[Wheatfield]

So who beat you as a child?

Pretty much whoever wanted to.

What have you contributed to this thread vis a vis helping people get the most out of their Pentax equipment?

Now that is the question really, isn't it?
I've drawn you into it

[Jewelltrail]

nanok: i beg to differ. it feels to me you are confusing "craft" with "art" (and, btw, many people do, sometimes very respected commercial photographers and so on, so maybe it's just me.). the art is
not in handling your gear, the art is in your vision and ability to materialize it effectively, if you do that with a brownie, a pencil or a top end dslr is quite irrelevant. imho, people crediting "artists" (let's just say image creators, maybe, i am more confortable with that term ) for their craft as well as for their gear are missing the point, and wasting their time: they don't get it, that's not what it's about...............................

Here is the definition of art, provided by a lexicographer. BTW, this is the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. If you feel this company is lacking in technology and you would rather I cite another lexicographer, then please let me know.




Main Entry: 2art
Pronunciation: \ˈärt\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin art-, ars — more at arm
Date: 13th century
1: skill acquired by experience, study, or observation <the art of making friends>
2 a: a branch of learning: (1): one of the humanities (2)plural : liberal arts barchaic : learning, scholarship
3: an occupation requiring knowledge or skill <the art of organ building>
4 a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects ; also : works so produced b (1): fine arts (2): one of the fine arts (3): a graphic art
5 aarchaic : a skillful plan b: the quality or state of being artful
6: decorative or illustrative elements in printed matter
synonyms art, skill, cunning, artifice, craft mean the faculty of executing well what one has devised. art implies a personal, unanalyzable creative power <the art of choosing the right word>. skill stresses technical knowledge and proficiency <the skill of a glassblower>. cunning suggests ingenuity and subtlety in devising, inventing, or executing <a mystery plotted with great cunning>. artifice suggests technical skill especially in imitating things in nature <believed realism in film could be achieved only by artifice>. craft may imply expertness in workmanship <the craft of a master goldsmith>.

The art (skill) of photography is not aiming a camera and pushing the shutter button--that is simply pushing a button--something, if technology gets even better, we could have chimps do for us. But here, yes here in the post below is art--a skill refined from indefatgiable hours of work and refinement. Here, in this thread by a fellow Pentaxian, we do not here the artist crying their brush is not of the finest quality. What we have here is someone artfully using their camera/lens to its best.

BTW, if you dislike the word art, feel free to substitute craft anywhere in this discussion.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/57335-bif-images-a300mmf4.html

[Jewelltrail]

nanok:
exactly.

however it is very interesting that i made this point a few pages ago, but nobody really took notice. it took a post at the other extreme to get you to acknowledge "the middle" way. as i explained in detail previously, as long as you keep at (your/)the extreme, all you will get will be extreme answers from the other side (save the odd, and easy to ignore, nutcase like me who childishly attempts to call for reason). oh well.

I took notice. You are right, reason is best reserved for the reasonable. I also agree it sometimes takes unorthodoxed approaches in order to get some people to discuss things respectfully and sensibly.

The Pentax camera/system is a fine one, with strengths and weaknesses like any other one. I, like everyone else here, bought into Pentax, but I am still happy with my decision. And I am grateful for the camera and all its amazing abilities. I am not going to sit here and tell you it is the best best camera system for every application, because to say this about any system is foolishness. It is not about the camera/system; rather, it is about the user and their needs. If you have bought Pentax, you should be busy making that Pentax the best you possibly can.

Great photography takes mutual commitment: first, the maker of the camera commits to the best product they can concretize; second, the purchaser examines, purchases, then commits to maximizing the product. Of the two commitments, for success, I think the latter one is more important.

"You must learn to be happy with what you have, not unhappy with what you don't have."

[Jewelltrail]

pingflood: I'd be more than happy to offer such advice, but this wasn't a thread where people are asking how to make the most out of their gear...

