[kenyee]

I was shooting JPEG, but just using the Pentax, not the Nikon.

If you're just shooting JPEG, crank up the in-camera sharpening settings (there are two). The default sharpening out of a Pentax camera is *much* less than the default out of Nikon/Canon camera.

And post full size pics of your friend if you don't want to post pics of your kid so we can pixel peep his hair with you....

[X Man]

Bravo
echo
echo
romeo

[candgpics]

I have been taking pictures this weekend. I tried JPEG because I thought perhaps I was not doing something right in RAW so I wanted to see how JPEG treated me.

The pictures so far have been excellent. They are in better focus and quite nice. I played with the AF adjustment. Generally, the default focus position was ok, but not sharp. When I used +4 (and even -3 or -4) there was a nice improvement. Is it possible that there could be an improvement at +4 that almost matched -3?

Other than that wierd (for me) perceived glitch things are going more swimmingly. I will take some more pictures over the next few days and I may order the 50 f/1.4 to do some portraits of my family.

At the risk of starting something do any of you prefer not to shoot portraits with a 50 lens and instead use a more telephoto lens (like maybe the 50-135?)

Thank you all again for your help and straight shooting.

Gregg

[EricT]

I have been taking pictures this weekend. I tried JPEG because I thought perhaps I was not doing something right in RAW so I wanted to see how JPEG treated me.

The pictures so far have been excellent. They are in better focus and quite nice. I played with the AF adjustment. Generally, the default focus position was ok, but not sharp. When I used +4 (and even -3 or -4) there was a nice improvement. Is it possible that there could be an improvement at +4 that almost matched -3?

Other than that wierd (for me) perceived glitch things are going more swimmingly. I will take some more pictures over the next few days and I may order the 50 f/1.4 to do some portraits of my family.

At the risk of starting something do any of you prefer not to shoot portraits with a 50 lens and instead use a more telephoto lens (like maybe the 50-135?)

Thank you all again for your help and straight shooting.

Gregg

It depends on what you mean by portrait. For just a head shot, something like a 70-100mm would work better, but for torso+head, a 50mm is just fine.

[rfortson]

I have been taking pictures this weekend. I tried JPEG because I thought perhaps I was not doing something right in RAW so I wanted to see how JPEG treated me.

The pictures so far have been excellent. They are in better focus and quite nice. I played with the AF adjustment. Generally, the default focus position was ok, but not sharp. When I used +4 (and even -3 or -4) there was a nice improvement. Is it possible that there could be an improvement at +4 that almost matched -3?

Other than that wierd (for me) perceived glitch things are going more swimmingly. I will take some more pictures over the next few days and I may order the 50 f/1.4 to do some portraits of my family.

At the risk of starting something do any of you prefer not to shoot portraits with a 50 lens and instead use a more telephoto lens (like maybe the 50-135?)

Thank you all again for your help and straight shooting.

Gregg

Gregg, did you try the Pentax software for your raw conversion? It sounds like your raw conversion may be the source of your problem if you're getting jpegs like you like them. I'm not saying you have to stay with the Pentax software (especially if you're well versed with ACR) but it should give you a good comparison of what's possible from the raw files. Then you can tweak your ACR settings/technique until you get what you want from it.

[Vormulac]

Dude, you already told us you bought a Canon. So why are you still hanging out at the Pentax forum?

Don't feed the trolls, guys. I've never encountered a forum that is so prone to trolling, non-Pentaxians must be *really* insecure to keep posting this cr*p.

[Haakan]

I found that Pentax users are the ones most happy with the equipment. Also, I found this forum to show that the average Pentax user seems to be more skilled and have given their purchasing decision a lot more thought than the average DSLR buyer. Part of why I selected Pentax.

User satisfaction score from DPReview (on a scale to 5)

Pentax K20D: 4.71
Pentax K10D: 4.78
Canon 50D: 4.26
Canon 40D: 4.52
Nikon D80: 4.56
Nikon D300: 4.54

Best regards,
Haakan

---

Last edited by Haakan; 03-01-2009 at 11:44 AM.

[madmikess]

Well, I've been nothing but happy with my Pentax cameras. It's all about learning your equipment and how to tweak it. I just upgraded from an *istDL to the K20D and while my pictures with the DL were always sharp with my Sigma 24-135mm lens, on the K20D I was getting incredible back focus. I almost considered giving the lens away to my sister when I sold her the DL. But I've since found the AF adjustment setting that fixes my issue with the K20D and this lens and I plan on keeping it. It's all about patience to learn how to tweak the equipment. Of course folks will say why can't it be perfect for me right out of the box? Well, for those who don't have the patience to learn then maybe equipment that's all set for you is what you need. I prefer to get involved and learn so that when I do run into a problem then it doesn't become a problem, it becomes an easy to solve setting change.

