[awa355]

If I was photographing for commercial reasons I would focus on RAW. For fb pages for the local sports clubs jpeg's are adequate.
I would also look at other cameras such as the mirrorless/ 4/3rds options.

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Last edited by awa355; 04-25-2017 at 01:47 PM.

[Kiwi645hauler]

Now, do I pay back the credit card, or start looking at upgrading the K50? I will stick with a dslr, but whether I chase another Pentax is something I will consider. If up grading, I will be looking at something that has better continuous AF for moving subjects and produces better jpegs.


The Canon 70D seems to have a good name for its auto focus as does the Nikon 5-7000 series. I would look at a K70 if one comes up on trade me.

I will tend to stick with the jpeg format as my recording format so the quality of the jpeg processing within the camera is a big point for me.

Any ideas?.

I will chuck a cat amongst the pigeons here... If you want good C-AF, with good frame rates and a nice JPEG, Olympus OM-D E-M1 or E-M5II both excellent cameras, a fantastic AF system, nice lenses, good frame rates up to 10fps and the JPEGs straight out of the camera are pretty nice indeed.

[awa355]

I will chuck a cat amongst the pigeons here... If you want good C-AF, with good frame rates and a nice JPEG, Olympus OM-D E-M1 or E-M5II both excellent cameras, a fantastic AF system, nice lenses, good frame rates up to 10fps and the JPEGs straight out of the camera are pretty nice indeed.

I will be looking at the olympus cameras as well. These models get some great write ups.

[Kiwigeezer]

That cheap K-3 on TradeMe!?

What he said.

[Kiwi645hauler]

I will be looking at the olympus cameras as well. These models get some great write ups.

I personally have an E-M1 and have used if for the last 3 years, and its been brilliant, The Olympus Pro line of lenses are just brilliant, the other nice thing is you can also use the Panasonic lenses, and the X series of those are pretty dynamite too, I have the non Pro Olympus 75-300mm for my sport/aviation work and it for a non-pro lens is actually really nice too

[richandfleur]

I fully get that RAW is not for everyone. No worries there. That's just my personal work flow, but I'm not pushing that idea onto others at all.




The Olympus OM-D series seems more Pentax than Pentax at times. Small, weather sealed, sensor stabilisation that works during video mode etc...


There are two OM-D models that appeal to me at the moment, the EM-5 mkii and the EM-10 mkii.
Both have exceptional sensor stabilisation and video capabilities.

[Arpe]

Finally got home last night via the West Coast. SH 63 between Kawatiri and Wairau Valley is noticeably rough with masses of road works, and we avoided the Lewis Pass section, so I'm thinking we didn't do too badly heading south via Molesworth.
The only bit of Molesworth that freaked out both me and my brother was a steep, unmarked ford on a nice straight section of the road about 10km before Hanmer.

We both hit it at a fair pace, and I just had enough space to brake before I hit the bottom. I was worried I might get stuck as I came to a complete halt with the wheels in the water, and only a 2wd. Luckily I was OK, and didn't damage the bottom of the car. Unfortunately someone had messed with our radios so they only seemed to be transmitting static, even on full power, so I couldn't radio my brother to slow down. They've always been reliable before, but I suspect my daughter might have pressed some buttons she shouldn't have.

I think I remember that ford! We were in a Holden Commodore wagon, but saw it, but wasn't too sure if we should attempt it. Took it on an angle and all was good.

[Kiwizinho]

Hey guys.
Well I left Queenstown last week and just about to head to Grey mouth tomorrow for my Monteith tour. Yeah!!

I think plans to work through Arthur's pass towards Christchurch and kiakoura. Then back to west side go to up to Nelson. Tasman and malbourough.

Any recommendations for places to check out that may be lesser known or good campsites with lakes or views. Like to wake up and grab some sunrise without moving the car. Always bonus.

Any suggestions would be great in the northern part of the south island. Love little gems

I'll get photos up one day. But a bit behind on everything. Just enjoying the trip and snapping away on film and the new k70. Post when I slow down!!

If you're heading over Arthur's Pass to Greymouth, consider going around Lake Brunner. It's a bit longer, but very scenic, and there's a car park near the outlet of Lake Brunner that takes you over a footbridge to a nice forest walk.

Bear in mind that you can't get north from Kaikoura unless you have a boat or an aeroplane. There are still plenty of people trying it and having to turn around.
It's a pity you missed the closing date for the Molesworth Road. It's a spectacular drive, and given the state of SH 63 currently not much slower, as there are long sections of SH 63 with 30km signs where they've been doing road works.

