[zkarj]

In recent years when selling stuff on Trade Me, I usually just grab my iPhone to take the pics. But this weekend, despite having the newest shiniest device to hand, I reached for the KP and stuck the 35-70 macro on it. I didn't quite nail the DOF (f/11), but I was quite pleased with this product shot. It's just a shame that the sharpness shows up the dust!

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[GUB]

Here is what I meant by the Dancer up the tree the other night Pete. For the others it was a "light up your bike" parade and she was a side event doing horizontal ballet. The full scene was with my revuenon 55mm wide open at f1.2 1/20 Iso 100 handheld. Had to push the lowlights a couple of stops. With hindsight I could have afforded to stop down to f2. She was not moving fast so 1/20 was alrightish. The closer shots were with a Tak Bayonet 135mm 2.5 wide open 1/60. It is very difficult to get the appearance of detail under these types of flood but you can see in the crop the detail is there.

[Class A]

Here is what I meant by the Dancer up the tree the other night Pete. For the others it was a "light up your bike" parade and she was a side event doing horizontal ballet.

[richandfleur]

Yikes, what difficult conditions! Sometimes flash isn’t a suitable option either.

Only way forward from here (f1.2 lenses about as good as you can get!) would be a dedicated low light beast like the Sony A7s range. Limited to 12MP stills though.

How do you focus in the dark with an f1.2 lens in the dark by the way?

[GUB]

Yikes, what difficult conditions! Sometimes flash isn’t a suitable option either.

Only way forward from here (f1.2 lenses about as good as you can get!) would be a dedicated low light beast like the Sony A7s range. Limited to 12MP stills though.

How do you focus in the dark with an f1.2 lens in the dark by the way?

Focusing is not too bad with the liveview especially with a LCD viewfinder attached. The trick is to use an entirely manual lens or " A" series with the aperture set manually. With these the LCD exposure doesn't replicate the underexposed nature of the settings but operates at a standard setting. I think shifting to x mode might achieve the same with later lenses. I was doing the shoot in conjunction with other members of my camera club to supply images to the council. Two of the keen Nikon operators said their AF was close to useless.
Flash just kills the colour cast of the floods and in other shots the colour leds.
If I had stopped down to f2 with the 55 I would have sharpened up considerably and also given the iris blades a chance to star up the highlights.

[richandfleur]

Yeah I found that live view exposure is linked to the auto exposure settings, even when you're shooting in full manual.
Encountered that whilst trying to focus on the moon.

When I changed it to centre point exposure, then suddenly the live view would darken when the moon was in the middle, as opposed to normally 'gaining up' normally because of all the black.

Good point about this being useful to focus in the dark, but not impacting on the final show.

All great tips for a difficult subject.

[GUB]

This is the sort of fun people were having. So I am trying to catch someone cycling slowly past with manual focus at f1.2 , shutter at 1/20 with a 55mm lens. So you can't realistically expect sharpness but if you can record the colours effectively you are a fair way to a good shot. The only alternative was flash and the result would be boring.

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[richandfleur]

The only alternative was flash and the result would be boring.

Would be interesting to see how a very low level flash would work out. Perhaps adding some detail but not detracting from the image.

Mate you've done a great job in such tricky conditions!

[GUB]

Would be interesting to see how a very low level flash would work out. Perhaps adding some detail but not detracting from the image.

Mate you've done a great job in such tricky conditions!

Agree about the flash - just enough detail to sharpen the image. I gather the others gave up on the flash because they couldn't close in on that balance. It will be interesting to see every ones results when they end up on FB.

[richandfleur]

In recent years when selling stuff on Trade Me, I usually just grab my iPhone to take the pics. But this weekend, despite having the newest shiniest device to hand, I reached for the KP and stuck the 35-70 macro on it. I didn't quite nail the DOF (f/11), but I was quite pleased with this product shot. It's just a shame that the sharpness shows up the dust!

Nicely done,

And yeah I've had the same issue with dust/imperfections being captured worse than they possibly are due to the better detail in the image.

---------- Post added 09-30-19 at 12:49 PM ----------

A few more of mine from Australia to share:

[GUB]

Nice shot Richard. I guess they need to keep the signs simple for the Aussies--- city north city south city centre

[Kiwizinho]

Nice shot Richard. I guess they need to keep the signs simple for the Aussies--- city north city south city centre

Shh... Don't make too much noise about that... We name entire islands that way.

---------- Post added 09-30-19 at 02:47 PM ----------

Yikes, what difficult conditions! ?

For a moment I wondered whether you were referring to the photographer or the dancer.

[Class A]

The trick is to use an entirely manual lens or " A" series with the aperture set manually. With these the LCD exposure doesn't replicate the underexposed nature of the settings but operates at a standard setting. I think shifting to x mode might achieve the same with later lenses.

I'm pretty sure you are right about the "X" mode to avoid the application of shooting parameters during live view. I've yet to try that myself and wish I had known about that recently when I was in "M" mode and wished I could see something while using live view. I use live view so rarely that I'm not up to speed with the pitfalls.

I don't understand why there isn't a simple option to let one choose "exposure simulation" or "automatic gain" (or similar), instead of attaching the respective behaviour to shooting modes or the fact whether a lens supports wide open metering.

I also found the shutter lag when using live view to be atrociously long. Or was I just behind the action due to viewfinder lag? In any event, not a chance to catch a moment. Maybe I should try to use the electronic shutter next time in order to avoid the camera having to close the shutter and then open it again to take the shot. Using the articulated LCD of the K-1 as a waist-level viewfinder can be quite nice, but I found it impossible to respond to moments happening on the fly.

Hopefully the upcoming (or "impeding" as DPReview likes to put it ) APS-C flagship will not only bring improved AF coverage but an updated take on using a DSLR in mirrorless mode. Having said that, I do not believe that we'll see a hybrid viewfinder. I think anyone expecting to see Ricoh deliver on the promise of a "best of both worlds" camera in early 2020 is setting themselves up for disappointment.

P.S.: Great shots, Richard! (I don't always comment on pictures posted but leave "likes" whenever I spot them. )

[richandfleur]

That was a me too moment reading that. Took me ages to work out that the live view display was linked to the auto shot metering mode, even when in full manual mode.
As you say, that should really be separated out so it's more clear.

In my case, with average/full scene metering, the moon would always clip, as the live view tried to up the exposure to reveal the shadows in the dark space around it...
Changing to spot metering (or centre weighted if that's the only available option) meant the viewfinder would respond to what was in the middle of the screen, and then I could use the digital zoom and focus peaking to really train the lens focusing on the moon.

Didn't understand why that setting should make the slightest bit of difference when I was shooting in full manual with fixed ISO, shutter speed and aperture.

And yeah, I'm very interested in what Pentax will put inside that new camera. Yeah I'd love a hybrid type viewfinder, but am in no way expecting that. It does have a new joystick control though, so suggests something is up AF point wise. That again is only interesting for me if the unit can track something better, otherwise I'll stick in single centre point focusing anyway. I'd love to see eye AF, as personally I think I'd really use that, but am not sure how you'd deploy this on a DSLR though anyway?

[Class A]

...otherwise I'll stick in single centre point focusing anyway.

I'd love to see eye AF, as personally I think I'd really use that, but am not sure how you'd deploy this on a DSLR though anyway?

I respond to both these in my response to your post in the "New K-series DSLR..." thread.

EDIT: I can't quite see eye-AF happening but face detection is possible.

Not sure whether your camera model supports a "Spot AF" mode. The K-1 does and it should help with aiming more precisely than possible with "single centre point focusing".