Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
12-30-2011, 01:15 AM
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SanDisk Extreme Pro Cards.
The tests were carried out with a Pentax K5 camera, a SanDisk All in One USB 3.0 card reader and a SanDisk Extreme USB 2.0 card reader. With writing to the cards the test was conducted to take a series of image with the camera until the shot buffer was filled. Then once the buffer was filled a further ten images were taken. The timer was started when the shutter was first started and then stopped when the SD card writing light on the camera stopped flashing. To test the download times the card was put into a card reader to download them to the hard drive of the computer. Using a Windows 7 computer they process was timed for the beginning of the copy till it was finished with the burst speed being the highest indicated speed in the copy dialog box. The average was calculated from the time taken and the amount of data copied.
The SanDisk Extreme Pro cards are currently amongst the fastest SD cards on the market, but they are quite pricy, at the moment they are approximately twice the price of the Extreme HD video cards which are rated at approximately 1/3rd the speed. In general usage the camera with the fast card is perceptibly faster in write times and when looking through the images on the back of the camera they are once again slightly quicker. The difference though could quite easily be lost if you haven’t had your morning coffee.
The Pro card has the same level of build quality as all high end SD cards, and is said to be water, dust and shock proof. I don’t disagree with these claims as one of the Extreme III cards was left in a jean pocket and went through 2 full wash and dryer cycles before it was noticed. The card was fine and is still working 3 years later none the wiser for its adventure. Another card which fell out of my pocket spent the better part of two weeks on the ground in a carport and was run over at least twice a day and once again apart from a couple of scratches was fine. So there is no reason to doubt the durability of these cards.
The Pro card really does show its advantages though when it comes to downloading from the card to a computer. With the All in One card reader running on a standard USB 2.0 port the Pro card was able to copy the files over in about 60% of the time of the next fastest card. With the older card reader the performances for the two cards were identical, which suggests that both cards were able to exceed the performance of the Extreme reader. When the All in One reader was plugged into a USB 3.0 port the difference was staggering with the Pro card copying over the data nearly 2.5 times faster.
Finally the Pro cards have a nice little touch. On the front of the label there is a patch that can be written on. This is a very handy feature that is helpful for sorting cards and or tracking them in the event of loss or theft. Most other SD cards have a glossy label that even permanent markers will not stay on for long.
In the end, the Pro cards are much faster than any of the other cards in the test and by a large margin, both in camera as well as downloading the images to the computer. The down side with the Pro cards, and it is a big one, is the cost performance ratio. At the moment most cameras will not be able to match the performance of the cards. Also when downloading to a computer you will need a very high speed card reader to fully utilise the speed. On balance I think that these cards are worth the extra cost. Taking it to the Extreme… |
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
09-20-2011, 06:04 AM
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Hi Guys,
I need your help if you are able, I have had my camera bag stolen in Barcelona Spain.
In it I had a K7 with battery grip, s/n 3378203
DA*16-50 f2.8 s/n 9016167
DA* 60-250 f4 s/n 9223112
Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6 EX s/n 1015644
plus some all sorted filters, batteries, ect.
If you see anything suspicious on any sites at all could you please let me via the messaging on this forum. My K7 does have a loose hot shoe and a big dent on the bottom left hand corner when looking at it from the rear, though difficult to see if the battery grip is on. The files from my K7 unless they remove it will Say "Chris Ide Cideway Imagery" in the copyright information.
Hopefully if we see something we we be able to bring the thieves to justice.
Many thanks,
Chris "Cideway" Ide.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-20-2011, 06:00 AM
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Hi Guys,
I need your help if you are able, I have had my camera bag stolen in Barcelona Spain.
In it I had a K7 with battery grip, s/n 3378203
DA*16-50 f2.8 s/n 9016167
DA* 60-250 f4 s/n 9223112
Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6 EX s/n 1015644
plus some all sorted filters, batteries, ect.
If you see anything suspicious on any sites at all could you please let me via the messaging on this forum. My K7 does have a loose hot shoe and a big dent on the bottom left hand corner when looking at it from the rear, though difficult to see if the battery grip is on. The files from my K7 unless they remove it will Say "Chris Ide Cideway Imagery" in the copyright information.
