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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-15-2022, 08:10 AM
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Unless the only way to fund the K3III is by selling the K1 I wouldn't do so. I use both and regularly. For me they serve different purposes.
Now having said that, if I were forced to keep only one, and considering what my interests are (wildlife/nature, portraits, music and charity events), it would be the K3III. It's a camera with better features and more capable hardware, still very strong in dynamic range while mitigating noise, still excellent low-light performance, and more likely to get fixes and features going forward.
Seriously tho, figuring a way to keep both has nice benefits.
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Forum: General Photography
07-20-2021, 09:20 AM
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The new (and old) 16-50 is not a good match for the K-1. The lens is designed for APS-C crop sensor, not full frame. You'll get heavy vignetting (outer edge of your photos will be too dark, and the corners are likely to be completely black).
The 15-30 is a good choice for wide angle astrophotography of the Milky Way and star trails. It's also good for landscapes, although ultrawide can be challenging for many scenes. Image #1 and #2 below are at the extreme wide end. (note that #2 was a hazy night which didn't give me quite the result I envisioned, but I haven't had a chance to revisit). My only complaints about the 15-30 are that it's heavy, bulky, and needs an awkward filter arrangement.
The 28-105 is by far my favorite landscape lens. Excellent image quality, very versatile zoom range, compact size allows inexpensive filters. It also works for astro scenes with the moon plus foreground elements, and should work fine for star trails but less so for the Milky Way because it's not f2.8 or faster. Image #3 and #4 are with the 28-105. I have zero complaints about the 28-105.
My suggestion: practice with your existing 20mm lens for landscapes and astro. If it's not wide enough or has poor image quality, buy the 15-30. If you can get by with the 20mm for now, then consider spending your money on the 28-105 for landscapes.
 Milky Way and Andromeda through Trees by John Speroni, on Flickr
 Pemaquid Point Milky Way and Mars by John Speroni, on Flickr
 20210407-IMGP2538.jpg by John Speroni, on Flickr
 Andromeda Galaxy above Thunderstorms by John Speroni, on Flickr
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Forum: General Photography
07-20-2021, 11:57 AM
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Forget it for the K1. it is aps-c designed lens. I imagine it will be ok in the 21-50mm range. Below that very doubtful.
Get the DFA 15-30
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Forum: General Photography
07-20-2021, 08:06 PM
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The 15-30 is a very nice lens. I don't think you would be disappointed. The only downside is size and weight, but otherwise you can't go wrong.
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Forum: General Photography
07-20-2021, 06:25 PM
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You are most welcome. I've no doubt it will be a great lens, but the DFA 24-70 would be the FF comparable lens. Roughly the same angle of view on the K-1 as the 16-50 will have on an APS-C camera. I'm sure the 16-50 will have some use on FF but only from perhaps 20 or 24mm on. But no way to test that until someone tries it.
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Forum: General Photography
07-21-2021, 08:15 AM
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And the difficulty of using filters. But despite that I find it to be my most used lens on the K-1II. I would be very interested in a modern FA 20-35ish lens that allowed use of screw on filters but until that happens the 15-30 is a workhorse.
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Forum: General Photography
07-21-2021, 06:31 PM
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Yes, but there are a couple options out there. I ended up springing for a pretty complete Fotodiox Wonderpana setup with everything from a CPL to a variety of ND filters. It was very pricey, but nicely made.
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Forum: General Photography
07-21-2021, 07:08 PM
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There's always the Rokinon 15mm f/2.8. Excellent astro lens and much cheaper than the 15-30. The downsides are quality is hit and miss (many people have had to go through a few copies to get a decent one) and it's only manual focus, which really isn't an issue with astro but would be (for me anyway) for landscapes.Not sure about filter compatibility but I think it's threaded unlike the 15-30.
There is a 15-30 on marketplace (no affiliation):
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/24-photographic-equipment-sale/426314-sa...2-8-macro.html |
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Forum: General Photography
07-22-2021, 09:03 AM
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Yes, but as you point out they are pricey. And for those who already have a good filter collection re-doing that for just a single lens is an extra expense. I've built a good collection of screw in filters that will work with step rings on all my lenses. So for the 15-30 I just don't use filters and use a different lens if a filter is needed. It's a minor annoyance, to me at least.
