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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-07-2017, 07:53 AM
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This would be an awesome feature. I predict hours of fun trying to confuse it.
Reflections by Brian Robin, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-15-2017, 01:39 PM
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I shoot mainly primes, often MF, but i realized that for travel photography a long zoom with decent AF would be very useful.
I don't know much about Sigma discontinued long zooms, but i know of at least 4 different optics, available on the second-hand market, that are full frame compatible and were made in Pentax mount.
I know that the last version of the 50-500mm "Bigma" is still sold new. It has a wonderful zoom range and a more than decent image quality, according to the experiences of many forum users, but it's out of my price range and very big.
I think that many owners of the new K-1 would be interested on the same subject, so i encourage the fellow pentaxian with specific first-hand experience to post their impressions/advices.
These are the models i've seen on sale, feel free to integrate the list:
150-500mm
170-500mm
120-400mm
135-400mm
I'm mainly interested in image quality and autofocus responsiveness with the K-1, though i guess that size/weight could also be relevant.
I'm sure the informations provided will be useful to many K-1 novices
Thanks
Cheers
Paolo
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-14-2017, 03:02 AM
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-12-2017, 10:04 AM
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Last week was able to visit the southern Great Plains near Lethbridge, Alberta, close to where I grew up. Was fortunate to encounter some beautiful morning light. The DFA 28-105 IQ appears to be as good as the DFA 24-70 once stopped down; a very good value lens. Too bad it does not start at 24mm?
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-12-2017, 08:15 AM
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Thanks. This hod rod is build by a Finnish guy. Gas Monkey Richard Rawlings tried to buy it to US last year but the owner/builder would not sell :) . Hopefully it stays in Finland for good.
I shot these yesterday at Kustom Kulture Show in Helsinki.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-12-2017, 07:36 AM
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Early Takumar 17/4 Fisheye @ ~f5.6:
Fun lens with K-1 :) .
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-11-2017, 09:21 PM
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Messing with some new PP styles for that wannabe-vintage vibe
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
02-08-2017, 09:32 PM
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During my time at B&H today, I got a chance to try out a prototype Fujifilm GFX 50S with a Fujinon GF 32-64mm f/4 on it. I haven't spent much time with it so I can't really say much, but here are some first impressions:
- The camera and lens felt solid but not too heavy, and fit my hand like a glove. I didn't have much trouble holding it steadily.
- Operation is similar to high-end Fujifilm X-series cameras, with traditional mechanical controls on the lens and top plate. A joystick is used to select the AF point. I did not have the time to go through the menus or explore the camera UI, but I don't think Pentax users will have much trouble learning how to operate it.
- I've never really spent much time handling medium-format digital cameras before, so I didn't know what to expect in terms of resolution. I was just floored at the level of detail I was able to get, even in the somewhat dark environment of the B&H photo department.
- The GF 32-64mm is insanely sharp. The lens was able to resolve almost the full resolution of the sensor across much of the frame wide open, while producing wonderful bokeh. I did not perform more extensive testing, though.
- AF was quick and decisive, and proved to be dead on accurate as you would expect for contrast detection.
- The OLED EVF was very clear and sharp, with next to no lag.
- The blackout time between shots was longer than I was used to. Clearly, this is not going to be a camera you would want to use for fast action. Then again, this is a medium-format camera...
From my brief time playing with the prototype, it's clear Fujifilm has hit all the right notes with the GFX 50S. I wonder how Pentax will respond to this—perhaps an updated 645Z and more lenses over the coming months?
Draco |
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
02-08-2017, 08:54 AM
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-08-2017, 08:03 AM
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Hi all. Finally succumbed to the K-1 temptation, bought one locally in Adelaide and collected it earlier this week.
Sort of ironic that it's taken this long: I was probably one of the first few Forum members to have one in my hands to play with. I happened to be in Tokyo last year on holidays a few days before the official K-1 release and called in on the official Ricoh Imaging store in Shinjuku. They had a K-1 available on display and demonstration. They would have sold one to me as well but I was paying for a family of four to be on this holiday and decided my credit card probably didn't need the additional stress!
Took the K-1 out the first evening down to a local beach to have a play. Just threw in a battery from my K-3 as I was too impatient to wait for the new K-1 battery to charge up.
The hard question was what lens to use. I decided on the FA31 as I had earlier come to the conclusion that the APS-C format probably robbed this lens of its essential character more than many of my other lenses. And it should make use of all of the K-1's resolving power as well.
Here are some of the initial batch of images. All shot in RAW and subsequently butchered to taste in LR4.
This was taken immediately on arrival. After a rainy couple of days, the evening cloud pattern looked promising for a good sunset. ISO100, 1/20th, F8
First observation was the K-1's exposure algorithms protected the highlights very well. Only the one thin sliver above the sun was burnt out and not really noticeable in the final image.