Hopefully if we see something we we be able to bring the thieves to justice.
Many thanks,
Chris "Cideway" Ide.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
09-07-2010, 01:11 PM
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Falk i have just thought, with Pentax they calibrate the VF, by offsetting the centre point of the sensor with the SR system.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
09-01-2010, 02:58 AM
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You can quicly and easily add "tethering" to the K7, use an Eye-Fi card and set your viewing program to see the selected folder...
But yes tethering and wireless, blue tooth for flash control yes this would all be great things.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-01-2010, 02:52 AM
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Likely what is happeneing is that the aperture mechanism is linked into the mirror operation, with that high speed video of the K10D shutter cycle, you can see that the aperture closes down and then the mirror flicks the mirror comes down and the aperture starts to open. With all the other pentax cameras except for the K7 and Km/x there is is a seperate mechanism for the aperture control, with the K7 the aperture control is motorised and my guess would be that with the Km/x it would be the same mechanism that flicks the mirror. The aperture closing charges the mirror and the mirror returning charges the aperture return, so to reset the process after stoppping down the mirror has to go to release the aperture back to wide open.
This is just a guess but i think it does explain the behaviour based on what i know and can infer about the mechanics of the cameras.
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
08-25-2010, 08:40 AM
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I cannot wait to try one out with my 33-55, everything that i have seen from this camera has made me decide that it will be my next camera.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-18-2010, 04:51 AM
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The flash may not but the Ambient may, shooting at f2 and 1/180th of a second is still a fairly dark environment at 100 ISO to get a correct exposure, at sunny 16 you would be looking at needing a shutter speed of 1/8000th to get a correct exposure at f2, regardless of what the flash is doing, it is likely that the OP was either using fill flash in daylight or in lower light but still having the required exposure at 1/180th being around f5.6-8 would still produce completely over exposed images at f2.
This is a common mythconception about flash photography the shutter speed controls the ambient exposure while the aperture and ISO control the flash and ambient exposure and you have to take the ambient into account with any flash exposure. Further more if you have a flash with a long duration (say the metz 58 with its 1/125th of a second full power duration) a shorter shutter speed can effect the flash exposure.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-18-2010, 04:08 AM
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I use the file number of my images as part of the sorting of the images as each file requires its own individual number i just use the file numbers, the way around the 4 digital limitation and multiple cameras was solved for me with the customisable file names with the K20D/K7, my naming standard has become for the K20D,
K2AXxxxx.dng and for the K7 K7AXxxxx.dng
The first two digits tell which camera model the image is from, the A tells me which camera it is A being main B being the backup so on and so forth. The next digit which i can change with the camera gets assigned to a number to tell me where i am at as far as the number of images so at the start it is a 0, after 9999 shots it becomes a 1 so on and so forth.
Once i get to 99,999 and i run out of numbers in my sequence I simple change that digit to a letter up till i get to Z in which case my camera having done nearly 2.6 million actuations will settle down to a nice retirement. I don't foresee having to use the letters at the rate i shoot at i don't burn through my camera like some here do.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-18-2010, 02:39 AM
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I cannot get over just how much movement there is in everything, the mirror shaking on return and the ripples in the aperture blades.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
08-17-2010, 03:20 AM
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With an EVF you get reduced cost, but you don't get anything approaching WYSIWYG, what you get a reduced dynamic range version of the image, that is delayed due to the image processing pipeline (regardless of processing speed electrons can only travel so fast which adds another delay on top of human reaction time and shutter lag), with a blinding back light that causes loss of night vision in low light and eye fatigue in normal light, i don't know about you but i cannot stare at a small computer screen a meter away for hours on end and not have a sore eye, but i can look through an OVF for days without causing any eye issues.
Until they develop an Electronic view finder that doesn't need a backlight or active pixels then there will always be a market for OVF cameras
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
08-14-2010, 06:37 AM
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What i should have said was "am i going to go digital medium format and use this system that i have invested a great deal of money in."
