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02-23-2021, 11:25 AM   #16
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QuoteOriginally posted by SinfulLifestyle Quote
Could I just clarify on the point of adaptors for manual lenses and autofocus:
If I attached a M42 lens to the istDL body using the Pentax adaptor, the camera will indicate if the lens is in focus or not
(the role typically filled by the AF chip on the M42 to EOS adaptors for example), rather than simply relying on my own eyes?

I may just go fork out a little more for a Pentax branded mount, rather than run the lottery of 3rd party I think!
Personally I can't do viewfinder MF accurately relying on the indicator, but if you can focus accurately on your Canon then I guess you probably can with the Pentax. I assume you've examined your results carefully and are happy with your focus accuracy.

Honestly unless you have some high-end screw mount lenses, and maybe if you do, I'd suggest spending your money elsewhere.

02-23-2021, 04:29 PM   #17
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QuoteOriginally posted by tibbitts Quote
Personally I can't do viewfinder MF accurately relying on the indicator, but if you can focus accurately on your Canon then I guess you probably can with the Pentax. I assume you've examined your results carefully and are happy with your focus accuracy.

Honestly unless you have some high-end screw mount lenses, and maybe if you do, I'd suggest spending your money elsewhere.
With the 6mp sensor the tolerance for focus is not as critical.
02-23-2021, 04:40 PM   #18
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QuoteOriginally posted by UncleVanya Quote
With the 6mp sensor the tolerance for focus is not as critical.
Can you explain why?

No matter what sensor is in the camera, the photographer is looking directly down the lens via a viewfinder and mirror - and any technology that helps reduce squinting and eye strain is a good thing.
02-23-2021, 06:21 PM   #19
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QuoteOriginally posted by G&R Quote
Can you explain why?

No matter what sensor is in the camera, the photographer is looking directly down the lens via a viewfinder and mirror - and any technology that helps reduce squinting and eye strain is a good thing.
For the same reason that lenses that seemed adequate with my K100 didn't make the grade on my K-5 (and look even worse at 24mp without an aa filter) - even when properly focused. Viewing at 100% at 16 or 24mp is more demanding of precise focus and good optical performance than 6mp.

Realistically the better cameras have better viewfinders and do slightly improve MF vs. the K100. But still not enough for me with most lenses. I'm not sure what qualifies a lens as good for MF: for example I can't MF my 50/1.7 despite the relatively long throw. But with my Sigma 50/2.8 macro I get a higher hit rate with MF than with the 1.7 set at f2.8. Probably a magnifier would help too, at the sacrifice of being able to see all of the image area (for some eyeglass wearer especially.) Or a better focusing screen.

02-23-2021, 06:53 PM   #20
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QuoteOriginally posted by G&R Quote
Can you explain why?

No matter what sensor is in the camera, the photographer is looking directly down the lens via a viewfinder and mirror - and any technology that helps reduce squinting and eye strain is a good thing.
Read about circles of confusion.
02-24-2021, 02:06 AM   #21
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QuoteOriginally posted by tibbitts Quote
lenses that seemed adequate with my K100 didn't make the grade on my K-5
Fair enough but the K100 has a CCD, and the K-5 has CMOS. There are strengths and weaknesses to each.

Any lens produces its best results when paired with a sensor upon which every light-sensitive element captures light in the same moment and where minimal light is lost between those elements. Is it possible to reduce the MP setting on a K-5 to gain an equal comparison of the two technologies? (I will post later with my findings on K3 vs K10 vs DL2)

QuoteOriginally posted by tibbitts Quote
Probably a magnifier would help too, at the sacrifice of being able to see all of the image area (for some eyeglass wearer especially.)
The greater the magnification the more the eye needs to be distanced from the glass. I find the Pentax x1.2 magnifier is a good compromise because its a small magnification and a sizeable pad, but I would like to try some bigger magnifications because I wear spectacles that bump into small viewfinders.



---------- Post added 02-24-21 at 02:17 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by UncleVanya Quote
Read about circles of confusion.
With almost every DSLR, tweaking the MF will generate a reassuring sound and flash a red square in the viewfinder - they call these features AF points, but they serve as a digital substitute for a physical microprism in MF mode. Like a mouse click, these features provide an assistive feedback to confirm we have achieved something.

I have four Pentax cameras. One of them is an *ist DL2, which is a later 6MP camera that displays no AF points in MF modes; using a vanilla DL2 without upgraded viewfinder requires extra squinting and more effort to focus because tiny variations in sharpness and softness over time, without a reference point, messes with human perception. I sometimes look way, rub my eyes, and try again. I am pretty sure that using a vanilla DL2 for a whole day would give me a headache.

The desire to assist the photographer find their desired focus is why 1970s SLR makers added a microprism. Adding one of those to a DL2 transforms the camera.

Last edited by G&R; 02-24-2021 at 04:47 AM.
02-24-2021, 07:41 AM - 1 Like   #22
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QuoteOriginally posted by G&R Quote
With almost every DSLR, tweaking the MF will generate a reassuring sound and flash a red square in the viewfinder - they call these features AF points, but they serve as a digital substitute for a physical microprism in MF mode. Like a mouse click, these features provide an assistive feedback to confirm we have achieved something.