ISO100, 1/25th, F8. K-1 did a nice job of picking up the pink reflections on the water. Breaking waves in foreground were quite dark but came up easily with the local adjustment tool applying some exposure and highlight lifts.
ISO100, 2.5 sec, F11. Trying to blur the water with a longer exposure but still a little too much light (and I has left my ND filter at home in my excitement to get to the beach). Unfortunately the sunset after the first two images were taken simply fizzled out so all I had then to work with was the afterglow. There is a peninsula of land about 50km out that often gets some cloud sitting on top of it. When the sun drops behind that distant line of cloud, it is blocked from illuminating the underside of closer clouds. Goodbye good sunset when that happens. Few things I noticed from this shot: (1) bringing back some of the shadow detail of the jetty was much easier and a better result than I would have got from the K-3; (2) the LR local adjustment tool auto-masking seems to behave better than with K-3 files - better contrast making boundary definitions more obvious to the masking algorithm maybe? A pleasant surprise. And (3) dynamic range can be a challenge for these afterglow images, the K-1 again did well protecting highlights.
ISO100, 20 sec, F11. Best shot aesthetically for the night. The FA31 does fabulous starbursts (as does the FA77 but not the FA43). Again the shadow detail of the jetty was easy to retrieve. +79 shadow correction on the local adjustment tool but the shadows still remained very clean in terms of noise and blotches. Was just a black outline before the shadows were lifted.
ISO100, 30 sec, F11. The lighting on the jetty was severely yellow but I had to set the overall WB to daylight as scene away from the jetty was naturally lit. Ran the local adjustment tool up and down the jetty deck to locally adjust the white balance to get something close to the natural colour of the bitumen surface. The file responded easily. You can see the uncorrected yellow tint in the hand rails - they were too fiddly to try to adjust. There is a little colour blotch up near the closest pole that I have just noticed - not sure if this was an internal reflection off the sensor onto the FA31 rear element or I just missed a small area painting with the local adjustment tool.
The nearby marina is a bit of a camera torture test. Wide dynamic range, different lighting sources - some with really horrible colour tints. I also need to use a reasonably high ISO even though employing a tripod. The boats subtlety bob up and down even though they look to be still, so exposure times need to be kept moderately short to avoid motion blur.
This image is ISO1600, 1/2 sec, F3.2, -1EV compensation to try to stop the restaurant area lighting to the rear from completely burning out. In post, the whole image was lifted 1.5EV and the boats another 1EV+ using the local adjustment tool. Normally this would be a recipe for a noise disaster but there is very little noise. For for the full res JPEG output simply I applied a bit of sharpening masking plus a tiny bit of NR. The remaining noise is not really noticable. If I was reducing the final JPEG resolution to something screen friendly I probably could have left the NR off and just let the re-sampling down lose the noise. The noise is also much smaller and less grainy than the K-3, less obtrusive and seemingly less accentuated by sharpening or clarity adjustments. In summary - very easy to manage.
Few more from the marina...
ISO1600, 1.3 sec, F3.2. Pushing the exposure time vs the boat bobbing here but got away with it. Lots of heavy local white balance adjustments and a moderate shadow lift on the metal walling on the right. Again pleased at how malleable the RAW files are.
ISO400, 2 sec, F4. The closest boat on the right is suffering from a little motion blur as I wanted to see what sort of file a slightly lower ISO would deliver.
So that was night one with the K-1. It's way too late here now so I'll post some daylight shots from the next day in a separate thread. Those shots (among other things) will explore some of the crazy detail that the K-1 can deliver and where I found some moire creeping into some images.
Overall, very pleased. Files are really good to work with and the noise at ISO1600 even when underexposing is easy to manage.
I use DNG files, not PEF and LR4 is happy to to read the K-1 DNG files (but can't read the K-1 PEF files). It just means with LR4 I am stuck using the embedded camera profile as my only option for the initial rendering. I am in the same position with the K-3. What I have noticed is that the K-1 embedded profile looks to be much better calibrated than the K-3's embedded profile. In my view, the K-1 images before subsequent adjustments start out rendering more pleasingly than than K-3 images. I've grown to not like the K-3 embedded profile. What this means in practice is that it seems quicker to get a nice final image with the K-1 files as I am not fighting to first reverse the deficiencies of a poor embedded camera profile. This observation may or may not be applicable to other brands of RAW converters - I don't have any others loaded on my pc other than the Pentax DCU.
Also have noticed that the process of mirror lift, shutter release and mirror return is really quick and smooth with the K-1. The full push of the shutter release button also seems to take just a little less pressure. Coupled with the camera having more mass, I quickly noticed I seem to be handholding the camera much more steadily. Combined with the better SR, the potential to handhold at low shutter speeds looks very promising. Currently the best I can semi-reliably get away with using the K-3 is somewhere around 1/6 to 1/8th sec so it looks hopeful that this can be bettered with the K-1.
