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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-24-2020, 05:46 AM
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Okay, I can confirm that my idea did not work :). I was just hoping for something like I had in my old compact Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX10, which worked great for in camera focus stacking. I had forgotten that the wi-fi only works in single frame shooting, and trying to manually refocus during the intervals was impossible without at least a small amount of camera movement, even with a good tripod. Then when the shots finally did stitch together in the camera, there was nothing to remove the out-of-focus regions (of course, how stupid of me). So the results were really weird - like all the edges were blurred and only areas that were in focus in each of the interval shots were in focus in the final merged photo. There might be some situation where that would be desired, but I am sure there are better ways.
As for photo editing software, I will check out Affinity or try doing it in GIMP. There was a good YouTube video on focus stacking in GIMP. I just do not want to pay $10 a month ($120 per year FOREVER) to use Adobe products. Raw Therapee does everything I need for RAW processing and I am getting better and better at it. It includes the K-70 defaults now, including Pixel Shift so I don't think I need Lightroom. I also like the fact that Raw Therapee does not require cataloging. I do my own photo organization and use the free Irfanview for all that.
So thanks for all the advice here. I am learning from you all and from my own experimentation.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-08-2020, 02:39 PM
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I am new to DSLR and now transitioning from using my Pixel 3 smart phone. I live in hot and humid Tallahassee, Florida where we keep the house comfortably air conditioned, but my collection of rare plants are outside. So I was faced with the problem that every time I wanted to go out and take another series of photos, I had to sit and wait 15 minutes or so for the camera to acclimate outside. I read the old posts here but nothing worked much better than what I was already doing.
So.... I decided to build a dry box for my camera and lenses. I had an empty shelf in the office where I could partition off a 12 inch by 18 inch space. I bought a very low wattage electric heater on Amazon for $20 (low power setting is only 160 watts). Then I hooked it to a thermostat/timer that I already had, but is available on Amazon for $30. I set the temperature to 85° and point the heater to the back of the box. It cycles on for less than a minute and holds for about an hour, but the enclosed shelf area is maintained at 85° for my camera and lenses. I set the timer to start at 6 AM and end in the evening and I always have my camera and lenses properly acclimated to take photos without waiting.
Heater available at amazon.com: Honeywell HCE100B Heat Bud Ceramic Heater Black Energy Efficient Space Saving Portable Personal Heater With 2 Heat Settings for Home, School, Office: Home & Kitchen?tag=pentaxforums-20&
Thermostat available at Lux WIN100 Automatic Heating & Cooling 5-2 Day Programmable Outlet Thermostat, Compatible with Portable A/C, Fans, and Space Heaters - Programmable Household Thermostats - amazon.com?tag=pentaxforums-20& |
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
07-21-2020, 10:09 AM
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Hello,
I am certainly an amateur, but getting back into DSLR. I had a K-7 that I bought in 2010 just before the K-5 came out. I am a botanist and use a camera mainly for flower photos while trekking deep in the jungles of Latin America. After two trips carrying the heavy K-7 and lenses I gave up and went to a compact camera. We are now preparing for a major revision to the monograph on the plants I study so I decided I need higher quality photos. I knew about the good weather sealing on Pentax and I already had the good F2.5 100mm macro lens so I decided to come back to Pentax. I have ordered a K-70 which should be delivered later today. I have been reading all about it on this forum, including the excellent review that was prepared here when the model first came out. I probably will have lots of questions to post to you more experienced users once I get going with it.
As soon as I am satisfied with the K-70 I will list my K-7 for sale here, everything complete with box, used less than a year with about 3000 shots total.
Thanks for providing this great forum!
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