[kenyee]

I found that Canon and Nikon users have almost no problems at all with their equipment, while Pentax owners seem to have alot with theirs. Thats why I chose to get a Canon.

LOL...I agree w/ x-man. Here's what I've seen and I don't even browse their forums that much:
Canon 1DmkIII: really crappy autofocusing compared to old 1DmkII (misaligned mirror box)
Canon 5DmkII: black dark pixels, white hot pixels (hot pixels fixed w/ firmware update but not dark pixels)
Nikon D700/D300: LCD has lots of stuck pixels, body croaks and no longer focuses, AF-C doesn't work when targeting birds (user didn't set up menu setting properly)

[candgpics]

Hi all:

I am returning the 16-50 lens. I took over 100 pictures with the lens, both casual shots of my family and test shots. No matter what I did the lens, though not horrible, is not focusing evenly. I am satisfied, as best as I can be, that the camera is working properly.

At the risk of sounding over zealous I lined up a horizontal row of batteries on my kitchen table and also put one battery 1.5 inches behind the horizontal row and 1 battery 1.5 inches in front. I set this up to test edge and center focus, along with front and back focus. I think there was some issue of front focus, but no matter what I did, either left at default or adjusted for front and back focus, the right and left sides would not focus in line with the center even up to f/8. And, I do not mean the far edges of the field of view--more close to right of center or left of center. The lack of proper focus showed up in even the casual photos around the house.

My hope is that I will get a good copy of the 16-50. I also ordered the 50-135. I felt it was worth the risk since the 50-135 generally has been reviewed extremely well and appears to have better quality control.

If the 50-135 and the new 16-50 are not performing properly I don't know what I will do. I like the k20d. It is nicely built, but the quality control issues I read about on the web are frustrating to have to go through.

Have others experienced similar lens quality control issues?

It is just frustrating.

Thanx.

[kenyee]

Have others experienced similar lens quality control issues?

Search back in the SLR forum about the 3 Tamron 28-75 lenses I returned for BF/fuzziness issues

Gregg, did you try the Pentax software for your raw conversion? It sounds like your raw conversion may be the source of your problem if you're getting jpegs like you like them. I'm not saying you have to stay with the Pentax software (especially if you're well versed with ACR) but it should give you a good comparison of what's possible from the raw files. Then you can tweak your ACR settings/technique until you get what you want from it.

Some programs like faststone image viewer will open raw files but they are not very clear.
I didn't want to put out the money for a good raw converter. I tried Pentax's version plus Raw Therapee and neither one are that great to work with.
I finally came to the conclusion that I was pretty much converting my images to JPEGS and then tweaking them from there. For all the work and hassle of shooting RAW I wasn't getting any better results and wasting a bunch of time.
Shooting RAW for every picture is a black hole of time.
Until my skills start exceeding what I can get from the camera's JPEGS I am going to forgo RAW.
Right now I shoot mostly in manual and have tweaked my JPEGS to give the images I want.

[Jewelltrail]

Julianactive: Some programs like faststone image viewer will open raw files but they are not very clear.

I use the Faststone software for my Raw files but have not noticed a lack of clarity. Can you post an example of this? Perhaps I am not getting the most from my Raws--I would love to learn more--thanks.

[Jewelltrail]

Pentax users most satisfied

I found that Pentax users are the ones most happy with the equipment. Also, I found this forum to show that the average Pentax user seems to be more skilled and have given their purchasing decision a lot more thought than the average DSLR buyer. Part of why I selected Pentax.

User satisfaction score from DPReview (on a scale to 5)

Pentax K20D: 4.71
Pentax K10D: 4.78
Canon 50D: 4.26
Canon 40D: 4.52
Nikon D80: 4.56
Nikon D300: 4.54

Best regards,
Haakan

This is good stuff--thanks. Can you point me to where, precisely, you got this data? I am curious about sample sizes and what not which were used to compile the data. These results are what I would intuit given my limited experience thus far with DSLRs.

I use the Faststone software for my Raw files but have not noticed a lack of clarity. Can you post an example of this? Perhaps I am not getting the most from my Raws--I would love to learn more--thanks.

Jewell,

Compare your RAW converted JPEGS from Faststone to just a JPEG from the same camera. See if you notice a difference.