A loop up SH 1 through to Kaikoura with a coastal diversion out to Gore Bay, then back south via the Inland Kaikoura Road might be a good way to go, as that comes out at Waiau and connects on to the Lewis Pass road up to Nelson and Blenheim.

Personally, if I didn't want to include Kaikoura, I'd head north via the West Coast road, and then head into Nelson via Kawatiri, as it will avoid much of the heavy traffic and bad road between Blenheim and Christchuch via the Lewis Pass. You can still get to Blenheim from Nelson, and although SH 6 is a bit hairy in places, it's designed to have a fair amount of heavy traffic on it unlike SH 63 and SH 65.

I stayed in Punakaiki on Saturday night, and the weather was perfect Sunday morning. There are lots of great short tracks around there to explore.
Here's my last photo of the drive home to Blenheim taken at Rotoiti on Sunday night. We had pizza in the shelter down by the lake shore under the stars.

(30s at 17mm 2.8 on the Sigma 17-70 and K-50)

---------- Post added 04-26-17 at 01:30 PM ----------

You'll be passing by close to lake Rotoiti, lovely spot, nice DOC campsite.

Just saw this after I posted. Hmm... K-50 + Sigma 17-70 seems to be popular at Rotoiti.

[Kiwi645hauler]

I fully get that RAW is not for everyone. No worries there. That's just my personal work flow, but I'm not pushing that idea onto others at all.




The Olympus OM-D series seems more Pentax than Pentax at times. Small, weather sealed, sensor stabilisation that works during video mode etc...


There are two OM-D models that appeal to me at the moment, the EM-5 mkii and the EM-10 mkii.
Both have exceptional sensor stabilisation and video capabilities.

Both are exceptional cameras, and the new E-M1 MkII is just astounding.. Olympus recently did a tour with the OM-D Range and all the Pro lenses, i attended the Dunedin event and was just astounded when at ISO 800, i was hand holding at 3/4 of a second and f2.8 and the images were sharp as, Olympus claim using the 5 Axis IBIS and the Pro lenses with IS you can get upto 6.5 stops of stabilization, which any more and you are compensating for the earths rotation!
I am at the point now of struggling to decide if i get an E-M1 II or a K-1.. the new Sony A9 is out of reach

[Kiwizinho]

That's a good discussion to have.


From memory Pentax aren't as 'punchy' straight out of camera (I shoot RAW only now and 'develop' my images in Lightroom).
Pentax constantly looks to retain the highlights, so their out of camera JPGs (at least on factory default settings) look a bit dull, and generally aren't as contrasty as say Canikon.


Others such as Fuji make a massive deal about their JPG processing, going as far as emulating film stock etc. They're very focussed on that as a feature of their cameras.


On my camera, all the assist features are off to keep things snappy, as they don't get applied to the RAW file anyway.
However, for those who want to use the JPG development tools, to use their images straight out of camera, Pentax does have a lot of tweaking options available, as well as the lens correction and purple fringing reduction tools as well.

Good description of the issue that pretty accurately reflects my experience going from Fuji to Pentax. Having played around with colour settings, I can get good jpgs out of the camera, but since I've got Lightroom, I can do far better with more flexibility shooting RAW.
I understand for PJ type work jpg can be the order of the day, as any kind of manipulation is considered naughty, but that's not the way I use my camera so I'm happy to work with RAW.
That said, While Fuji offered nice jpg presets in camera, I think Pentax has much better flexibility to adjust jpg settings to suit your style.

[richandfleur]

Yeah, Pentax is often praised for allowing flexibility, both in terms of jpeg in camera processing and in reassigning the physical buttons.


These days though, the competition has caught onto this. Olympus and Sony both offer buttons without descriptions on them now, which you can customise to your hearts content.
It seems a bit silly mapping SR to a button that says Raw/Jpeg on it for example.


Honestly that's my feeling of Pentax a lot nowadays. For example they were leading the curve (K-x/K-7/K-5 all had video real sensor SR YEARS ahead of the pack) but now this is on Olympus, Panasonic and Sony.
They still do a lot really really well, but they need to address some basics now, rather than produce somewhat gimmicky press release features, such as lights in the grip (which are actually really cool for group self portrait timer shots) and sensor shift AA simulators or 800,000+ ISO on the KP etc. They're fun ideas, right up until they get reviewed and pulled apart, at which point they're just hurting sales.


Time to address the AF abilities and video me thinks... In video terms, they could leap ahead a very long way quite simply by addressing the basics first.

