[foxglove]

First a little background:
I'm a Luddite in tech-head clothes. I've been perfectly happy since March using my *istDL much like the venerable K1000, with my old manual lenses. So when the K100D came out, I thought, "Huh, I don't need that fancy-schmancy SR stuff, I've been doing just fine without it. How great can it be, anyway?"

Then my husband traded my DL on me - his buddy wanted a dslr, had some old Pentax lenses, but didn't have the money for a new camera. They agreed that I'd sell him my DL, and get a K100. Luckily I decided this was a reasonable proposal. I got the K100, was too busy to play with it, then got sick, and only just got around to really messing around with it.

Yesterday we trapped a young raccoon. They get in our bird feeders and compost, and have apparently attacked a couple of our cats, so when we get the chance we trap them and relocate them. It was sitting in the back of the vehicle, in not-so-great light, as I took a few shots. I noticed my shutter speed was getting a little low, remembered this fancy-schmancy SR that I'd been pooh-poohing, and turned it on for one final shot. Here are 100% crops of the eye:

On the left, f8, 1/20, SR off. On the right, f8, 1/15, SR on. Both at 55mm at close range.


When I looked at these, well, you coulda knocked me over with a feather. Okay, I'd seen Janneman's Dynamic SR Test over at dpreview (anyone who hasn't, ought to - bloody funny!) but figured that's a nice, regularly jiggling engine, that's easy for the mechanism to cope with. Also, the manual says SR is less effective at short distances - I was within 30 cm of the cage, probably closer.

Sorry to bore all of you who figured this out ages ago with a long-winded story, but it was a bit of a revelation to me! I'm going to have to write "SR!" on my right thumb where I'll see it while shooting, so I'll remember to turn it on when appropriate - it certainly works far better than I'd thought possible.

Julie

[Quaffle]

Is there anything wrong with leaving it on at all times, other than when using a tripod?

[foxglove]

Is there anything wrong with leaving it on at all times, other than when using a tripod?

Not that I know of, although I suppose it might use a little more battery power. Probably not enough to really notice, though.

Anyone else have thoughts on this??

Julie

[Jun Park]

Not that I know of, although I suppose it might use a little more battery power. Probably not enough to really notice, though.

Anyone else have thoughts on this??

Julie

I think Pentax recommends leaving the SR on because it doesn't kick in until the shot so there isn't a significant effect on battery life.

But I think the SR should be turned off if you're taking panning shots. I tried some panning shots of my dog with the K10D and I noticed some weird effects because I forgot to turn off the SR function. In the attached pic, there is an unusual "ghosting" effect of the dogs in the upper left-hand corner which I'm assuming is from the SR trying to keep up with the camera movement. That is, instead of a smooth, continuous blur, you see a sharply defined shape at the beginning and end of the blurs.

(This is probably common knowledge but it's new to me because I've never had a camera with this sort of fancy technology...)

I'll be taking my dog to the dog park soon and I will try a few more panning shots but with the SR turned off.

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[xfraser]

I leave mine on all the time. I've even left it on while panning, and did not have the ghost image like Jun Park, but it definitely was not very sharp, so I think next time I'll turn it off for panning, but leave it on for everything else.

[Alvin]

I've noticed problems similar to Jun's when my kid plays tag with my godchildren in the apartment. Fast action shots indoor shots at close range, I'll try to turn it off and see.

[stern]

Not that I know of, although I suppose it might use a little more battery power. Probably not enough to really notice, though.

Anyone else have thoughts on this??

Julie

i left the IS on all the time (thats what all the S1 owners did) except for tripod shots. with pentax' SR it would probably be the same (plus it reduces the risk of having dust on the sensor - dust might be shaken off).

[Ian Mc]

I leave my SR on all the time including panning bird flight shots which do not suffer any ill effects although I will switch off if putting K10D on a tripod.
Here is a recent flight shot.

[roentarre]

Nice shot. A tern?

I should visit a coast some time.

[Ian Mc]

Thanks roentarre.
Yes it is a White-fronted Tern which is endemic to NZ but flies over the ditch to see you guys on migration.
I thought picture name would come up on the post.Always more to learn.
That 50/500 Sigma sounds like a pretty wicked lens for patrolling the estuary etc but must weigh a fair bit is it a PKAF mount? How heavy?
Thanks.I'm just waiting on a Tamron 70/300 PKAF macro.
Ian Mc
PS Sorry if I hi-jacked the thread a bit.

[roentarre]

Hi Ian, please refer to some of the examples in this thread

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/1727-need-help...long-lens.html

I did not use bigma that much and I think Russel has a few shots to share with us in post a pic section. I hardly used this lens because of its limitation of f6.3 at long end.

It is only 1.2 kg weight and a zoom ring to change focal length. Incredibly tight ring especially between 400mm to 500mm. After some repeated use, the ring would loosen. There is a lock that does not necessarily work well and image sharpness decrease >430 mm wide open. Stopping down one stop would suffice for reasonable sharpness.

Colour and contrast are great and there must be some sort of strong UV filter inside the lens that gives great rich colour like sigma 70-200/2.8

This is really light weight, and compact. Not heavy to carry. Just the aperture a bit of problems. Its AF speed is relatively fast and accurate, hunts in low light.

p.s. mine just had AF malfuctions and I gonna send it in to repair under warantee

Cheers

[Ian Mc]

Thanks roentarre.
Best wishes for great results when AF fixed.
Happy New Year.
Cheers:Ian Mc

[SpecialK]

Is there anything wrong with leaving it on at all times, other than when using a tripod?

Per the Pentax manual, there are a couple situations where it "does not fully work" - close-up shots, and panning with slow shutter speeds, or night scenes. How close is close or how slow is slow is not elaborated :-(

They recommend using a tripod in those circumstances, where again, the SR should be turned off.

Also per the manual, the SR automatically turns itself off in certain modes, particularly either self-timer mode, "bulb", remote control, and wireless with external flash. No need to flip the switch. In most cases you are on a tripod, anyway.

[foxglove]

How close is close or how slow is slow is not elaborated

Isn't that annoying? It was because of the "won't work up close" comment in the manual that I was so impressed by my results - I was fairly close to the raccoon, certainly under 30cm, probably under 20. I just turned it on out of curiosity, and was really pleased that it worked. I suppose SR up close is unlikely to make things look worse!

Julie