|
Forum: Lens Clubs
04-12-2024, 07:37 AM
|
| |
Pentax K-1 and Pentax 100mm f/2.8 WR Macro
 |
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-27-2024, 08:57 PM
|
| |
Here's sample of using Astrotracer 3 on my Pentax K-1 with the 28-105 at 105mm
49x60sec stack
 |
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
03-28-2024, 09:51 AM
|
| |
A couple more from the bluebonnet hunt
Pentax K-1 and 100mm WR macro. the colors are more muted here then in the original image.
 |
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
03-13-2024, 07:51 PM
|
| |
16 image focus stack of a Cecropia moth
Pentax K-1
Pentax 100mm f/2.8 WR Macro
 |
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
03-27-2024, 02:16 PM
|
| |
A few shot on a recent trek for texas Bluebonnets with my K-1 and 100mm WR Macro
 |
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-26-2024, 12:39 PM
|
| |
Not buying anything for the eclipse, Between 2017, and the Annular Eclipse in Oct. 2023, I've got all my gear sorted out. I only live an hour or so off the centerline in Kerrville Tx, (where I'll be shooting from). I'm taking the following setup(s):
Losmandy G-11 mount for my Explore Scientific 127ED telescope that will have my Pentax K-1 at Prime Focus
Skywatcher AZ-Gti that has my Celestron 80ED telescope with Canon 70D at Prime Focus (Eclipse shooting will be run via a laptop and the eclipse automation program SetnC).
Celestron Evolution 9.25 for visual observations.
I just hope for clear skies
|
|
Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
03-06-2024, 10:39 AM
|
| |
I've been doing astrophotography for over 20 years now, and one reason I chose theK-1 when it was time to move up to a FF camera from my Canon 70D was the astrotracer fuctionality. I don't use astrotracer all that much these days but I do use the K-1 as my primary imaging camera. here's a few of my favorite shots.
Shot with the 28-105 kit lens at 105mm using the new Astrotracer mode 3 this is 49x60s Stacked in AstroPixelProcessor and processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop.
 |
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-06-2024, 10:49 AM
|
| |
I live in San Antonio and going to a private event in Kerrville and I expect to get there the day before to set up my telescope/cameras and get ready for the event. I don't plan on leaving until later in the evening hoping after traffic dies down a bit. I've heard that they expect up to 500k people in the Kerrville/Fredricksberg area for the eclipse. That's a lot of people for that small of an area.
I expect cell service to be spotty, gas prices to be high, and places to run out of food. I'd bring food, water, toilet paper, trashbags, etc... Getting in to the area is going to be bad enough, getting out... That's going to be an excercise in patience.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-27-2024, 08:41 PM
|
| |
I've been an avid astrophotographer for over 20 years, so hell yeah I'm shootiung this one. In 2017, I traveled over 3000 miles round trip from Southern Califonia to Casper Wyoming for that eclipse (my 1st total solar eclipse) and got great pics with my Pentax K-1 and Celestron 80ED telescope.
This time I live in San Antonio under the path of totality (2:17 totality at my house) but will be driving an hour or so to Kerrvile to be along the centerline again for 4:22 of totality. I've shot partial solar eclipses before and in Oct. I shot the Annular eclipse from Comfort Texas (another hour's drive from home). So I'm really looking forward to this one at double the lenght I had in 2017.
I'm bringing a couple of cameras and will be shooting through the K-1 (hopefully using WiFiCommander) and automating the whole thing with a laptop and my Canon 70D. I'm lucky to be living in teh path of totality, somethng I never thought I'd be doing in 2017. I figured I was going to be making another long trip for it.
Here's a few of my Eclise images from 2017 and the Oct.2023 Annular eclipse.
C2 Diamond Ring
Totality Single shot
Totality 26 shot composite
C3 Diamond Ring
Annular Eclipse Sequence
Bailey's Beads
Sunspots (both of these are 2-3 times the size of the Earth
|
|
Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
02-27-2024, 12:46 PM
|
| |
There's so many patterns in nature that my eye gets drawn to. especially when you get close up in flowers and look at the seed arrangements. It's hard for me to choose just one, but I think this is one of my favorites. It's the center area of a sunflower I shot when I first got my WR 100mm Macro.
As you look at the details you can see patterns within patterns. Ridges, Colors, just so much is there that the compressed version here doesn't do it justice. Here's a link to a full size version.
https://photos.smugmug.com/Macro/i-ggCmdwJ/0/ChjvhPDkGZDNFCqJm5L5bzJ8ZBDNkvj...IMG1565-X4.jpg
 |
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
02-18-2024, 10:00 PM
|
| |
Pentax K-1 and Pentax 100mm f/2.8 WR Macro
41 pixelshifted shots converted to .TIFF in rawtherapee then focus stacked in Affinity Photo
ISO 800
F/4
1/30
 |
|
Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
02-13-2024, 12:21 PM
|
| |
Wow! so amny good shots. I think the photo that really captured the spirit of the contest was:
UncleVanya's Mural. Congratulations. you get to judge the next contest.
|
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
01-08-2024, 01:12 PM
|
| |
This past weekend I took my Pentax K-1 and Pentax FA 28-200 for a walk around Boerne Tx where I went to taste some BBQ for my stepson's wedding rehersal dinner.
Here's a few of my favorite shots from the walk.
The lens is a bit softer than I prefer and I can't remember when or why I bought the lens in the first place. Probably for travel or as a walk around lens.
 |
|
Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
01-31-2024, 10:02 AM
|
| |
I'm going to mark these for Exhibition only until I get a chance to shoot something new. Some background, I've been interested in macro and focus stacking for some time, and picked up a Venus Laowa 2.5-5x Ultra macro for my Pentax K-1. I've also got a couple of 50mm f/2.8 macros (one a fully manual sigma with A aperture control and a Pentax FA 50 f/2.8) as well as the D FA 100 f/2.8 WR. I wanted to be able to do incamera focus bracketing and stacking so I also picked up an Olympus EM 5 mk2 and 30mm macro lens.
