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Forum: Winners' Showcase
09-02-2013, 01:15 PM
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So what are those single pixels white-ish halos around each bird, including their feet where there are no feathers?
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
05-19-2013, 09:19 AM
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Here are few photos of non-Pentax gear.
Contax D ... first family of modern SLR with horizontal focal plane shutter, m42 mount, and pentaprism. (1949)
Rolleifex (original) ... first modern production model TLR. (1929)
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
05-12-2013, 10:55 PM
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Ok, i'll play.
 [/URL]
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-27-2012, 12:55 PM
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You are reducing everything down to sharpness. What some people are telling you is that sharpness is not the only quality to consider. If I want super sharp, I have lenses that will deliver that. I can shoot with my FA 50mm F2.8 Macro, or my M 50mm F1.7, or half a dozen other lenses I have in that range. The FA 50mm F1.4 has its own look, and that includes variable edge sharpness based on aperture, great bokeh, fantastic low light capability, and great depth of the field control. ALL of these attributes are unique and important if you know how to use them.
The FA 50mm F1.4 has fine center sharpness even wide open. The control of edge sharpness based on aperture is a nice aspect of the lens.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-27-2012, 10:13 AM
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Why, yes it is. :)
And I always use a lens hood on the FA 50mm F1.4.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-26-2012, 10:10 PM
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Sharpness is not everything. The FA 50mm F1.4 is sharp enough though. The bokeh is really good, and that extra half stop comes in handy.
Shot at 50mm f1.4.
100% detail at F1.4.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-26-2012, 09:44 PM
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Get the FA 50mm F1.4. Dreamy and a little soft wide open and tack sharp starting at F2. You have the most versatility with this lens. Sometimes you want dreamy.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
01-14-2012, 03:48 PM
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Do you have source, or are you making things up?
Dead photosites are prevalent on almost all high density sensors. They either get mapped out at the factory, or by software in the camera, or both.
The number of dead photosites can vary based on heat level of the sensor and other factors, but it is a rare camera indeed that doesn't have dead photosites.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
01-14-2012, 03:21 PM
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Here's a newsflash for those who think that dead pixels are the end of the world.
ALL MODERN CAMERA SENSORS HAVE DEAD PHOTOSITES (PIXELS)!
That's what the pixel mapping feature, built into the K-5, is for. Learn to use it instead of coming on here and complaining about something that every camera sensor suffers from.
Seriously, nothing puts you further in the noob category than dead pixel complaints.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
12-30-2011, 08:00 AM
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Under the conditions you are shooting the camera's auto white balance can be inaccurate (because you have nothing white and very few colors in the scene).
Under those conditions try adjusting the white balance manually until you get what you want. It's not hard to do.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
12-28-2011, 12:38 AM
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Page 141 of the K-5 Manual:
• The Shake Reduction function will not fully work (for about 2 seconds) right after turning on the camera or restoring from Auto Power Off. Wait for the Shake Reduction function to become stable, and then press the shutter button gently. If k appears in the viewfinder when you press the shutter release button halfway, the camera is ready to take a picture.
Why would you set your meter to power off after 5 seconds? The meter's power usage is very minimal, and it seems that if you are doing street photography you would want the camera ready instantaneously. I have my 'auto power off' set to 3 minutes.
If you are concerned about battery life, turn off the rear LCD and the top LCD backlight, and carry an extra battery. :)
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-28-2011, 09:23 PM
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The only other time I have seen stuff like this is in the presence of a strong EM field, like near a transformer or other unshielded electrical equipment. Suggest you try it in a different environment before making a final determination that it's the camera.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-28-2011, 12:42 AM
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The K-5 can record 1080 video only at 25 fps, but it can do 720 video at 30fps.
If you have certain fluorescent lights that run off of 60 cycle current (like in the U.S.), you may have a frame rate mismatch with the light source at 25 fps. This will sometimes show up as a weird throbbing of the light in the video. (Remember, in a DSLR, the sensor doesn't record the entire image at once, but does it line by line. This is known as a "rolling shutter," and means that parts of the image will be temporally displaced. This will cause some of the image to be exposed when the lighting interval is at its brightest, while other parts of the image will be recorded when the light is at its dimmest.)