Oh, and I just noticed as I am finishing up that I haven't updated my copyright watermark for the new year. Doh!
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-07-2017, 04:17 PM
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Kreator from Germany live in Oslo, Norway, this evening.
K-1 with 15-30mm F/2.8
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
02-07-2017, 08:47 AM
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Bear in mind that the D FA* 70-200mm launched at $2300. The MSRP currently stands at $1800.
Draco |
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-07-2017, 07:40 AM
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Hopefully a true APS-C flagship. :)
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-06-2017, 07:44 PM
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Walk down the beach with Bailey today.....he seems to be doing better at the moment.... his belly has reduced by about 20%
of his body weight (fluid)... hopefully Kidneys etc doing better.... his hair has been growing back.....Pentax K85/1.8 lens.
(Vet though Bailey had chronic Kidney failure back last June... gave him just a few months)
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
02-06-2017, 11:18 AM
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Any photographer has the right to accept only such job which he likes to accept. Without having to justify himself. Anybody trying to defame him has poor (if any) freedom understanding.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
02-06-2017, 10:31 AM
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This is what caused a lot of debate in our Facebook group.
I'm going to paraphrase... but one shooter responded with "as a practicing christian who takes their religion very seriously I would also decline. As a Christian photographer, and I advertise as such, I only take on weddings that can have the blessing of our lord God. I have nothing against the LGBQT community, and respect that they can live life the way they want. But I should also be treated with the same respect. This couple, like every couple, deserve to have beautiful images of their wedding day. I myself cannot help them with this however".
This woman was then called a biggot and homophobe....
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
02-06-2017, 07:09 AM
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Note there is tax involved ($1712 total in my state).. which IMHO makes it less attractive for this price as the new one's price is only a few $s away and gives you full manufacturers warranty for a year.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-04-2017, 09:47 PM
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Here is my 1265 photo from my Pentax K1 and to date my favourite out of this wonderful camera. It has only taken me a short time to become familiar with the operation of the camera and getting used to the new menu system. I believe this is testament to Pentax as I was using a Canon 5d mk3 for 4 years prior to Pentax.
The photo is taken from Bombo which is on the South Coast of New South Wales around a 2 hours drive from Sydney. Photo is from a single frame and it was shot at 16mm (Pentax FA 15-30mm), f8, 1/5sec and ISO 100. It is amazing what can be pulled out of a single frame from this camera.
Thanks for viewing.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-03-2017, 07:10 PM
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I thought this was a pretty entertaining look behind the scenes of some seascape photography :)
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-03-2017, 07:58 PM
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The Williams Covered Bridge is located just outside of the small village of Williams Indiana, along Indiana state road 450. It crosses the east fork of the White River, just downstream from the Williams Dam, which used to be a electric power generating station.
The bridge is a Howe Truss design and was built in 1884 by Joseph ‘J.J.’ Daniels. Its two spans cover a total length of 373 feet (114 m), with a deck width of 14.7 feet (4.5 m) and a vertical clearance above deck of 19.2 feet (5.9 m). |
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-03-2017, 01:29 PM
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(DA55-300 @ 300mm, f8, 1/400, ISO 200)
(DA55-300 @ 230mm, f8, 1/320, ISO 200)
(DA55-300 @ 300mm, f7.1, 1/500, ISO 200)
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-03-2017, 07:23 AM
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Be careful, that DA*300 is addictive, heh. Great bighorn pic!
Eric
---------- Post added 02-03-17 at 09:24 AM ----------
The tonal range of this B&W conversion is great. Simple theme works.
Eric
---------- Post added 02-03-17 at 09:26 AM ----------
That is a great shot, love it! The light is so perfect, did you have to enhance or was it just a great day for a street pic?
Eric
---------- Post added 02-03-17 at 09:37 AM ----------
As promised, some mother & son portraits. I've got a fair bunch of these, they are very cooperative subjects, great expressive faces... though maybe not quite the lookers as LeRolls friends. LOL.
OK OK... I confess, I re-upped my annual membership at the local park. It has been years since I was a member, and I thought it might give me a mental shake to cheat a little and get closer to a captive subject, since chasing water fowl and other critters out in the wild can get frustrating in the winter months, even in the tropics.
Pentax K-1 Tamron SP AF 70-200mm F2.8 Di LD [IF] Macro ƒ/4.5 200.0 mm 1/250 iso400
Pentax K-1 smc PENTAX-DA* 300mm F4 ED [IF] SDM ƒ/11.0 300.0 mm 1/180 iso400
Pentax K-1 Tamron SP AF 70-200mm F2.8 Di LD [IF] Macro ƒ/3.5 92.5 mm 1/125 iso200
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-01-2017, 04:09 AM
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Tonight's sunset
Pentax K1 - Pentax SCMP HD-FA15-30mm f/2.8 @ 15mm ISO 160 f/11 1/15th |
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-01-2017, 02:08 AM
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-01-2017, 01:42 AM
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