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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
5 Hours Ago
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I'm aware of the Lomography products and own several. The thing with all of those cameras - toy or not - is that image quality is decidely "lo fi" or - at best - "quirky", and intentionally so. I don't say this as criticism... They're very popular, and can be a lot of fun if that's the look you want in your photos... but none has the kind of lens Ricoh Imaging is putting in the new half-frame camera (based on one of the Espio models, if I remember correctly).
Again, I own the Olympus Trip 35 (two of them, actually), and other compacts such as the Mju and various Soviet models. All great cameras. The thing is, most of them need work at some point - whether it's simple stuff like replacing perished light seals, or more complicated matters such as viewfinder cleaning, shutter "flushing", metering repair and/or calibration, etc... and when buying one of these cameras, you don't know who's attempted to service them previously. All manner of hidden surprises can lurk inside.
As I mentioned in an earlier post and different thread, demand for half-frame vintage cameras is strong, yet its increasingly difficult to find them in good, fully-working condition... The number of dog-eared Olympus PEN cameras on eBay, for example, is astounding... and the prices are increasing, even for rough examples. I've been after a decent PEN S for a couple of years now, but haven't found one that meets my expectations in terms of functional and cosmetic condition.
IMHO, there's a market for good quality new film cameras, factory fresh and unmolested, with full warranty. Ricoh Imaging seems to agree... MiNT too. What you and I think is immaterial, though... the fact is, Ricoh Imaging seems to be pressing forward with the half-frame camera, and time will tell whether it's the right decision. Features, build quality and price will determine whether I buy one, but I'm pretty sure I will.
Sorry for another OT post, folks... :o
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
2 Days Ago
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It depends how sticky the stuff on the focusing screen is.
Here what Katzeye Optics recommended:
Cleaning a Focusing-Screen
DO NOT touch the either face of the screen with bare fingers - fingerprints are very difficult to get off.
Hold the screen only by the edges or by the tab and for maximum safety, wear latex gloves when handling the screen.
Use the tabs provided on the screen for grasping during installation and removal.
The surfaces of the screen are very sensitive and can easily be scratched with installation tools.
The only safe fluids to use on the screen are water and mild dishwashing liquid that has been diluted with water.
DO NOT USE alcohol, nail polish remover, paint thinner, Windex, commercial lens cleaning solutions, or any other sort of solvent.
Some of them might be safe, but you use them at your own risk - the plastic of the focusing screen can be softened and smeared by solvents.
If your screen has become extremely contaminated, such as with fingerprints, oils, or some other foreign contaminant, you have a few options:
First, it is possible to wash the screen, if appropriate precautions are taken. Avoid this if at all possible, but if you have serious dirt or oil that won’t respond to the gentler methods, here is the appropriate procedure.
Get a very soft artist’s brush – red sable works well. Wet the screen with warm tap water; place a drop of liquid dish soap (like Dawn) directly on the screen.
Wet the brush and work the soap thoroughly into the screen.
On the matte (prism) side, you can use any motion you’d like.
On the other side, there is a Fresnel lens that has a series of concentric grooves;
to clean them properly, you will need to work in circles starting at the middle and getting progressively larger.
When you’re done, rinse thoroughly in warm water using the brush to help to soap get off.
Then, follow with another thorough rinse, this time in dead cold water.
Finally, blow the water off the screen with canned air (making sure not to freeze it) or a big bulb blower (like a rocket blower).
The key is to blow the water off the screen before it can evaporate and leave water spots.
Distilled or de-ionized water will be less prone to leaving water spots and should be used as a final rinse, before drying, if it is available.
DO NOT dry-rub the focusing screen with a lens cloth or lens tissue - it will almost certainly scratch.
How To Remove Dust From the Screen?
When the screen is installed in the camera, the only safe option is blowing the dust off with a bulb blower. Canned air is not recommended, as freezing liquid can spray into the camera. Stubborn dust can be loosened with a very soft brush, such as a sensor brush or a soft artist’s brush.
With the screen out of the camera, there are a few more options.
Again, the bulb blower is the preferred option because it is the safest.
Sometimes dust will adhere to the screen by a static charge; here’s a little trick to help with that - just give the screen a breath of warm air, as if you were trying to fog up a window, and immediately blow the screen off with the bulb blower.
You may need to repeat the process several times. It sounds a little strange, but the slight moisture in your breath will actually help to dissipate the static without contaminating the screen.
Of course, the sensor brush will also work with the screen out of the camera.
In addition, the canned air is reasonably safe to use outside the camera, although you should still exercise care to avoid letting the freezing liquid hit the screen.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
3 Days Ago
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Eastern Quolls are native Australian marsupial predators which only survive in the wild in Tasmania and are extinct on the mainland primarily due to the introduction of many feral animals. However, a number of Quolls have been relocated to Mulligan's Flat Nature Reserve, an area of over 400 hectares in Canberra. The reserve is surrounded by "floppy top" electric fences to keep introduced animals like cats and foxes out. They seem to be doing well, and have started to breed.
