[twilhelm]

And Friday I'm going to be out of town all day. My granddaughter is getting married and I'm the photographer. Though I've shot groups of people and singles of people I've never shot a wedding but my granddaughter insists I do this for her. She says she trusts me.

The only real thing I'm most worried about is keeping red eye at bay.

Anyone got any suggestions on how to use my AF201FG as my main flash?
I don't have any fancy lights, or reflectors, or soft boxes. I have my diffusers, two of them, one short and one longer. Not sure at all if those would work either. And I have only one small zoom, the 18-55mm. The rest are 70-300mm and an A 50mm. Or what's in my signature.

You'll be fine with the lenses you have, you know how they act and what they can do.

As far as flash, I tried to never use flash during the ceremony, it's distracting. I always took time to walk the venue and figure out beforehand where I could expect people and light sources to be. I would use flash for portraits and would bounce it off walls or ceilings for a more natural look. Diffusers work well, but practice before so you know if you need to cut the power down.

Enjoy!

[Sandy Hancock]

First of all, I presume you're talking about your usual close-up flower shots in the garden. The little 201 (I have one too) is perfect for that.

I would be surprised if a Floridian didn't own an umbrella, but if you don't, buy a white one (or even better, reflective silver) at the local $2 disposal store.

Swivel the flash head to 45º backwards, and hold a light coloured umbrella behind it pointing to the subject. Obviously you'll need a tripod, and either the self-timer or a remote. Set your camera to manual, at base ISO, and the aperture at whatever you want for the appropriate DoF. Set the shutter speed to something which will underexpose your flower by at least two stops, and fiddle with the flash output (the 201 gives you really good control) and shutter speed until the overall exposure mix is what you want. Fail as often as you need to - the only extra cost is time

[photolady95]

This wedding is going to be a simple affair and not in a church, but at my granddaughter's apartment/house. No clergy involved. Family only attending.

And I don't have the money to buy extra equipment, even a used umbrella probably would cost me more than I planned on spending here. And Sandy, I'm not a Floridian, I'm a Florida Cracker. Bred and born in Florida by parents bred and born in Florida.

I should have explained I needed to use what I have on hand, not go all out to do this simple home based wedding. Or buy something I'll never use again.

Since the ceremony isn't going to be that elaborate, two people saying their vows in front of a justice of the peace, I doubt a flash will interfere at all. I don't plan on shooting straight into their faces and there is no way to bounce the flash. Her ceilings are high. They'll be standing under an arch, (homemade jobber) in front of three sash windows.

I'm sure she'll want a few ceremony shots.
As I said, this is not a church wedding.

I wanted to go see what her house/apartment looked like but she lives about 150 miles north of me and I don't have a way to get there until the day of the wedding. I'm riding up there with my ex son in law.

[Sandy Hancock]

Sorry, I missed the bit about the wedding. Doh!

In that case I would not expect that tiny flash to be much use, except for a bit of fill. Bounce it off a low ceiling or other nearby reflective surface if at all possible. Underexpose your camera settings by 1EV at most. Practise first in a no-pressure situation to see what works for you.

I would use AF glass as much as possible. If the light is reasonable or the little flash strong enough, I would use your 18-55 and 50-200 most of the time. Maybe bring your favourite 50/2.0 and 135/2.8 for more formal portraits; you'll need a tripod to get the best results from them.

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Last edited by Sandy Hancock; 07-24-2017 at 11:08 PM.

[photolady95]

The 50-200mm has a bit of fungus under the front glass and I haven't checked to see if it might be a problem.

I did think I might take the 135mm but it's not AF though I could use it for portraits. It is sharp.

Thanks for suggesting those two lenses Sandy.

I'll be doing some testing these next three days for sure. Her dress is white, so I know I'll need to underexpose a bit to keep from blowing out the white.

I got two weeks notice that she was going to do this. That's not really enough time to get things together and shoot her best day.

[twilhelm]

I don't know how far you are from me, but if you were near I'd loan you my Sigma 28-105 f2.8-4. Super sharp lens with good autofocus.

[photolady95]

Sent you a PM Tony.

[wstruth]

On another note, I did order the 20-40 today. Here's my reasoning:

I plan on it pretty much living on the K3, which should give me a nice WR walk around set.

Great lens! Right now its the one on my K-S2

Nothing for me today hit the after rain doldrums with a healthy bit of working late, hopefully better luck tomorrow.