As other users have suggested, try shooting in natural light (or a non-cyclic light source, such as tungsten, halogen, or LED) to see if you still have the same problem.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-27-2011, 01:12 PM
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I just received the O-GPS1 unit last week and have been doing some astrophotography with it. I am basically just practicing in the city so that when I travel to a dark sky area, I will be familiar with the unit.
Some tips for astrophotography using the O-GPS1:
1. If you have your K-5 set up to turn itself off after a few minutes, you'll want to change this menu item for astrophotography. I use the K-5 accessory battery grip to make sure I don't need to change batteries.
2. Program dial needs to be set to Bulb
3. Autofocus has to be set to Manual
4. You will not be able to accurately focus the lens (especially a telephoto) by looking through the optical viewfinder. You'll see bright stars, but the screen is too coarse to see exact focus. Instead you'll want to use the LIve View at around 6x magnification. Find a star and very slowly rack the lens focus ring back and forth until you get the sharpest star image. (And for those who are wondering why not just set the lens on infinity, most lenses rack past infinity to allow for thermal expansion and other tolerance-related issues.) You can lock your lens' focus with tape once you have true focus.
5. If it is really cold out, let your camera and lens acclimate to the temperature for awhile to stabilize thermal issues.
6. I've been experimenting with 20-50 second exposures with a M-200mm @ F4 and a FA-100mm Macro @ F2.8, and have been encouraged by the results. I'll have to wait until I get to really dark skies to go longer.
7. A right angle finder really helps if your camera is pointed up, otherwise it's pain to contort to see through the viewfinder. I use the Fotodiox model.
8. Make sure you use a sturdy tripod, and if yours has a hook on the center for hanging your bag or other weight, be sure to take advantage of that.
9. Turn off auto image review so that your view screen doesn't illuminate after each exposure. If you do have auto image review turned on, then turn off the blinkies.
10. A small red lens flashlight helps you see the buttons on the camera, and dropped items such as lens caps :)
Complaints:
1. The GPS unit has a blue LED that glows steadily when it has satellite lock. Unfortunately this light is right near the viewfinder, and it is really distracting when attempting astrophotography. A red LED would have been better. Cover it with tape.
2.It seems you have to control and initiate the exposure from the K-5 menu, which is awkward when the camera is pointing up. It would be nice if you could control subsequent exposure without having to go to the menu.
3. I wish there was a red "night vision" mode for the menu to preserve your night vision.
So far I am pretty happy with the unit. It seems to do what it claims, but I won't know how well until i get to some really dark skies.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-21-2011, 08:31 PM
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A few comments:
1. You said that you are dropping your photos into Lightroom, but you didn't say specifically that you were shooting RAW. I assume that you are.
2. The in-camera histogram measures luminance values of a rendered JPEG, not the luminance value of the actual RAW file. There can be some discrepancy. More importantly, it can be difficult to see highlight blow-out on the histogram when relatively few pixels (compared with the rest of the image) are involved. It's not a precision tool but more like a rough guide. I find the blinkies much more useful than the histogram.
3. ETTR, like other exposure methods, is a tool that you use based on the subject matter that you are photographing. It is not a tool for every subject. You need to use the computer between your ears to figure out which method of exposure is suitable for the subject matter and the emphasis desired in the photograph. If you use ETTR for every single photo situation, I guarantee you are gonna blow highlights on some of them.
Fortunately you are shooting with a modern digital camera that can tell you (via blinkies) which pixels are clipping. Then you can decide if you want to adjust exposure to compensate.
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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
11-06-2011, 11:17 AM
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
11-06-2011, 10:29 AM
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Some of my Pentax film cameras, including black models (staying on topic!)
-jim
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Forum: General Talk
01-08-2011, 05:15 PM
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Ok, let's clean up some of the more erroneous comments about science and physics in this thread. I am not going to cover them all, just a few of the whoppers.