That is right, it was a post the OP started with joy because of the results he got shooting action photography with his Pentax--remember? It might do us good to return, for a second, to the opening post. Note the contentment in the post--note the lens used.

Kkoether:I went to Indianapolis for Pole Day yesterday. Armed with my K200D and my 26 year old Saitex 70-300mm manual zoom I took these shots during the day. This was my first experiance using my K200D for high speed action. It took a while to get dialed in but overall I'm pleased with the results.

Indy 2009 Pole Day - a set on Flickr

Hopefully by next year I'll have a new zoom lens.

BTW, with my Pentax DSLR last year I got a dragonfly in focus, as it zoomed around hunting for its dinner. I was, unusually, shooting auto focus at the time. I remember getting home and reviewing the shots and thinking, so what. I took at least 10 auto focus shots of the agile little guy, and one came out in focus. However, in all ten tries I did the same thing. I aimed the camera and pushed the button-- the dragonfly happened to make a move which favored the conditions for an in-focus shot. Do I think I got a great shot? No way. But I am still working on getting one perfectly focused and metered, manually. For me, that will mean a lot because I made it happen, not the draw of auto focus technology.

[palmor]

The art (skill) of photography is not aiming a camera and pushing the shutter button--that is simply pushing a button--something, if technology gets even better, we could have chimps do for us. But here, yes here in the post below is art--a skill refined from indefatgiable hours of work and refinement. Here, in this thread by a fellow Pentaxian, we do not here the artist crying their brush is not of the finest quality. What we have here is someone artfully using their camera/lens to its best.

This is a bad argument to make IMO because it implies that the ability to manual focus is the most important if not the only thing in photography to master to produce "art". My belief is that it is the least important thing and that the use and manipulation of light, framing ect are the most important things in photography.

The other reason why your argument falls down IMO is that you are arguing against technology (AF specifically) while using a very technological advanced digital camera that even when set in manual mode aids in the picture taking processes. Photographers that used to have to remove their lens cap to expose the film to light and had to know how long to expose based on their own determination of the light, I guess those are the only true photographers that produced art?

Now if anyone's own personal feeling of achievement is gained by doing this as manual as possible that is great, but to say the rest of use don't produce art because we choose to AF our subjects is kind of an insult. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way but take the point of view of the rest of us who like to focus our attention to other things then manually focusing.



John

[rparmar]

Here is my point of view, rather late in the thread.

1. You can indeed take action shots with Pentax gear.

2. If money is no object you can get better systems for the job. You'll miss fewer shots, be more accurate and be able to react in more adverse situations.

3. What was good enough 50 years ago is not good enough now.

4. What is good enough for one person is not good enough for another.

5. Better gear can help you take better shots, all else being equal.

6. I believe that the true contemplative spirit of photography can only be experienced by manual focusing with a prime lens.

7. Because I am not an action photographer, not wealthy and because of point 6, I prefer Pentax.

[pingflood]

This is a bad argument to make IMO because it implies that the ability to manual focus is the most important if not the only thing in photography to master to produce "art". My belief is that it is the least important thing and that the use and manipulation of light, framing ect are the most important things in photography.

The other reason why your argument falls down IMO is that you are arguing against technology (AF specifically) while using a very technological advanced digital camera that even when set in manual mode aids in the picture taking processes. Photographers that used to have to remove their lens cap to expose the film to light and had to know how long to expose based on their own determination of the light, I guess those are the only true photographers that produced art?

Now if anyone's own personal feeling of achievement is gained by doing this as manual as possible that is great, but to say the rest of use don't produce art because we choose to AF our subjects is kind of an insult. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way but take the point of view of the rest of us who like to focus our attention to other things then manually focusing.



John

Exactly -- where do you draw the line as to when technology becomes a crutch? One gets the impression sometimes that whichever camera the poster owns happens to have just the right level of automation for their photography to create "art" and not "machine gunning" pictures with the camera "thinking for you" It's amazing how that works out...