[babywriter]

Single in August thread is up:

Single in August 2017 - PentaxForums.com

[photolady95]

No photos from me these last days. Probably won't get any tomorrow either. I've still recuperating from the trip up north to the wedding.

[twilhelm]

I'll post the last few days tomorrow. Lots of family in town last week and this week. And of course they all think the Q is the coolest camera.

[Audi 5 cyl]

I've missed some days toward the end, missed to upload some others, and will be skipping the August entirely but I feel like I could share the general impressions on the little Boyer lens.

First to say, I do not know why would anybody ditch the plasmat design as it is one of the best lenses I own. Easy to nail focus, exquisite for portraits, has a decent contrast and is extremely sharp from wide open in macro a bit closed in infinity mode as well. During the last thirty days, I've made some of the best macro and bokeh shots in my short photographing history with this little gem.

An interesting fact is that I've made a very small number of shots with this lens in July, a little bit less than two hundred. I think it is my all time low for SIC, and yet, I had such a good fun shooting with it, maybe for the first time since Colorplan sometimes last year.

Here's a link to the lens folder on flickr.

Regards,
Marko

[twilhelm]

I didn't use the Q10 at all the last day of the month, partly due to a night shift, partly due to just being simply busy. I will leave my thoughts on the Q10 and the 02 lens after using it nearly every day this month.

There has been a lot of discussion on this being a "missed opportunity" by Hoya for not implementing a 1" or larger sensor. Granted there is some truth to that, I'm of the belief that's not what they had in mind. I think they were looking more at the Apple model in regards to the iPods as they are considered a fashion statement as much as a means to listen to music. It's not uncommon for younger people to have several iPods in different colors. This didn't pair well for Pentax, unfortunately. It seems to have done much better in Japan than many other countries, especially here in the US. Once the Pentax community here tears something apart, it loses momentum quickly.

That being said, I think it's a fun camera with good image quality for what it is. I would have done much better had I had a hood on the lens, as I found the 02 to flare and ghost quite easily. The camera doesn't like bright sunlight much, but in other scenarios I found the images quite pleasing, especially the black and white. My decision now is going to be whether or not I keep it. I like it's size because it doesn't take up any room in my patrol car and I can carry it everywhere I go, snapping off shots here and there between calls. Without using it for the single in challenge, I'll see how much I really use it and make my decision next month.

I'm probably not going to be in August. I'm just not certain how much time I'll have to play around with the camera. The other thing is, because of the Q10 image size, I was able to use my small Lenovo laptop (think chrome book running Windows 10) which I can carry everywhere to edit and upload photos. I won't be able to use it with my K3 as the images will require more computing power. So on my 3 day work stints, I wouldn't be able to post anything until the fourth day. Although I did fire off quite a few shots with my K3 and HD DA20-40 at the beach today.

It was great to be back for the month of July, and I'll be lurking if nothing else.

[babywriter]

A few words on the Super-Multi-Coated Macro Takumar:

This is a wonderfully sharp and versatile lens. During a "single in" month, I tend to throw the kitchen sink at a lens, in terms of subject, lighting, etc. I got the lens to flare a couple of times by shooting almost directly into the sun, but I truly had to work at it. Outside of that extreme condition, the lens just delivered, again and again and again, with wonderful sharpness, contrast, and color.

This is the first lens I've EVER shot where I could go from a close-up of a honeybee on a flower, to a multi-shot panorama, and end up with consistently solid results. The focus throw is long, but not so long to be unwieldy. The specifications for this lens indicate a 23-cm minimum focusing distance, but it sure felt shorter than that. Slap on an m42 extension tube, and you're literally on top of the subject. I had a blast with this lens.

A few photos:

[pepperberry farm]

my brief review of the Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 72B (90mm f2.8):

this lens is nothing short of amazing for me: easy to handle, accurate color rendition, smooth bokeh; pretty much all the things you want in a lens, especially a macro lens that natively does 1:1 magnification..

the 72B has a way of 'popping' into focus, even more so when doing close-up work, that I have yet to find in any other lens... it just works!

this is a manual lens, an Adaptall-2 lens, so the choice of either PK or PK-A mounts is optional and I know there are some people that are not fans of the Adaptall series of lenses, I have had no issues with any of my Adaptalls - I tend to buy a mount for each lens and never separate the two, so I have fewer issues with the mount not giving me the proper 'A' functionality, etc...



anyways - some of my favorite shots from July:










and the rest of July's album:

Single In Challenge - July '17 | Flickr