For the Pentax I use a Macro rail to change the focus point.
Here's a few of my Pentax shots.
Blueberry:
Pentax K-1 and Pentax 100mm f/2.8 Macro
ISO 100
23 Pixelshift images converted to TIF in RawTherapee then stacked & processed in Affinity Photo v 2.2.
Dried Shitake mushroom:
Pentax K-1 and Pentax FA 50mm f/2.8 Macro
ISO 100
56 Pixelshift images converted to TIF in RawTherapee then stacked & processed in Affinity Photo v 2.2.
Peppercorn at 5x magnification:
Pentax K-1
Laowa 25mm 2.5-5x f/2.8
ISO 100
1/10s
F/5.6
Stacked and processed in Affinty Photo V1
Table salt at 5x magnification:
Pentax K-1
Laowa 25mm 2.5-5x f/2.8
ISO 100
1/10s
F/5.6
Stacked and processed in Affinty Photo V1
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
06-12-2023, 03:17 PM
|
| |
We had some thunderstorms come through a week or so ago and so I decided to shoot some lightning.
These are from the Pentax K-1 and Pentax 15-30 zoom lens. I used the Strike finder 2 to trigger the shutter.
 |
|
Forum: General Photography
12-21-2023, 01:17 PM
|
| |
So does Affinity Photo. I use that for my focus stacking. Not as full featured as Helicon, but does a good job.
Here's a shot I did with the K-1 and Laowa 2.5-5x on a macro rail, then stacked in Affinity.
|
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
12-11-2023, 09:04 PM
|
| |
Pentax K-1 and Sigma Pantel 135mm
 |
|
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
12-13-2023, 02:20 PM
|
| |
Thanks for the detailed look at your setup. just what I needed to see. from your write up of your process it seems you're missing the setep where you calibrate the phone GPS with the Polaris head by holding it next to the head and pressing calibrate. If you are in fact doing this doing this, try rotating the phone 180 degrees so the top of the phone is facing the opposite direction you've been holding it. I've found that I've had the same issue as you have with it going opposite where it should and restarting everything and rotating the phone solved it.
Yes the polaris is parked correctly.
|
|
Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
10-25-2023, 07:27 AM
|
| |
Here's what I consider my best recent shot(s) The recent Annular Solar Eclipse from Comfort Texas.
All of the shots were taken as follows:
Pentax K-1
Explore Scientific 127 APO
ISO 100
1/1600 exp.
Processed and assembled in Photoshop
|
|
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-01-2023, 03:44 PM
|
| |
I tend to do all my sharpening by holding the ALT key down and adjusting the various sliders to get the areas I want to sharpen masked (as it were) and then apply sharpening amount without using the ALT key till it looks like what I want.
This means I may use a high radius and high masking but lower sharpening amount. It really depends on the image and what it needs. I do very little batch processing.
|
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
07-10-2023, 07:15 AM
|
| |
A few months ago I picked up a like new Sigma Pantel 135mm lens. For those that might not be aware of this lens the Pantel goes from f/2.8 to f/22 like most lenses, but then it has an extra jump to f/64 from f/22.
I haven't had a lot of chances to shoot with this since I got it, but here's a few images from this past weekend at the San Antonio zoo. I love the image quality on this lens. Sharp and nice color renditions. and the Bokeh is outrageous.
I need to get used to manual focusing again. I just wish the K-1 had a split prism micro focuser screen.
When I said like new I meant it. original box, and paperwork from 1975. It looks like it just came off a camera store shelf.
My grandson. Love that bokeh
 |
|
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
11-08-2023, 09:33 AM
|
| |
Welcome to the group Michael.
As a long time DxO PL Elite user (Going back to Ver 3 I think) I find the new upgrade price way too high to go from V6 to V7 and won't be upgrading this time.
I'd like to see support for cell phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (I shoot raw DNG with it and can't edit my images in DxO.
I like HD Prime XD Noise reduction.
I'd love to see support for panorama stitching, focus stacking, true Pixelshift and Pentax HDR raw images. Even HDR (bracketed shots processing)
|
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
09-04-2023, 07:52 AM
|
| |
A while back I picked up a NIB Sigma 135 f/2.8 Pantel from the bay for $50.00. This is the first real chance I had at shooting it.
Pentax K-1 and the Sigma 135 Pantel
F/8
ISO 100
1/320
The pano is a 14 images mergeged and processed in Lightroom Classic. The original merged DNG file is 1.2 GB in size ths was downsized to a 75% resize at 85% quality jpg.
BW conversion done in NIK Silver EFX 3.0
I'm not sure if I like the BW or color version better. I had to use links to the panos since due to the size of them.
 |
|
Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
10-17-2023, 02:10 PM
|
| |
I was a little bit off further the centerline that I originally intended, Cloudy weather will do that to you during an eclipse. But here's my annularity shot from Comfort Tx.
Pentax K-1
Explore Scientific 127 ED
ISO 100
1/1600
Astrozap solar filter
I think I'll white balance it to remove the violet cast of the filter.
 |
|
Forum: Lens Clubs
09-18-2023, 09:20 AM
|
| |
I picked up the new TT Artisans 100mm f/2.8 Soap Bubble bokeh lens (A.K.A Trioplan clone). It's a fully manual M42 mount lens. Here's a few shots with it. I didn't have the right background/lighting to get the soap bubble effect I wanted, but the lens, is nice.
 |