And yeah, I do agree it is insulting to many shooters, pros especially, to imply that using a high performance system for their work renders the results somehow less worthy.

[palmor]

I went to Indianapolis for Pole Day yesterday. Armed with my K200D and my 26 year old Saitex 70-300mm manual zoom I took these shots during the day. This was my first experiance using my K200D for high speed action. It took a while to get dialed in but overall I'm pleased with the results.

Indy 2009 Pole Day - a set on Flickr

Hopefully by next year I'll have a new zoom lens.

In all this debate I neglected to congratulate the OP on some very cool racing photos !


John

[Wheatfield]

Exactly -- where do you draw the line as to when technology becomes a crutch? One gets the impression sometimes that whichever camera the poster owns happens to have just the right level of automation for their photography to create "art" and not "machine gunning" pictures with the camera "thinking for you" It's amazing how that works out...

And yeah, I do agree it is insulting to many shooters, pros especially, to imply that using a high performance system for their work renders the results somehow less worthy.

Simply, anything more technologically advanced than a Camera Obscura and some charcoal sticks is a crutch.
Anyone using a modern camera is using a technological crutch to prop themselves up.
The people who so stridently bray that it's the photographer not the equipment are merely showing increasing levels of hypocrisy, depending on the level of technology they are using in their own work.
They probably haven't tried using the wrong piece of equipment for a particular endeavor.

[pentax1952]

Simply, anything more technologically advanced than a Camera Obscura and some charcoal sticks is a crutch.
Anyone using a modern camera is using a technological crutch to prop themselves up.
The people who so stridently bray that it's the photographer not the equipment are merely showing increasing levels of hypocrisy, depending on the level of technology they are using in their own work.
They probably haven't tried using the wrong piece of equipment for a particular endeavor.

Or you can look at it the other way around too. Does having a higher frame rate per second or a much larger memory card lead to superior photos or make most people better photographers?
Sure equipment is important but is it 90 percent of the equation, 50 percent 10 percent or what?
Once you get to a certain level of equipment, for most photos I believe it is 90 percent photographer and 10 percent equipment.
If your composition is poor, the lighting is poor and your timing is poor, it doesn't matter if you have the most expensive lenses and camera body in the world.
Are photos so much better today than in the film era?
How many people go out and take hundreds of photos using the continuous, and then get home and spend hours deleting photos, and still don't have one that they feel proud of? Quantity doesn't make for quality.
Obsessing over gear only gets one so far, unless that is what turns them on. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Why should one have to throw out ones equipment just because the AF lags behind another or because the FPS is "not up to snuff".
You take the attitude that either you should be drawing with charcoal or you must get the highest speced camera. That argument doesn't cut it either. For me it is the journey and trying to get over the face paced lifestyle that so consumes us that got me back into photography, and not the latest and greatest equipment.

[pentax1952]

Go to comprehension school, and stop trying to redefine what people write to try to score points. Nothing in your post can be attributed to anything that I wrote, either in what you've quoted or anywhere else. All you've done is another infantile attack to defend your low quality camera needs.


I don't really give any more of a damn about your sophomoronic journey and what is important to you than you apparently care about what is important to me.
The major difference appears to be that I take my photography seriously enough to want to use my high end Pentax lenses on a high performance Pentax camera, and you are satisfied with a low spec camera.
Until you've picked up and used a truly responsive camera, you don't have a clue about what you are talking about, you are just passing wind.
I'd suggest you STFU until you know what you are talking about. You are just making yourself look stupid.

I respectively suggest you take an anger management class. Those who start using epitaphs to make their argument have already lost.

[Wheatfield]

I respectively suggest you take an anger management class. Those who start using epitaphs to make their argument have already lost.

No, we just get frustrated by willfull obduracy. Using strong language in no way takes away from the strength of an argument, no matter how much people with weak arguments would like to think it does.

