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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
03-05-2024, 08:33 PM
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I have card readers in desktop and laptop, no need for a cable.
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Forum: Do-It-Yourself
10-28-2023, 05:49 AM
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I am glad that you like it. I work with broadcast equipment which often costs more than any Pentax camera, so I have to be very careful in choosing the chemicals which I use. I was a chemistry major before I found radio and switched to mass communications, so I may have a slight advantage in choosing chemicals.:)
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Forum: Do-It-Yourself
07-15-2021, 06:45 AM
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I do know a thing or two about electronic troubleshooting and repair after sixty years of working with electronics.
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Forum: Do-It-Yourself
01-12-2021, 07:05 AM
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Tuner spray is also the wrong chemical for potentiometers - it is a contact cleaner sold for cleaning the multi-pole switches in TV tuners.
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
10-08-2023, 07:48 PM
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In the Pentax forums photogem wrote the book on that repair. I followed his directions and successfully repaired my K-70.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
06-26-2023, 06:24 AM
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I use a number of Vivitar 283 flash heads (original Japanese production), but unlike many photographers I am a retired professional electronics technician with a well-equipped shop. As a rule I don't pay more than $10 for a 283 (usually $5) and I can easily repair them.
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
04-29-2023, 05:26 PM
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My viewfinder cover has arrived. It was listed as a "Pentax M Viewfinder Cover" and described as fitting a K-1000. It looks perfect on the K-1000 but is not quite tall enough on the K-70. I will add a narrow strip of rubber to the bottom, test its ability to keep direct sunlight out of the viewfinder, and report back.
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
03-12-2023, 09:40 PM
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Thank you for the instructions, Photogem. This was not a task that would have cared to undertake without the benefit of your experience. The only place where I diverged from your instructions was that I did not mount the photos to hold the screws. I have several 7-day pill containers left from my late parents, more than enough for one screw per daily compartment. I pulled the images into my image editor and tagged each screw location to match a container compartment. As I disassembled I filed the screws to match my image numbering, and reversed the process when assembling. I long ago learned to be systematic in filing parts while disassembling electronic equipment at work.
Dale H. Cook, Retired AM/FM/TV Chief Engineer, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA
https://plymouthcolony.net/starcityeng/index.html |
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
02-04-2023, 08:18 AM
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The only lens which I use which is too heavy for hand-held use is my Rokinon 650Z 650-1300mm f/8-16, which weighs 2 kilograms (Note that the same lens has also been sold under the Opteka, Samyang, Bower, Vivitar, and other brands). Although my K-70 body is light I did not want it dangling off the back of the Rokinon when the lens was mounted on its tripod mount, in part because the body might rotate when focusing the lens. I built a DIY Pentax K-70 Telephoto Lens Mounting Bar which makes the big lens much easier to use.
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
01-04-2023, 07:15 AM
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Have you downloaded the full operating manual from the Ricoh site? The camera only comes with a start guide.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-25-2022, 05:28 PM
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Wednesday I took a 2 hour boat ride on the St. Johns River from Blue Springs State Park in Florida. IIRC this was the first photo of a bald eagle that I have taken in my >50 years of photography. Even at 270mm it was pretty far away, and small in the original image, but even with major cropping it turned out better than I expected.
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
03-06-2022, 05:33 AM
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I believe that some people are looking at the start guide. Although the full operating manual may have been packed with the earlier K-70s, by the time I bought mine four years ago only the start guide was included. The full operation manual can be downloaded from the Ricoh site and the link was given in the last post by Kypfer. I strongly suggest that K-70 owners download and read thoroughly the operation manual. I keep a copy of that PDF on my phone for easy reference.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
11-12-2021, 07:31 AM
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I don't bother to keep my three Vivitar 283s separate because all three have been modified to put 5VDC on the shoe and the sync socket.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
09-23-2021, 07:41 AM
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One reason that I own one is that, at 70, it is difficult for me to use a 1300mm lens without one.:)
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
05-29-2021, 03:14 PM
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I have a pair of flash softboxes that mount fine with velcro to any of my three off-camera flashes - all heavily modified Vivitar 283s with manual control rotary switches, fitted with velcro bands around their snouts. I also have a pair of honeycombs that mount in the softboxes. If I am carrying my full flash kit I also have a pair of umbrellas and their mounts. I normally use a pair of inexpensive tripods for key and fill, and one of my old K-mart tripods if I need backlight. The third flash is most often used by itself with a homebrew boom on my stoutest old tripod, and with a set of graduated ND filters, for gravestone photography.
Edit - I forgot to mention what I use for tripod weighting - I have some 5 pound canopy anchor weights purchased to anchor my canopies. One or two of those anchored to the bottom of the flash tripod center column with the correct bungee cord works nicely.