I have four Pentax cameras. One of them is an *ist DL2, which is a later 6MP camera that displays no AF points in MF modes; using a vanilla DL2 without upgraded viewfinder requires extra squinting and more effort to focus because tiny variations in sharpness and softness over time, without a reference point, messes with human perception. I sometimes look way, rub my eyes, and try again. I am pretty sure that using a vanilla DL2 for a whole day would give me a headache.

The desire to assist the photographer find their desired focus is why 1970s SLR makers added a microprism. Adding one of those to a DL2 transforms the camera.
With Pentax the red af point indicator doesn’t indicate focus achieved, it only tells you where the focusing system is looking. The green hexagon tells you focus is achieved.

Also the dl2 you refer to has a horrible pentamirror not pentaprism finder. It is dark and offers a generally poor experience. None of which has anything to do with what I said. When I said the 6mp sensor is more tolerant of focusing errors I wasn’t talking about the experience of the photographer during the process but of the outcome. The sensor has a wider tolerance for focusing because it lacks the level of detail of modern sensors. Lenses that gave perfectly good images on those 6mp sensors, and autofocus algorithms that worked at 6mp weren’t always up to the task when the sensor resolution went up. This is why the original 18-55 was redesigned and why the 50-200 was great on my k100d super but not so great on my k50.

The overall point is meant to be, that larger errors in focusing will be tolerated by the final output. This isn’t meant to say it’s easier to focus, just that the low resolution permits more errors without negatively impacting the final image. There’s simply a larger tolerance.

02-24-2021, 09:57 AM - 1 Like   #23
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QuoteOriginally posted by G&R Quote
Fair enough but the K100 has a CCD, and the K-5 has CMOS. There are strengths and weaknesses to each.

Any lens produces its best results when paired with a sensor upon which every light-sensitive element captures light in the same moment and where minimal light is lost between those elements. Is it possible to reduce the MP setting on a K-5 to gain an equal comparison of the two technologies? (I will post later with my findings on K3 vs K10 vs DL2)


The greater the magnification the more the eye needs to be distanced from the glass. I find the Pentax x1.2 magnifier is a good compromise because its a small magnification and a sizeable pad, but I would like to try some bigger magnifications because I wear spectacles that bump into small viewfinders.



---------- Post added 02-24-21 at 02:17 AM ----------


With almost every DSLR, tweaking the MF will generate a reassuring sound and flash a red square in the viewfinder - they call these features AF points, but they serve as a digital substitute for a physical microprism in MF mode. Like a mouse click, these features provide an assistive feedback to confirm we have achieved something.

I have four Pentax cameras. One of them is an *ist DL2, which is a later 6MP camera that displays no AF points in MF modes; using a vanilla DL2 without upgraded viewfinder requires extra squinting and more effort to focus because tiny variations in sharpness and softness over time, without a reference point, messes with human perception. I sometimes look way, rub my eyes, and try again. I am pretty sure that using a vanilla DL2 for a whole day would give me a headache.

The desire to assist the photographer find their desired focus is why 1970s SLR makers added a microprism. Adding one of those to a DL2 transforms the camera.
I really don't understand your point at all about CCD and CMOS. Frankly having owned multiple versions of both CCD and CMOS, I'm just not able to get excited over any differences in color (which everyone else seems to get excited about) or anything else. For me it's like back in the film era: people could talk about this or that lens having a certain color characteristic, but I'm hitting the end of a roll of Kodachrome Professional and starting over with another on the same scene... and end up with one magenta picture and one green one. I mean not even close. Today that happens with AWB on my Pentax cameras: I take a second picture - on a tripod no less - and the sun peeks out ever so slightly from behind a cloud. I don't even notice any change but my camera changes WB by hundreds of degrees. So I get completely different results, like I took one of the pictures through one of those filters we used to use on film for fluorescent light. And I sort-of-mostly "fix" it in post. Just not that exciting or interesting to me. But I completely don't see any difference with resolution and sensor technologies: more mp means I need more accurate focus and better lenses if I want to make use of the mp (view/print larger images with more detail, etc.)

I agree that, assuming all the parts are aligned which is another subject, I'd do better with a better focusing screen. I could focus better when I moved from the Spotmatic microprism to the A-1 that had split-image. But if I replaced that Kodachrome in my A-1 with a 50mp sensor and displayed my results at 100% I'm sure I couldn't focus the A-1 well enough either. Probably I would have felt the same if I'd examined the Kodachrome with a microscope instead of a plastic loupe. I can do a little better with a pentaprism than a pentamirror. Magnification would probably help, but I can often barely see the data displays and image corners as-is on my Pentax bodies. The viewfinder focus confirmation on the other hand doesn't come close to helping me, no matter how careful I try to be with it.
02-24-2021, 10:30 AM   #24
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If your results vary that much in AWB something is wrong. Also with Kodachrome (my favorite of that era) I never saw the same kind of results. I wonder if the developing lab was inconsistent. Only a few did Kodachrome outside of Kodak and not all were any good.
02-24-2021, 10:53 AM   #25
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QuoteOriginally posted by UncleVanya Quote
If your results vary that much in AWB something is wrong. Also with Kodachrome (my favorite of that era) I never saw the same kind of results. I wonder if the developing lab was inconsistent. Only a few did Kodachrome outside of Kodak and not all were any good.
Except for a few rolls all my Kodachrome was processed by Kodak. The inconsistent results were very frequent in the K-14 era. I didn't notice the same in the K-12 era, but the vast majority of my experience was with K-14. Not all was as obvious as what I mentioned, but I often split the same image across rolls and even when the film was from the same Pro batch, there far more difference between the rolls than between some subtle lens coating or CCD vs. CMOS issue. Certainly most of the time the results were close enough that I wouldn't notice without having taken the "same" photo on two rolls. But definitely not always.