[johnmflores]

Here is my point of view, rather late in the thread.

1. You can indeed take action shots with Pentax gear.

2. If money is no object you can get better systems for the job. You'll miss fewer shots, be more accurate and be able to react in more adverse situations.

3. What was good enough 50 years ago is not good enough now.

4. What is good enough for one person is not good enough for another.

5. Better gear can help you take better shots, all else being equal.

6. I believe that the true contemplative spirit of photography can only be experienced by manual focusing with a prime lens.

7. Because I am not an action photographer, not wealthy and because of point 6, I prefer Pentax.

Excellent! Please summarize the other long-winded topics in this forum for me - it would save me so much time LOL!

I think I'll go outside and take me some pictures...

[jake14mw]

It is actually both, tracking and time to acquire focus are I felt I needed a faster AF for. Dog agility also has both elements of the sideways movement and the head-on kind. You might be setup for that 1st shot a certain way but as the dog makes it's way around the course you will have to track and require focus for both types of movement. Of course lot depends on where you are standing in relation to the obstacles. Even with the fast focusing Sigma 70-200 I felt like it really couldn't keep up with the dogs.

So for example, in this sequence before the dog got into the weave poles he came out of a tunnel, made a real quick left turn and entered the weaves right away. I had to acquire focus right away then track him as he came through the poles until his exit.


and an example of more of a sideways shot






As far as the lenses go. I found two issues with the Sigma 70-200EX. 1st, compared to the old non DG version it was MUCH software wide open. This is important because you want to shoot as wide open as possible to blur all the ugly backgrounds (like that orange fence they use). The other thing is that I found it focused inconstantly at short distances (later I read the review on dpreview that exampled why this happened).

That combined with the need for 200mm (which is the min I would want) that didn't leave me much choice in lenses. The 60-250 wasn't out yet but I really wanted an f/2.8 lens for the DOF and the indoor shots that I wanted to get. Even if the Pentax had faster AF that didn't leave me with a lens option really. The Canon 70-200L (I have the non IS version) is an amazing lens. It is really sharp wide open, gives great bokeh and focuses very fast.

Here is the type of indoor shot I was looking to get (and why I needed an f/2.8 lens). Even at f/2.8 and ISO3200 this was still only at 1/500th which is at the very min needed to stop action.



I by no means think that I completely maxed out the Pentax system's ability as that would imply I was a super pro photog, which I'm not. But at my ability level I think I needed a cam/lens combo that helped me get the shots I needed. This was reinforced a little bit by the number of requests of prints and the request to use some of the shots on the website of the agility school.

About the 40d. Those outdoor shots were only the 4th or 5th time I had ever used the Canon and I only had a couple of practice rounds indoors before that outdoor event. I was amazed the keeper rate and how many times the non-keepers were clearly my fault. It has it faults, like I not a fan of how the controls are laid out and the high ISO is not where near as good as the K20. In general IQ for me is almost a wash since I do everything in RAW and I post processes what-ever I get to my liking (which means I think it would be difficult to tell which pict came from which camera after I post processed).

I don't want to sound anti-Pentax, because I'm not at all (obviously I would have switched completely if I was). I do love my Pentax system and I even still use it for everything else, including birding.

John

Thanks very much, this is an excellent summary of your situation and decision making process. It makes total sense to me. I use Pentax, and love it, but I see the exact same limitations you do.

[pentax1952]

No, we just get frustrated by willfull obduracy. Using strong language in no way takes away from the strength of an argument, no matter how much people with weak arguments would like to think it does.

I beg to differ. Calling people names and using epitaphs not only speaks volumes about your lack of debating skills but your personal integrity.

You don't like my arguments and think they are weak. That is your viewpoint, but instead of putting people down and swearing at them I suggest you refine your debating skills.

I would even go so far as to suggest that you go out and take some photographs.