Anyhow, that said I'm excited for my new K-3 and reading up on it, I think the tracking AF abilities of this are going to suit me perfectly. I don't want to sound like I'm knocking Pentax too much, but there are just a lot of really good cameras out there nowadays, which has got to be good for us all really.

[Kiwi645hauler]

Yeah, Pentax is often praised for allowing flexibility, both in terms of jpeg in camera processing and in reassigning the physical buttons.


These days though, the competition has caught onto this. Olympus and Sony both offer buttons without descriptions on them now, which you can customise to your hearts content.
It seems a bit silly mapping SR to a button that says Raw/Jpeg on it for example.

.

The Olympus customization is incredible... my E-M1 with battery grip attached and 12-50mm lens, there are customizable buttons on the grip AND lens, from memory with both attached there are around 25 customizable things. But as silly as the massive ISO numbers are, people ARE looking for stupidly high ISO numbers, Sony have proved that you can create mostly usable images/video from ultra high ISO numbers with the A7S range.
But my big thing for looking at new cameras is is it comfortable to hold, and will it do what i want it to do, which for me is fast accurate AF for sport and action, and high continuous frame rate (7fps plus), im not afraid to change systems if i will get what i need from a camera, so far in my digital journey i have used Canon, Nikon, Sony and now Olympus, but with me trying new things and wanting to do some other things photographically, i am now looking to add a DSLR system into my bag again, and looking toward Pentax because for the most part the bodies are Weather Resistant, as are a number of the lenses, and you dont have to spend mega dollars to get them

[Kiwigeezer]

If you're heading over Arthur's Pass to Greymouth, consider going around Lake Brunner. It's a bit longer, but very scenic, and there's a car park near the outlet of Lake Brunner that takes you over a footbridge to a nice forest walk.

Bear in mind that you can't get north from Kaikoura unless you have a boat or an aeroplane. There are still plenty of people trying it and having to turn around.
It's a pity you missed the closing date for the Molesworth Road. It's a spectacular drive, and given the state of SH 63 currently not much slower, as there are long sections of SH 63 with 30km signs where they've been doing road works.

A loop up SH 1 through to Kaikoura with a coastal diversion out to Gore Bay, then back south via the Inland Kaikoura Road might be a good way to go, as that comes out at Waiau and connects on to the Lewis Pass road up to Nelson and Blenheim.

Personally, if I didn't want to include Kaikoura, I'd head north via the West Coast road, and then head into Nelson via Kawatiri, as it will avoid much of the heavy traffic and bad road between Blenheim and Christchuch via the Lewis Pass. You can still get to Blenheim from Nelson, and although SH 6 is a bit hairy in places, it's designed to have a fair amount of heavy traffic on it unlike SH 63 and SH 65.

I stayed in Punakaiki on Saturday night, and the weather was perfect Sunday morning. There are lots of great short tracks around there to explore.
Here's my last photo of the drive home to Blenheim taken at Rotoiti on Sunday night. We had pizza in the shelter down by the lake shore under the stars.

(30s at 17mm 2.8 on the Sigma 17-70 and K-50)

---------- Post added 04-26-17 at 01:30 PM ----------



Just saw this after I posted. Hmm... K-50 + Sigma 17-70 seems to be popular at Rotoiti.

I like your shot -a lot. Had been thinking about having a play with the 17-70 for astro, obviously works okay Did you calculate exposure based around the 500 rule? I downloaded a table showing max exp times adjusted for digital, according to that 20sec @ 17mm is max before you'll get star trails. Your shot doesn't look affected however.

[Kiwizinho]

I like your shot -a lot. Had been thinking about having a play with the 17-70 for astro, obviously works okay Did you calculate exposure based around the 500 rule? I downloaded a table showing max exp times adjusted for digital, according to that 20sec @ 17mm is max before you'll get star trails. Your shot doesn't look affected however.

I'd previously been disappointed with the K-50 for astro, but with the 17-70 at 17mm and wide open it's viable. I don't think you can really go above ISO 1600 without getting too much noise, and that was a limiting factor for me with longer focal length lenses, as even the FA-50 1.4 wide open wouldn't capture enough light without getting star trails.
Even though the 17-70 is slower at 2.8 the wider field of view means a longer exposure time without star trails.
I just estimated for this image and gave it 30s - star trails are just creeping in at 100% view, but they're not bad.

[Transit]

Very nice shot !

...
Here's my last photo of the drive home to Blenheim taken at Rotoiti on Sunday night. We had pizza in the shelter down by the lake shore under the stars.
...: