[boysana]

Hey Pentaxians

Joined because i just placed an order for a K-3 with the 18-135 WR lens.

I am coming from a S6000fd, so for the next month I am going to try to shoot RAW and attend jpeg anonymous.

The weather sealing won me over I am interested in time lapse, and have read the tutorial on here but would appreciate any beginner tips especially hardware available in Australia.

Second question, which lens filter and screw on filter holder(?) would be recommended for the K-3? I am thinking I need to protect my big boy.

Look forward to learning and one day contributing

[Jean Poitiers]

Welcome to PF and bonjour from France ... enjoy the forum and your K-3 ... please post us an image or two soon ... Salut, J

[skunktail]

Hi there from a Sydneysider,

The 18-135 takes 62mm filters, so any filter in that size will fit.
Are you thinking of getting a square filter system or screw-on filters?
What kind of photography do you do?, I think that other than landscape, most people don't use filters anymore.

Oh, and don't forget to enjoy your new toy

[boysana]

Hi there from a Sydneysider,

The 18-135 takes 62mm filters, so any filter in that size will fit.
Are you thinking of getting a square filter system or screw-on filters?
What kind of photography do you do?, I think that other than landscape, most people don't use filters anymore.

Oh, and don't forget to enjoy your new toy

@ Jean
thanks for the welcome will post something soon

@skunktail
Thanks for the tips, would you advise a UV filter or an ND filter?

Landscapes and candid portraiture is what I have in mine, aspiring to Time Lapse

Cheers

[skunktail]

HI,
Which filter you need depends on what the light is doing.
UV and ND filters do different things.

UV's are clear and only protect against dust and scratches. (a hood does this as well and also reduces lens flare)
ND's are used to reduce the amount of light entering the lens (and hence slowing down the shutter speed. this is useful for moving water)
there are also Graduated ND's (grads) which are only partially tinted (used for darkening skies that would otherwise be blown out).
Polarisers reduce glare and increase saturation.

here is a brief overview of what each does:
Choosing a Camera Lens Filter

the Singh-ray website also has links to various articles and videos which you might want to look at.

I wouldn't worry about using filters for portraits, but for landscapes they can be really useful
Other than the polarisers, most filter effects can be done in post-production, it depends on your skills and interests.

I generally prefer to do as much as possible in-camera.
For what it's worth, my personal landscape filter set is:
2, 3 & 5 stop ND
2 & 3 stop soft ND grad
2 & 3 stop hard ND grad
neutral polariser
blue-gold polariser

If you're anywhere near sydney I could meet you somewhere and you can try some of these filters out.

[Ash]

Welcome to the site and hope you enjoy your K-3 and this fine forum. I have found the most useful filter is the Polarised one for landscapes as it reduces reflections and boosts the blue sky contrast nicely when turned to the right angle. Otherwise a UV filter should only be used as a protector to a Lena's front element. If anything, they degrade image quality, but the best quality ones don't appreciably degrade IQ.

[boysana]

Cheers st and Ash

@st
great resources, I will start off with something just to protect the lens, I am 4 hours out of Perth so will have to catch you in Sydney maybe in Feb?

@Ash
Thanks can't wait to take images like you have, same goes for st

and this forum is obviously a collection of amazing people, happiness

Oh and another q

Prime lenses....

Bother with old manuals? and what focal lengths have people found most useful?

cheers

[skunktail]

Prime lenses....

Bother with old manuals? and what focal lengths have people found most useful?

In general, manual lenses are fine optically (some people even prefer them) but they are less convenient under certain circumstances.

As for focal lengths, This gets into the whole "how long is a piece of string" question.
It depends mostly on your style and your subjects.

My suggestion would be to try shooting for a while with the 18-135 and find out what focal lengths you use most.
then get a prime close to those focal lengths.

Also, search the lens section of the forum, there are heaps of people who have asked these kinds of questions and there's allot of good info.

Hope this helps

[Ash]

Old manuals are good - as long as you are accurate with focus, otherwise they become a pain getting sharp results.
Focal lengths for me: most useful are 15-20mm for landscape and 40-100mm for portraits/general photography (on APS-C)
The DA 40 (even the XS version) is an absolutely brilliant lens to use, especially if you like it small and light (and budget friendly)

[southlander]

Welcome from over the border in Adelaide. If you don't mind my asking, which part of country WA are you from?