You are confusing tides (a gravitational phenomena) with waves which are mostly caused by weather. If you are going to talk intelligently about this, you really need to know the difference.
I know you are trying to be funny on this one, but in case your subtlety is lost on some readers, the ocean is not static. At the equator the earth rotates at approximately 1000 miles per hour (slower as you get to the poles.) If the oceans were static, we would have 1000 mph oceanic currents near the equator. Clearly we don't, and this because the ocean rotates with the earth.
You are in error in thinking of the Big Bang as an explosion. It was not an explosion, but an expansion of space-time. These are important concepts that if you don't understand them will lead you to all sorts of incorrect assumptions.
Actually no. Scientists have a pretty good handle on lots of things that used to be mysterious. Can they explain everything? No...at least not yet. Does the fact that scientists can't explain everything mean that the idea of god is valid? No.
As an example, five hundred years ago no one on earth could explain lightning, and the phenomena was attributed to a divine being, so much so that even today many people speak of a lightning strike as an "act of god."
But we understand a lot more about lightning today, and nobody except the most willfully ignorant think that lightning is a direct statement from some divine being. Instead we put up lightning rods and protect our buildings and loved ones from damage and injury.
The lack of an explanation is not positive proof of a deity. You don't get to posit your deity by default just because an explanation is lacking.
Because his statement was based on total ignorance and he presented no evidence to back up his claim. You see science works on evidence, otherwise we'd have to accept every idiotic harebrained idea that some nitwit dreamed up.
Science understands many ordering principals just fine. (see the laws of thermodynamics, gravitational theory, evolutionary theory, and the science of statistics) It's you who do not understand ordering principles, and you have not presented any evidence that supports alternative explanations. This is referred to as a "god of the gaps" argument, or the argument from ignorance. Just cause we don't have explanations for everything does not mean we have evidence for the supernatural or the divine.
Well, that's enough for now.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-24-2010, 11:12 AM
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I would pass on that lens just on principal. A lens in that condition needs more than the totally inadequate description in the listing. Sellers who fail to adequately describe their product (even if it's to say that they don't know what happened to the lens) should not be patronized.
From the photos it seems that there is no way that lens will function properly on a Pentax as it doesn't appear to have a K-mount.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-19-2010, 10:07 PM
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-03-2010, 09:28 PM
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Don't know if this would count... I recently bought a Pentax DA* 60-250mm lens from Amazon. When it arrived the SDM was for all practical purposes dead. The lens mostly wouldn't focus at all, and for the rare times it did it would take 5 to 10 seconds to slowly rack into focus.
I sent it back for a replacement, and the second lens was fine.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
11-29-2010, 06:10 PM
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I think you will find the 50mm macro too long for landscapes or even panos. I do a bit of both, and I find that I use my 12-24mm the most.
The 50 macro does make an all around great lens for casual shooting and closeups when you don't need to go wide. I don't have any problems with auto focus on a macro as long as you are not expecting SDM-like performance. It's good enough for most subjects.
Maybe the 35mm macro would be a good compromise?
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
11-28-2010, 09:07 PM
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See the pic at this link.
Looks similar to the lens you bought. I think it's probably the beginnings of fungus.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
11-28-2010, 05:36 PM
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Here's my shiny friend... I haven't actually mounted it on a digital camera yet.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
06-01-2010, 09:00 PM
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The K7 image quality at ISO 6400 is quite usable, and responds well to third party noise reduction. Here is an example.
First the unaltered image, taken at 6400 on the K7:
Here's a 100% crop before any noise reduction is applied:
Then after the application of chroma noise reduction in Lightroom 3 (Beta 2):
Then adding Luminance noise reduction to the image as well:
There is plenty of tweaking you can do to optimize image quality, but the above examples show what you can do with just gross adjustments of the NR parameters. I would probably never apply that much NR in any image, but you can see that you have lots of control with sophisticated NR routines with not a lot of image degradation.
Do not be afraid of the K7's high ISO!
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