[jcamero]

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When I got my K10, I really thought I would get great images, everytime I pushed the shutter button, was I wrong!!! I would say read, practice, experiment, read more, practice more. I am no expert whatsoever, but my images have improved dramaticly over the 18 months I have had my Tenner. I've gotten enough good compliments that my local dog breed club has designated my as the "club photographer". So, I say do NOT get discouraged, you will find what the camera needs to give you what you need.

[UnknownVT]

thanks for the advise. you're absolutely right in the sense that i set it to spot metering. i will try multi segment and see how it goes. it's just that for an event like family party, i tend to use Auto mode as i am too lazy to check and recheck the variables. should i do AFS or AFC ? when i use AFC the lens tend to hunt a lot. thanks again.

The iPhone 4 pics are good....
for a cell phone.....

K10D pics - because of the spot metering the (white) flower was measured for 18% mid-gray and therefore exposed as such.

However all is not lost, even though the overall pic is underexposed -
with simple post processing one can get the pic to be acceptable -

Hope you don't mind - I've taken the liberty of downloading your first K10D pic and doing very simple pp -
resized to fit on the forum screen - but EXIF is still attached -


AF-S is for single shot and AF-C is for continuous shooting.

Personally I set single central point focus (using AF-S) -
then pre-focus and recompose for my shots.

[Buschmaster]

Funny that I come here and see this thread. I was just reflecting this morning on just how good the pics are coming from my iPhone. Especially in really nice light. I don't even need/want/desire a point & shoot anymore. Wouldn't take one for free. Pretty cool to think about.

As far as your K10D shots, it sure seems like the others have all covered it, just wanted to share my little blurb of thought from this morning.

[eddie1960]

The biggest issues have been pointed out. I think the true biggest issue is you need to understand exposure better. The K10 while not the best low light performer caneasily trounce any Iphone for image quality
As pointed out Spot metering is not your friend in this case (it could be but you metered the wrong spot . When I am in full manual mode I use spot metering most of the time, If I am shooting on the fly i will use TAV mode and matrix metering. On the K10 I would limit the auto iso in TAV to 800 though.beyond that you will be dealing with a lot of noise

You may want to read this book. more than any accessory you can go buy it will help your photography. Using a DSLR to acheive great shots takes far more work than an iPhone, but it is also capable of taking far better shots (and far worse due to it's moderate complexity)

Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera: Amazon.ca: Bryan Peterson: Books

If you don't want to buy it most libraries have a copy in my experience. It's well worth owning though if you really want to exploit your camera's capabilities
As for shooting family events, onve you understand the cameras operation fully it's no different than shooting anything else and you'll likely use Av mode or Tav or full manual. An accessory flash for lower light indoor with the K10 is very useful (though I've shot many low light event without on mine)

[vmaniqui]

UnknownVT - no problem. appreciate the work. that's way better pic after PP. thanks. i never use or probably i should say i don't have any PP software to work with. am i expecting too much from my K10D and sigma 17-70mm ? as you all know when i am using my K100D and kit lens i could have sworn that i could take more focused and nice pictures than my K10D. i am attaching 2 pics i have taken with my 17-70mm and it looks out of focused. yet my camera tells me it's focused before i took the shot.

[vonBaloney]

UnknownVT - no problem. appreciate the work. that's way better pic after PP. thanks. i never use or probably i should say i don't have any PP software to work with. am i expecting too much from my K10D and sigma 17-70mm ? as you all know when i am using my K100D and kit lens i could have sworn that i could take more focused and nice pictures than my K10D. i am attaching 2 pics i have taken with my 17-70mm and it looks out of focused. yet my camera tells me it's focused before i took the shot.

But you are also shooting at 1/10sec, a very slow shutter speed and not a recipe for sharpness if you are not on a tripod...

[eddie1960]

Ok those were shot very slow for 70mm on apsc even with SR, so it may be motion induce blur as well since some of the petals do look to be close to focused . minimum focus distance is 22cm and it looks like you may have been right on the edge of that and may have moved just a bit when pressing the shutter.

For shutter speed out at 70 mm taking SR into account if you want minimum acceptable sharpness it would be 1/25 of a second ( 1/1.5*FL then adjust for 2 stops less for the SR) For maximum sharpness even with SR it should be 1/80 sec (1/4.5xFL less 2 stops for SR ) This assumes you have waited for the SR confirmation and have good technique. As a matter of fact even taking SR into account you are in a borderline macro mode here so the speed should be even faster since motion is magnified

I've shot 1/15 at 70mm and gotten acceptable results but just as often they were unacceptable. In fact on my 24-70 2.8 Sigma I don't really like to shoot slower than 1/60 even with SR due to the weight of the camera grip lens combo (and weight actually can be your friend for this)

the shots have good potential but they need more light to really have success (they look a little under exposed even with the slow shutter to me - same thing they were spot metered and picked the big white zone as middle grey. middle grey should actually in both cases be selected from the background area in this case)

If these were near a window than perhaps adding some fill flash with a diffuser would have made them pop (low level 1/4 power fill would have allowed a higher shutter speed to freeze them while still keeping the background exposed as well.