All my cameras have behaved the same with AWB: K100, K200, K-5, K-5ii. Of course I'm using a tool to view/process the results, too (all raw, although some tools use the jpeg preview, and others don't), but I see pretty dramatic differences in the "same" images, and I've used may different software tools over the years. But AWB only changes if something in the scene at least slightly changes, like I said with clouds moving or something. Unless you're just banging away with high frame rate almost always something changes in a landscape or nature scene. Most of the changes don't trigger any AWB change that I can notice, but some do. So I'm sure the cameras are working as intended, they just don't always adjust the way you'd think they would. It just reminds me so much of Kodachrome when that happens.
02-24-2021, 11:03 AM   #26
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I don’t remember when k-14 started. Many of mine were processed locally as Charlotte NC had a good regional shop for that. My experience on awb may be swayed by the k-3 which has multi-auto wb where it can apply a much more granular approach. I didn’t like awb much before the k-3. I haven’t had poor results from other modern cameras but older ones often missed. Food for thought. Thanks.
02-24-2021, 11:33 AM   #27
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QuoteOriginally posted by UncleVanya Quote
I don’t remember when k-14 started. Many of mine were processed locally as Charlotte NC had a good regional shop for that. My experience on awb may be swayed by the k-3 which has multi-auto wb where it can apply a much more granular approach. I didn’t like awb much before the k-3. I haven’t had poor results from other modern cameras but older ones often missed. Food for thought. Thanks.
K-12 was Kii (Kodachrome pre-Kii was before my time so not sure what that used.) K-14 was K25/64/200.
02-24-2021, 01:26 PM   #28
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QuoteOriginally posted by tibbitts Quote
K-12 was Kii (Kodachrome pre-Kii was before my time so not sure what that used.) K-14 was K25/64/200.
All of my experiences were k-14.
02-24-2021, 01:26 PM   #29
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QuoteOriginally posted by UncleVanya Quote
Also the dl2 you refer to has a horrible pentamirror not pentaprism finder. It is dark and offers a generally poor experience.
That is the theory, and I was surprised..

A pentaprism is a solid glass, and so the light that penetrates is consistent and supposedly clearer. The pentamirror is a mix of materials including air. The theory that I read is that these other materials discolour, and that the air inside the pentamirror gradually becomes dustier. That is what I read. Maybe it holds true for Canon pentamirrors.

The history of my DL2 is that I bought it for spare parts, and before stripping it for parts I tried it out - what struck me about the DL2 was that it was not at all dark. In fact the view was brighter than my pentaprism cameras. DL2 development was strongly influenced by Samsung and maybe they introduced something into the mix. Maybe Samsung-Pentax experimented with newer materials? Maybe the DL2 is better made? Maybe it will worsen with age, and its only 15 years old..

QuoteOriginally posted by UncleVanya Quote
18-55
I use the same 18-55 lens for all my cameras, and I am trying to verify that the results are different... it will take me some time, but mine comes from a K10D so perhaps its not new enough to make a difference?

Last edited by G&R; 02-24-2021 at 01:39 PM.
02-24-2021, 01:58 PM   #30
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QuoteOriginally posted by G&R Quote
That is the theory, and I was surprised..

A pentaprism is a solid glass, and so the light that penetrates is consistent and supposedly clearer. The pentamirror is a mix of materials including air. The theory that I read is that these other materials discolour, and that the air inside the pentamirror gradually becomes dustier. That is what I read. Maybe it holds true for Canon pentamirrors.

The history of my DL2 is that I bought it for spare parts, and before stripping it for parts I tried it out - what struck me about the DL2 was that it was not at all dark. In fact the view was brighter than my pentaprism cameras. DL2 development was strongly influenced by Samsung and maybe they introduced something into the mix. Maybe Samsung-Pentax experimented with newer materials? Maybe the DL2 is better made? Maybe it will worsen with age, and its only 15 years old..


I use the same 18-55 lens for all my cameras, and I am trying to verify that the results are different... it will take me some time, but mine comes from a K10D so perhaps its not new enough to make a difference?
My k100d and k100d super are pentamirror. My k-50,k-3, and *istDS were all pentaprism. There’s a subtle but noticeable difference in brightness. As they age the Pentamirror ones have had more degradation; this manifests as mostly more debris in the finder.
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