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Forum: General Photography
07-23-2021, 06:14 PM
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Yes, and given the cost of them, I'd get the lens and use it a bit before deciding to invest in filters for it.
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Forum: General Photography
07-23-2021, 06:50 PM
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15-30 works very well for astro, I had pretty good results with it.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-31-2021, 04:48 AM
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Also, meteors are generally brighter than the stars in the background, so you could use a long exposure, but stop down a little more to minimize star trails. With any luck you'll see a fireball or two.
Too often, the weather my area has overcast skies during these periods of meteor storms and such, and this week has proven to be no exception to that trend.
The best thing to do is practice night shots in order to determine which settings give you the effect you are seeking, as well as showing you where ambient light sources in your scene become prominent after long exposures.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-30-2021, 10:06 PM
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Personally I’d suggest a flash unless the museum doesn’t allow them. (Meteorites are only found on the ground… meteors are in the sky… meteoroids are in space…)
I’m being silly. I can’t help myself, it’s a disease. File this under dad jokes.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-31-2021, 02:12 AM
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All of the smoke from wildfires may play a determining factor as well.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-30-2021, 06:04 PM
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When we were in Oregon we were nearly dark sky. I just set the tripod up in the back yard, set the camera to 20 second exposure and repeat until the battery died. Went to bed and checked in the morning. We are now much too close to Bellingham with lots of sky glow from the city so no more easy night photography:)
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-30-2021, 09:44 AM
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I've never done them but Photoptimist has probably the best advice you will need. You have basically 2 choices, star trails or no star trails when doing a meteor shower shot. Star trails is easy so basically you can do one long bulb shot for several to 10s of minutes, or take lots of shorter shots. A single long exposure won't require much processing but taking many shorter shots will require some. Basically with many shorter shots, 200/(focal length), what you are going to want to do is merge all the shots together with a blend mode of brighter. When doing similar methods of shooting I put the camera into high continuous shooting and using a release cable lock it so it shoots away until I run out of battery or get sick of being out. This how one can also do time-lapse shots of the night sky.
I would avoid astrotracer for this as it won't provide long enough tracking to get lots of meteors in the shot even with an ultrawide lens but with an ultrawide it will make a mess of the corners. If you really want no trails the best way to go is to have an equatorial mount and use a wide to ultrawide lens. That will give you great tracking, no corner problems and much easier processing. Here again I would shoot many individual shots but exposure times would be in the 60s to 300s range and again do a blend method of brightest.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-30-2021, 07:59 AM
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I have used the K1 ii with the DFA 15-30 at 15mm to catch some Perseids. I let it run all night on unattended interval shooting using 25 second exposures, f2.8, ISO1600. Interval shooting means you can't use astrotracer mode though. There is some smearing but it is a long way from star trails. This year I will try upping the ISO to 3200 and reducing exposure time to 12 seconds.
https://pbase.com/steephill/image/170952980.jpg |
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-30-2021, 08:06 AM
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It depends on whether you prefer blurred star trails or not. The Astrotracer will have little if no effect on meteor (it's a meteorite after it hits the earth) trails but it may put limitations on how long you can maintain a timed exposure (due to how far the sensor can be slewed). If you're going for very long exposures to be sure to capture a number of meteor trails, then you might be forced to use a non-Astrotracer exposure (you could shoot consecutive Astrotracer shots and combine them).
Wide lenses are good for getting a broad view of the sky but the actual aperture in wide lenses is tiny which isn't a good thing for point light sources (they become fainter). Depending on the meteor trail, meteors can fall near being a point source (not true of bolides or brighter meteors), and may not show up as well on a wide lens as compared to a longer focal length lens at the same f-stop. Just something to keep in mind.
With the K-1, feel free to use a higher ISO (6400). You can still capture good images with the K-1 sensor at these higher speeds. The shutter speed will depend on how many meteors you want to capture in a single shot. Usually, the shutter is opened and you wait until you see one or more meteors and then close the shutter (manual shutter). You may have to experiment with aperture but better definition is obtained if you stop down 1 or 2 stops from wide open. Experiment is the primary word and you'll get better with experience and trial and error shooting. I would experiment with the lenses you have including some of the longer focal lengths and see what results you get. One thing you need to learn is where to expect the meteor activity in the sky. The "radiant" is usually published but it's only a guide point as you'll learn.
