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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
07-14-2019, 10:08 PM
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Great choice. Being new to photography, you are about to have great fun learning. And you will have excellent tools to do so. Do not be discouraged if your initial efforts are below your expectations. This is a common experience. That said, your camera can function very well in a fully automatic exposure mode where the camera will select your aperture, your shutter speed, and even the ISO sensitivity. For this, I recommend avoiding having your mode dial set to the green "AUTO" position, where the camera may be set upon arrival. That mode will disallow many control features, or access to most adjustments. Instead, use the "P" Program mode.
If you've ever shot film, the ISO setting is similar to selecting the type of film sensitivity you will be using- such as a film "speed" of ASA 200, 400, or 800. But with digital you don't have to change to a different roll of film, you can switch anytime at will, depending on the lighting conditions, and your type of subject. Even when using the "P" mode, you can leave the ISO set on auto so the camera will alter the setting according to the lighting as the camera's meter reads, or you can easily switch over to user-select and choose the ISO sensitivity value you wish to use.
When your camera arrives, please do get back in touch. I for one will have some suggestions to get you started, along with some basic info regarding using the outstanding controllability of a camera like the K-70 to get the effects you are after, and in dealing with types of subject matter and conditions.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
07-14-2019, 04:16 PM
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Good decisions all round. Enjoy it.
I'd endorse and reiterate the great advice above and add some points (it's based on our experiences, good and bad!). Here are 10 tips:
1. The first thing to do is to read the camera manual and Yvon Bourque's e-book for the K-70 thoroughly. You'll be amazed at how capable it is.
2. Work with the 18-135 for a while before jumping in and getting more lenses. When you are new to photography, there's a lot to learn and it takes a little time to find out where your preferences lie. Try different things (landscapes, portraits, close-ups, street, architecture, abstracts, flowers, insects, cars, whatever) and you might be surprised. Once you've tried different things, you'll have a better idea of what more specialized lenses to look for next (e.g. ultra-wide, long telephoto, portrait, street, macro, etc). For me, when I had a wide-ranging zoom I found myself shooting disproportionately at one end or the other, so I went for an ultrawide and a telephoto lens. For others, it might be a wide-aperture lens for low-light and short depth of field (DOF), or a fast wide lens for astrophotography, or a fisheye, or a macro, or a pancake lens. You just can't know yet!
3. Good gear helps you make the most of your skills, but skills matter far more than gear. Learning about photography is like any other skill. Read widely (there's a huge body of information on this site alone) and practise, practise, practise. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
4. Try to understand the exposure triangle (the interaction of exposure time, aperture and ISO and the effects of changing each variable). It is the basis for all photography. A good intro here: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/55-photography-articles/126203-stops-shu...nsitivity.html A book by Bryan Peterson, "Understanding exposure", is highly recommended by PF members.
5. Learn to hold the camera and how to steady yourself for handheld shots. It sounds really basic, but most of us keep coming back to it. Great article here: Making the Most of Long Exposure Handhelds - Introduction - In-Depth Articles
6. Use a tripod whenever you can. If you haven't got a remote shutter release, user the self-timer. (It will switch off shake reduction automatically, by default.) You can even use this with bracketing. If the subject isn't moving, try pixel shift.
7. Learn how to get focus right for the subject. Scrutinize all your shots for accuracy of focus and learn from the mistakes. (There will be plenty.) Calibrate the autofocus with each AF lens: Fixing front and back focus
8. Learn about hyperfocal distance and about DOF. Use a DOF calculator until you can do it from sight.
9. Shoot RAW+jpg. Post-processing RAW files with good software makes a big difference. If you have information overload, just go with the jpgs and defer learning about software for a while, but save the RAW files for processing later. (My biggest photographic regret is not shooting RAW sooner.)
10. Flash can be a great tool, but if you are already overloaded I'd suggest putting that off for a while too. (When you are ready, follow the course at Strobist 101. And look at Niel van Niekerk's videos on YouTube.)
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
07-11-2019, 08:01 AM
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On a K-70 a 50mm lens will have the equivalent field of view of a 75mm lens. With an APS-C body a lens in the 30-35mm range would be more in line of a 50mm. Resembling "what the human eye sees."
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