I'd put a UV filter on the front of the 18-135, to keep dust (as in the fine sand variety) off the front element as much as anything else if you are WA country based. Unless done carefully, regularly clearing soil dust off lenses is akin to polishing with a fine grit compound.

I'd also second the polarizer suggestion, it helps to tame the glare that is such a prevelant part of the Aussie summer in drier regions.

[beachgardener]

Gooday mate and welcome to the forum

[wizofoz]

Hey Pentaxians

Joined because i just placed an order for a K-3 with the 18-135 WR lens.

I am coming from a S6000fd, so for the next month I am going to try to shoot RAW and attend jpeg anonymous.

The weather sealing won me over I am interested in time lapse, and have read the tutorial on here but would appreciate any beginner tips especially hardware available in Australia.

Second question, which lens filter and screw on filter holder(?) would be recommended for the K-3? I am thinking I need to protect my big boy.

Look forward to learning and one day contributing

G'day and welcome from Melbourne. You have been given some very good advice here, let me emphasise it.

you dont 'need' a UV filter, but some claim it gives protection to the lens. I was formerly of this school of thought, but have changed. The lens hood does a very good job of protecting the front element, and does not detract fom the image path in terms of quality. The lens hood should be used on ALL occasions. (dont be one of those Canikion folk I see all the time with the lens hood on backwards, use the damn thing.)

Circular polariser (cpl) filters are the best place to start, they give you control over contrast and flare in the imge, and can give colous a real 'pop'

ND's and grad ND's are the next step, very useful for landscapes. (Though I have a friend who wins NZPP landscape 'tog of the year awards, and he says he just does it all with blended images now, and doesnt bother with grad ND filters.) You can only get the silky water effect by using a ND or ND grad to slow your shutter speed down (i.e., keep it open for longer periods of time.)

As to primes, and MF lenses, - personally I began by collecting lots of cheap MF screw mount and original K-mount lenses, lots of fun and it helped me learn quite a lot.

The advice you have been given about finding your own preference in focal length on the 18-135 is very good. Try using your zoom as a series of prime lenses. Do not zoom to fill the frame, set the focal length you want to experiment with, and then 'zoom with your feet'. You will soon get the idea which look\s you prefer. Personally I'm a telephoto type of guy, I like to get in close and fill the frame with a subject. Other people, when taking the exact same scene, are wide angle types and see things and compositions that never occur to me. Neither approach is right or wrong, just the way we see things.

Anyway, good luck with the K-3, it looks to be a mighty piece of equipment - I ordered mine the day they were announced. Keep taking pics and asking questions. The kindly and knowledgable folk on this forum will be falling over themselves to help

[boysana]

Well now, I would like to extend a purely platonic warm digital hug to the forum

Appreciate the advice and the suggestions from you all especially in the filter department, my thoughts are to then get a circular polarizer now(which would have the same physical protective effect as a UV filter?), look at getting an ND and then leave the Grads for a few months until I know a little more about landscapes and build up a PP workflow.

I am currently in Geraldton for work so yeah plenty of sunsets and opportunities for water sport action, I am sure I will soon have to research long lenses soon.

I honestly can't wait to get it, I feel like a kid before Christmas. Toyed with the idea of the Fuji X-mount, but here I am!

[southlander]

And if you get out and about and up the road a bit, the Murchison Gorge ar Kalbarri should give you some fantastic photo opportunities. Was there way back in the late 80's, and feeling as though a follow-up visit is due.

You shouldn't think of the polariser as a protective lens which can just be left on the lens permanently. The polariser will cost you 1.5-2 stops of light (so you don't want it in low light, indoors or when trying to keep shutter speed up) and at very wide angles may give the sky an uneven level of brightness (sunlight is most filtered by a polariser at approx 90 degrees to the sun, so that area of the sky is rendered darker than other parts as more of the light is cut out by the action of the polariser). Wider than say low 20mm focal length, and you will capture enough sky to potentially notice this. Sometime you may like that effect, other times not.

[Ash]

Indeed you may find that you need to take the polarising filter off more often than you'd like to just because it sacrifices so much incident lux or creates the often distracting contrast difference between heavily polarised and non-polarised sky. Of course, the effect can be minimised by setting the filter away from the polarised effect but you can never get away from the issue of the constant ND effect the filter has on your shutter speed/choice of aperture or ISO.