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Forum: Do-It-Yourself
01-11-2021, 06:55 AM
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That "tiny part" appears to be a trimmer potentiometer. If that is what it is contact cleaner is the wrong chemical to use on it. Many contact cleaners will damage some potentiometers and hasten their demise. Contact cleaners are designed for metal-to-metal contacts such as those in switches and relays. For potentiometers you need a cleaner designed for the conductive tracks used in potentiometers and linear faders. As a professional broadcast studio and transmitter engineer with 50+ years of experience I use DeoxIT FaderLube for such purposes - it is designed for conductive control surfaces.
Dale H. Cook, Radio Contract Engineer, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA
Star City Radio Tools |
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
12-10-2020, 09:38 AM
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Tuesday while I was making the rounds of Goodwill stores I bought a Vivitar 283 for $4.99! I already own two, modified for 5 volts on the shoe, and with the missing sensors replaced with 12-position miniature rotary switches (they are both used off-camera with wireless triggers). The one I bought Tuesday has the sensor - the first one I have ever had. I am looking forward to modifying the shoe to 5 volts and then trying it on-camera on my K-70. All of my 283s are the original Japanese production that were built with nearly 300 volts on the shoe.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
10-13-2020, 05:46 AM
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Much the same as the difference between a $50 camera at Walmart and my K-70. I own a Sennheiser MD-421 studio microphone that I use in my home studio for producing my weekly radio show, but it is totally unsuited for field use. It has a street price of about $400 and no $40 mike can even begin to approach its performance. For the use you describe you will probably get satisfactory sound at a reasonable price by trying a different approach. A lavalier mike (lapel mike such as those often worn on TV) with a wireless transmitter and receiver will not capture much sound other than the voice of your subject. You can likely get something satisfactory for $80 or so.
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Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF
04-21-2020, 06:07 AM
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You swing the screen 90 degrees from the body, rotate it 180 degrees, and swing it back 90 degrees so it is again flush with the body. If the L-bracket side arm isn't so wide that it projects backwards farther than the screen hinges it is easy. My DIY bracket is designed to clear the screen hinges, and the side arm stands far enough off the body to keep the remote shutter/mic jack available.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
07-01-2020, 07:54 AM
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Same here. I have a pair of 283s that I use as off-camera flashes. They are modified for 5 volts on the shoe (so I don't fry the remote triggers) and for manual control of flash duration.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
06-30-2020, 09:15 AM
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Some of us use the original production (Japanese manufactured) of the Vivitar 283, and although the current through the hot show is limited the trigger voltage of 260-280 volts on the shoe is indeed the same as that on the main flash capacitor. My 283s have been modified to use an optoisolated 5 volts on the shoe.
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Forum: Do-It-Yourself
05-09-2020, 08:27 PM
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My newest DIY is a mounting bar for my telephoto lens. The lens is a Rokinon 650Z 650-1300mm f/8-16 (no iris). I bought it about a year ago and it is a rather inexpensive lens (but works pretty well). I have always been concerned that the lens mounts to the tripod and the camera body is supported solely by the lens. My Pentax K-70 body is heavy enough that I was worried, especially when the lens is extended to 1300mm. I built a bar to mount to the tripod that would support both lens and body. The first photo is a top view of the bar, and the second a side view with extended lens (and my K-1000 body filling in for the K-70). See Star City Photos - Pentax K-70 Telephoto Lens Mounting Bar for details.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
04-19-2020, 08:42 AM
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My new project is photographing old mills of southwestern Virginia, beginning with Floyd Co., inspired by my visit last year to Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway (3rd row right below). The shot of Mabry is the only finished image in the montage below. The others are preliminary images shot in the last two weeks during scouting trips, and offer only suggestions of what the final images will look like. I prefer cloudy days for scouting trips so I don't have to deal with a misplaced sun or unwanted shadows. My new Floyd Co., VA mills page at:
Star City Photos - Old Mills of Floyd Co., VA
has larger images and some information about the mills. I began in Floyd Co. partly because it is close to home, partly because it is a rural county that has perhaps more standing old mills per capita than any other county in Virginia, and partly because it has some of the most complete mills documentation of any county in the state.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
04-11-2020, 02:06 PM
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I was headed for a job site last Sunday and was on the lookout for a good shot of redbud. I had to get into the median for this shot to get a couple of them in the foreground and the hillside in the background, and waited for no traffic before snapping. Focal length was 58mm.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
02-16-2020, 08:15 AM
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You are well on the way. About the only suggestion that I would make is that it is best to have some contrast between the background and the model's hair to separate the two.
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