If it was tungsten light then moving a lamp in closer and tilting back the shade to add more light may have been all you needed

[UnknownVT]

i never use or probably i should say i don't have any PP software to work with. am i expecting too much from my K10D and sigma 17-70mm ? as you all know when i am using my K100D and kit lens i could have sworn that i could take more focused and nice pictures than my K10D. i am attaching 2 pics i have taken with my 17-70mm and it looks out of focused. yet my camera tells me it's focused before i took the shot.

Most dSLR images need some pp to get the best out of them.

However re: your focus issue -
both your shots are at 1/10th sec
which is really hard to hand hold,
even with Pentax Shake Reduction.

Just to show you how minimal PP can make those shots a bit better -



your second shot was definitely blurred - either out of focus or camera shake -
I think the latter as nothing is sharp in the pic - whereas a mis-focus would show something sharp.

There are many Free Photo Editors out there - here's a list selected by About.com
Free Photo Editors for Windows - Top Picks

You might just try FastStone Image Viewer -
it's free and very easy to use and can even process RAW files.

Literally between me typing the above line and now, I used FastStone Image Viewer to pp those same two photos:




Of course this is salvaging -
it's much better to get the image right in the first place.

[eddie1960]

Most dSLR images need some pp to get the best out of them.

However re: your focus issue -
both your shots are at 1/10th sec
which is really hard to hand hold,
even with Pentax Shake Reduction.

Just to show you how minimal PP can make those shots a bit better -



your second shot was definitely blurred - either out of focus or camera shake -
I think the latter as nothing is sharp in the pic - whereas a mis-focus would show something sharp.

There are many Free Photo Editors out there - here's a list selected by About.com
Free Photo Editors for Windows - Top Picks

You might just try FastStone Image Viewer -
it's free and very easy to use and can even process RAW files.

Literally between me typing the above line and now, I used FastStone Image Viewer to pp those same two photos:




Of course this is salvaging -
it's much better to get the image right in the first place.

this of course is the other issue, good job on the quick PP (I don't have that option on my work computer. It also shows a good reson for shooting raw as it is easier to salvage a shot in raw without degrading the image

[vmaniqui]

thanks guys. great advises and inputs. i guess i need to do my homework first before i throw the towel. it so amazing what PP can do but you're right VT - need to get it right the first time. i was already at the edge and call it done and just get a micro 4/3 camera to make my life easy. in fact i have started taking pictures of all my Pentax gears and go the CL way. but hey i've been a SLR person since my Pentax MX days up to today. so better stick to it. haven't tried any brand - JUST PENTAX for me. so it's pentax or bust..... i guess i am still an aspiring photographer with no knowledge of anything about taking good pictures...

[eddie1960]

thanks guys. great advises and inputs. i guess i need to do my homework first before i throw the towel. it so amazing what PP can do but you're right VT - need to get it right the first time. i was already at the edge and call it done and just get a micro 4/3 camera to make my life easy. in fact i have started taking pictures of all my Pentax gears and go the CL way. but hey i've been a SLR person since my Pentax MX days up to today. so better stick to it. haven't tried any brand - JUST PENTAX for me. so it's pentax or bust..... i guess i am still an aspiring photographer with no knowledge of anything about taking good pictures...

not a chance a m4/3 will make your life any easier. the rules of exposure apply to it as well. It's just a little smaller lighter.

do some research on the software as he pointed out and read the book I recommended (I've been shooting for 40 years now and read it last year as a refresher. I've recommended it to many users in your position. If you actually treat the K10 like it was the MX your metering would be better (MX is a center weighted meter)
Use shutter speeds you would have on the MX (my guess is you never would have tried to shoot 1/10 on the mx with a big zoom) the 35mm rule of thumb was 1/FL for acceptable sharpness and 1/3*FL for Sharp. 1/FL with SR should actually give you Sharp as opposed to acceptable sharp that is the boon of SR
For me the hardest part of Digital has been adapting to digital PP versus darkroom/sending out, but learning the software is well worth it (and it is mostly easier than going in the darkroom, but maybe not as much fun IMO)

[UnknownVT]

About.com Free Photo Editors for Windows - Top Picks
Gizmo's Best Free Digital Image Editor
TechRadar Best Free Photo Editor
Hive Five Best Image Editing Tools - Lifehacker

ConsumerSearch.com is a great site that reviews the reviews -
ie: surveys all the reviews out there and come to some consensus -
kind of what I'd do if I had the resources:

ConsumerSearch.com on Free Photo Editors

ConsumerSearch.com Photo Editing Software Reviews | Best Photo Editing Software

[TER-OR]

vmaniqui:
Go back to those same flowers. Set your camera to TAv mode and starting with wide open aperture and shutter speed at 1/60sec start taking pictures while changing parameters - speed and aperture separately. Back in the day of film and manual cameras you had to set the aperture and film speed then change the shutter speed to get a correct exposure. Or set the shutter speed to avoid blur, and vary the aperture for correct exposure. Nothing has changed, except you're the developer.

Hell, set it to green mode and see what the camera's program thinks you should do. That's what you're doing with the iPhone.

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to get very good results from the K-10. If you want to tape some tissue paper in front of the flash, you'll find you can get very nice flash fill results, too. If all you're doing is snapshots, the K-10 is overkill - but certainly capable.

[Marc Sabatella]

You might also want to read about Depth of Field (DOF). The first picture *is* in focus - at least, that small sliver of it that would be expected to be in focus given the shallow DOF that results from that focal length, aperture, and subject distance.