Be aware that the K-1 has two manual (bulb) shutter modes: 1) A press of the shutter button will open the shutter and releasing the shutter button will close the shutter. 2) A press of the shutter button will open the shutter and it will remain open until the shutter button is pressed again. The latter mode is handy for meteor shots. The green button toggles between these two modes.
For meteorites, a good macro lens is the best choice. (Sorry, I just had to put that in there - you can use it on someone else someday:))
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Forum: Photographic Technique
07-30-2021, 09:28 AM
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Meteor photography has a lot of trade-offs:
For complex reasons of optical physics, the quality of astro images (the brightness of the astro phenomenon against the night sky) is more influenced by the physical size of the lens aperture (focal length divided by numerical aperture) and it is by the numerical aperture (the labelled aperture number). A 24mm lens at f/4 makes meteor tracks that are 1-stop brighter than if a 12mm @ f/4 were used. (That also implies that the 24mm lens captures fainter meteors which means it sees more meteors per unit area of sky.) Of course, the 24mm lens covers half the width in the sky or one quarter the area of the sky so it sees only one quarter as many bright meteor tracks. Your 20mm f/2.8 might be a really good choice (assuming it is sharp enough) otherwise, the Loawa 15 f/4 will probably work well. (Note: a wider angle lens does have the advantage of being able to get both a lot of sky and the horizon landscape.)
Sky glow is the enemy of meteor photography -- it swamps the fainter meteor tracks. Anything you can do to avoid cities, the moon, dusk, dawn, dust, humidity, etc. will benefit your images. There's a reason astronomers put their telescopes on the tops of mountains in the middle of nowhere!
Longer shutter times provide no improvement of the brightness of the short-lived meteor traces. Longer shutter time does increase the number of traces per frame. The big "but" is that longer shutter does make sky glow worse which swamps the fainter traces. That's why many meteor photographs use interval shooting -- taking lots of modest shutter time shots (10 to 30 seconds each) and picking the best or stacking them in post.
As far as shutter and ISO, the "best" values really depend on your specific location and prevailing conditions. A true dark site with a moonless, haze-free sky can permit very long shutter times and high ISO values to maximize the number of visible meteor tracks per frame without the problem of sky glow. But using those same shutter and ISO values in a light-polluted suburb, while the moon is in the sky, or in a hazy/dusty/humid location would result in muddy images with almost all the meteor tracks obscured by sky glow.
Astrotracing probably is not worth doing unless you are at a dark site with very good sky conditions.
Have fun!
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
07-08-2021, 10:48 AM
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None. I try to excersise most my lenses, and I have too many favorites.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-11-2021, 07:49 AM
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Thanks for posting this. None of the reviews I've looked at reviewed the collar and I couldn't find pictures of it online.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-18-2020, 08:10 AM
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Both very nice, although I'm not sure the differences are due only to the lenses (as stated by dms above). My preference goes to the second - the first is a bit too much of a 'look at the bokeh' image, whereas the second is mysterious and fun, all-out abstract yet somewhat figurative (one can imagine a bunch of balloons floating in the air)... Great shot.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
12-02-2020, 12:37 PM
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You are very welcome. There is always plenty of help to be found on PF.
Lots of experienced photographers on PF prefer AF2, i.e., to use the rear AF button rather than the shutter button to auto-focus.
The reason the shutter was releasing despite not being in focus was probably that the AF.S setting in menu item 15 (AF.S Setting, on the C3 menu)) was set to Release Priority. The default is Focus-Priority. So, we have learned quite a bit about the shooting preferences of the previous owner of your camera. :p
You may also like to check out the Copyright Information setting in menu Spanner-2 to make sure someone else's name is not prescribed there.
By the way, for general information, anyone buying a used K3 (or most cameras) should probably do a Reset as soon as they get it, to return default settings. On the K3 it is on the Spanner-3 menu.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
12-01-2020, 08:05 PM
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Do you have a grip mounted on the camera and is it turned on? I find when I try to shoot normal łandscape with a grip that is turned on, the bottom of my right palm near the pinky rests on the grip's shutter release interfering with the autofocus as the camera tries to interpret input from both shutter releases at the same time.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
12-01-2020, 06:26 PM
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i've had a problem like this and taking the rocket blower with a quick "clean" got my K-1 to focus again after not focusing at all after 2 lens swaps......there was no dust i could detect nor see on images........
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