think that handicapped me severely; either protocol, with the flash in bounce mode on the hotshoe, might have made for a more flexible package and better shots.

If you want to get the best out of this lens on digital in a low light environment, shoot it on an *istD, DS or DS2 and bring an AF280T, AF080C, etc. to the party.

Otherwise, wait for a bright, sunny day, slap it on a K-anything (especially a K-1 if you have it), and go nuts.

[W412ren]

Evening Peeps.
Well I'm back in"civilisation" which means access to the interweb.
Posted all my final images from May and now just have to catch up on what you've all been up to.

I've enjoyed using the K85 up to a point. Need to remember to dial in some under-exposure in most lighting but the bokeh (I think) is sublime. The lens is sharp at f1.8 and exquisite at f2.2 but I definitely miss the "A" setting.
Easy lens to use though from a FOV POV (!) with a 135mm equivalency. My only regret is I didn't have an opportunity to try it out on the stars so something fro a future project there.
Overall I think my favourite image of the month would have to be that of Eric on the 14th but from a technical point of view the images on the 11th and 31st of the month really sum this lens up.