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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
05-02-2021, 10:26 AM
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I would like to nominate this photo
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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
04-27-2021, 09:55 AM
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This is my first time entering one of these contests, so I hope I'm doing this correctly.
Mount Wai'ale'ale on the island of Kauai is one of the wettest places on Earth, averaging about 450 inches of rainfall a year. This panoramic was photographed from atop the Kuilau Ridge Trail, looking west across the Halelea Forest to the Alaka'i Wilderness beyond.
Photographed February, 2015
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
10-22-2019, 04:21 PM
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Last weekend I shot with my camera in manual, I set the exposure to f/5.0 at 1/200 so that the background would be the exposure I wanted, then put the flash on P TTL high speed sync to fill in for the portraits. I'm happy with the results, I just wish the camera captured the flash level, all that Lightroom shows is "Flash: Did Fire".
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-18-2019, 01:03 PM
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I popped outside this morning and ran an f/stop test with the lens out to 16. It's not a perfect test (I really need a bright sunshine day for that, and here in the PNW we're enjoying Nature's Soft Box cloud cover) As I dropped the f/stop my shutter speed increased, and by the time I got to f/22 I was out at 1/13 of a second. I don't have time to break out my tripod right now, and it is windy anyway so there's going to be background movement at that speed no matter what, HOWEVER, my shutter speeds were fast enough in the middle to avoid camera shake, and I can see a very visible improvement on edge sharpness right at f/11. It's still not *perfect*, but it is definitely noticeable.
So I feel the lens is still quite usable on the K3, but if I'm going to go wide, I should keep the f/stop in mind for improved sharpness at the edges.
Thank you EVERYONE for all your input!
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-18-2019, 10:05 AM
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I'm pretty sure some of it is field curvature, and I think it has been there before, but I didn't care too much about it because my subjects are usually landscapes. It was only when I needed to shoot a group of people that I paid that close of attention to the edges. My growing suspicion is that this is a situation of people's faces + shooting on my K3 that has brought this to light.
My next test will be to take a shot at each f/stop to see if that helps improve the edges.
For what it's worth... a friend of mine was also shooting the group - she has a full frame Canon and she rented a high end wide lens to shoot. Her shots came out much sharper with less grain (as would be expected) and at first I thought my lens was entirely busted. However, she shot super wide and cropped in, and when I look at her original RAW files I can see a similar focal loss on the edges because of the shallow depth of field. She just cropped the aberrations out. It was after I noticed that when I started thinking it might just be inherent to wide angle zooms. I still want to figure this out, because I like to know WHY things work the way they do, but I also think that a prime lens is going to yield better results than a zoom.
---------- Post added 10-18-19 at 10:17 AM ----------
I've been looking at the 20-40 as a possible replacement, and I've seen some mixed reviews on it but I wonder if that has to do with the camera bodies they are shooting on. Some of the reviews don't mention the camera, and it didn't dawn on me until this week that the camera body could make that much of a difference. (My brain still thinks in film, the 35mm opening is a 35mm opening... vs. DSLRs with higher capacity sensors)
My primary hesitations are that my 16-45 is really good if I stay between 20-45, and in that regard I already have a 20-40. Plus, I have the 31mm prime, and I have consistently used that over my zoom on landscapes. If it turns out that the edges are just going to have this aberration, I can keep that in mind when I shoot, frame the image wider and crop in when I edit. If a lower f/stop helps as well, then that might be the solution for the rare wide-angle situations.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-17-2019, 07:43 PM
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The reason I'm researching this is because I was wondering if I need to replace it or retire it. I really don't want to shoot with a lens if I have to reduce the image size in order for the image to look good.
---------- Post added 10-17-19 at 07:55 PM ----------
I'm not sure how much sag there needs to be for it to require repair... it definitely feels a little wiggly when it is out all the way. I never really paid close attention to it before, but my 50-135 doesn't extend out when it zooms, whereas the 16-45 doubles in length. Maybe it is just worn out after 12 years of being lugged around.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-17-2019, 06:31 PM
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I bought my 16-45 lens as part of my starting kit when I picked up my K10D back in 2007. It was my only lens for quite a while, and (up until recently) I've been happy with the results. Mostly I shoot landscapes/wildlife, but about once or twice a year I do get a call to take photos of people in some capacity (portraits or events)
This past September I took a group photo for an event at my daughter's school. It had to be outside in available light, and I needed a fast shutter speed as it was a group of 130 people, so I shot at ISO1600, 1/320 at f7.1 zoomed out to 18mm. It looked decently in focus on the LCD... then at home in Lightroom I noticed that the focus seems to fall off on the edges.
In another "forced to use evening available light" setting, I photographed a group of 30 people at 1/50 sec f/4, ISO800 16mm and again, the focus falls off on the edges. I was trying to avoid increasing the ISO because I thought that was the source of the blurryness in the first group shots, but as the light decreased I increased the ISO and the blurry effect seems to be pretty much the same.
The pictures are OK for phone viewing or printing 4x6 or 8x10, however zooming in showcases the aberration.
After the second group event, I thought maybe it was a problem with low light, maybe I needed a smaller f/stop to find an optimal focal point for the lens, however I tested it in the daylight and I can still see the aberration even shooting at f/8 at ISO400 in bright sun.
That brought me to this forum, and I've been reading through the mixed reviews of this lens on the reviews page. Some people say it is sharp edge to edge, some people are describing the same aberration I'm experiencing.
I then realized, I've changed camera bodies twice since purchasing this lens... K10D to K5 and now I shoot K3. Also, when I got the K3 I was also given a 31mm prime lens for Christmas, and I've been pretty much shooting all my landscapes with that lens... so I haven't been using the 16-45 outside of occasionally needing the wide angle for group shots.
I'm wondering... is it possible this lens is not good with the new K3? If so, why would that be? Has anyone else noticed something similar?
---------- Post added 10-17-19 at 06:38 PM ----------
OH and to add to this... the shots that I did in the same light at 22mm do not have this focus flaw, it's just the ones that are zoomed out to the maximum.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
10-17-2019, 12:07 PM
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THANK YOU! I downloaded the whole flash manual, and down on page 28 there is a reference to "additional mode settings on the flashgun will take priority over the camera set options." THIS is exactly the confirmation I was looking for, and it explains so much of what was going wrong for me last weekend.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
10-15-2019, 06:29 PM
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Hello all! I'm new to the forum, however I've been shooting with Pentax DSLR's since 2007. I currently shoot with a K3. About 99% of the time I shoot with available light, however every couple of years an occasion pops up where I need to break out my AF-540FGZ flash. Usually it is for indoors on a photography backdrop, so I have the ability to set things up ahead of the shoot and make sure my settings are good. However, even though I eventually get nice results, I'm frustrated that it feels a little bit like poke-and-hope because I don't fully understand which setting (camera vs flash) is doing what.
I'm also now wrestling with wanting to use my flash as a fill flash for outdoor portraits in the daylight. From the research I've done, it seems that if the conditions are bright I'm going to need to have the flash set to high speed sync, set my camera to manual exposure to make the background what I want, have my flash on TTL, and manually adjust the exposure compensation of the flash to get the results I'm looking for on the subject.
Does that sound about right?
Also: There are flash control settings on the K3, and also on the flash itself. Am I correct in assuming that the controls on the flash unit override the camera controls? (meaning: if I put the camera on trailing curtain sync but the flash is on leading curtain sync, it'll shoot leading curtain?)
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