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
08-14-2010, 02:58 AM
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Before you invest in a Medium format system you need to ask 1 question... Will i go digital?
If the answer is never, then you can go and by into a dead system (one that has no digital backs and cannot accept them), that will save you a bucket load of money as everyone is dumping the dead systems.
If the answer is yes or maybe then it would be worth while looking at the ease and cost of going digital with the system and any limitations and restrictions that can be imposed by going digital.
The Pentax medium formats were the cheapest when they were new, as they didn't use interchangable backs, it made them better field cameras and reduce alignment issues and film flatness but was unpopular with people that like to change film after every shot.
I have used many medium formats systems mamiya, rollie, hassy and Pentax and i personally liked the Pentax 645 as it was the lightest easiest to use and produced fantastic results.
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
08-14-2010, 02:52 AM
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Was that in Total Photographics (LnP) by any chance?
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
03-22-2010, 03:52 PM
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Still have to try and make it out to shoot them myself, would have tried for Saturday night but got "stuck" doing election coverage with the Sunday Mail.
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
03-22-2010, 03:25 AM
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When i get mine it will be used almost exclusively for my fine art landscape work.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
02-27-2010, 03:05 AM
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
02-27-2010, 03:04 AM
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The Fringe is in town again and some of the South Australian Pentaxians caught up.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-19-2010, 06:31 PM
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My thinking is that the third contact could be an earth as we now have a camera body made out of conductive magnesium instead of non conductive plastic.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
01-16-2010, 08:40 PM
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There are several factors that i think are causing this lens to be not as well talked about as others:
1. Price, anyway you cut it, its an expensive lens
2. Range, many Pentax users either have the 300 f4 for their tele coverage, had already gone 3rd party, or simply find that the 50-135 has covered their tele lens needs (or even the 55-300 or 50-200 WR/L).
3. It is an out door lens, and large portion of the worlds population are currently in winter.
4. The owners of this gem of a lens are too busy enjoying it to talk about it...
For you maybe but for others, well the 60-250 is lighter and smaller then any of the 3rd party options has a smaller filter thread, from user reports the 60-250 is better at f4 then the Tamron is at all overlapping focal lengths (which by proxy makes it better then the sigma as well).
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
01-06-2010, 12:29 AM
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Well considering that Roadmaps and all that crap aren't Hoya's style, i wouldn't read too much into deletion of items off the roadmap. Hoya seem to be a much more streamlined with the Announcements to release times being very short, and a series of orchestrated leaks in the fortnight before the announcement.
They (hoya) really seem to have learnt from the PR disasters that were the massively long product lead times of the DA* zooms and all the delays so on and so forth. plus with PMA only around the corner and Hoya seeming to have developed a plan of an announcement every month (Camera, lens or Firmware) who knows what will be coming round in the next little while, i personally am hoping for a DA* 11-16 f2.8
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
01-05-2010, 07:21 AM
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The brightness of a VF depends on
1. Lens aperture (bigger aperture more light, smaller aperture less light)
2. Mirror (the silvering of the mirror and with AF systems how much light is split off to the AF sensor)
3. Focus screen (the cut, coating and transmisive quality of the screen)
4. Prism housing (Penta-prism or mirror, the quality of the coatings, the quality of the glass and the size. How much light is taken off for metering)
5. Eye piece optics (the quality of the coatings, the quality of the glass and the size)
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
01-02-2010, 06:10 AM
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Well in order for the Xenon in the flash to produce "white" light it needs a very high voltage and amperage.
I haven't heard of electrocution happening with a flashgun, but i have heard of it with a studio strobe. But the fact remains that even the small internal flashes still have the voltage and amperage under the right conditions to kill.
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Forum: General Talk
12-30-2009, 04:20 AM
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Generate a viable and cheap alternative to oil, more emphasis on alternative fuels and non-oil based composite materials and organic packaging... Once the dependence and need for oil dies down, the west's interest and interference in the middle east will wain and stability will come to the region.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
12-25-2009, 11:58 PM
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They cannot have a weather sealed system without a weather resistant flash. I think the fact that a flash has a enough voltage going through it to kill a person some environmental sealing would be a good thing.
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