Eastern Quoll by RobGeraghty, on Flickr
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
4 Days Ago
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Articles by veteran Dave Etchells are interesting, insightful, and well presented. I enjoy his interviews.
Sadly, but unsurprisingly, the DPR comments section brings out the usual cynicism and FUD.
I think that Mr. Etchells is associated with DPReview these days (as a contributor), so it makes sense that he would publish his piece there. The article doesn't seem to be 'sponsored' by Ricoh Imaging.
- Craig
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
6 Days Ago
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I dedicate this to eaglem who hangs up here who really loves the American muscle cars. Here is a classic British muscle car from the 1950s. Probably my favourite MG. I have mixed feelings about the new MGs out of China. Glad the marque is continuing but sad they are run of the mill cars.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
04-12-2024, 12:15 PM
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Some idiotic decisions by yours truly:
- A friend got married. Yup, they asked me, yup, I did it. But with the usual disclaimers, I'm an amateur, I just document what I see,...
- I decided to go with two different cameras. K-1 with HD FA 31, K-3 III with DFA* 50. A wide and a slight tele. I don't have a harness, I just used the neck straps and let one of them hang on my body while I shot with the other. Worked out okay, the strap on my K-1 was a little shorter so after a while I decided to switch it so that the K-1 was on top. One thing that did happen: I didn't switch them off when not using them, so at more than one point my settings got changed by accident. Noticed not immediately, but rather quickly. Shutter speed and aperture changed led to a few more or less ruined images, while a change in White Balance could be easily corrected afterwards.
- Another thing I hadn't fully thought through before starting the day with two cameras: I hadn't synchronized their clocks to the second. When I had culled and edited everything, I wanted to sort them by time and assign them a sequential number, and that's when I realized that something was not right. I managed to adjust the difference with the help of EXIFToolGUI so now it should be very close to the correct course of events, and trying to solve this made me learn some things in the process, but I could've lived without the experience :D
- I shot a lot. 1300 clicks? I delivered 442. Culling was gruesome. Ceremony at the town hall, congratulations and a little celebration by friends afterwards, small detour with just the newlyweds to a location for some staged shots (some rain, cloudy, coldish, so not the greatest), and some group portraits with the closest family.
- I only realized I hadn't matched the WB between the two cameras after I had fixed the time issue, at that point I wasn't willing to fix the WB if my friend didn't mind.
- I didn't chimp for most of the day. Which was absolutely necessary or I would have missed so much, but it would have prevented a few shots with horribly missed focus. I went with a small zone and AF-S, which worked out okay for most of the shots.
- I did it for free. Or as my gift to the couple. They offered to invite me for dinner which I will accept when we find the time. But still, it was quite a lot of work.
Well, after all I learned a lot (most importantly: don't do it again? :D), and I hope I will remember some of the issues that showed up. And perhaps when you read this you can find a thing you would have done differently? One thing I will probably change in the future: get myself a 16-50 PLM and shoot with that on the K-3 III only. The K-1 files are very nice to work with (for example I completely misjugded the exposure in a scene so that the bride's dress was completely blown out, but I could recover it in most of the shots), but the buffer fills quickly and clears slowly.
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Forum: Photo Critique
04-07-2024, 06:18 PM
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Hi
There was a lot of light. I know it's a simple, convergent composition, but the lines and colors intertwine nicely.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-17-2024, 12:10 AM
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Another poll without a suitable option for me, I'm afraid :o
I always have my smartphone with me, so that's my fall-back - but on occasion I might carry my Q7 or original Q, one of several compact fixed-lens digicams - Fujifilm XF1, Canon G10 or A1200, etc. - or a pocketable point-and-shoot 35mm film camera such as the Olympus Trip 35...
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
04-13-2024, 01:26 PM
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I decided to go to Watson Lake this morning to kayak instead of Lynx. I've gotten some decent landscape shots in the past, but the lake is always so crowded that it's hard. When I pulled into the lake, they had the main boat ramp closed for a trail running race. This left only the small boat ramp and there was no one on the lake the majority of the morning. I got some of the really nice golden hours lighting.
 PK3A0678 by David Green, on Flickr
 PK3A0632 by David Green, on Flickr
 PK3A0627 by David Green, on Flickr
 PK3A0617 by David Green, on Flickr
 PK3A0616 by David Green, on Flickr
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
04-14-2024, 06:29 PM
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I've been working through my archives lately, this image from a series of maybe 40 images, taken on Opalescent Lake in Algonquin Park on a campsite where two summer camp groups had arranged to meet. I'm sure many photos we posted that the time.This one was waiting until I got Topaz. Like a lot of files I originally neglected, Topaz, cleans them up pretty good. It really pays to keep the original files. I remember in one of my many arguments of the day, a few members claimed they had to have more than a K-5 because more MP would look better on a 4k TV screen. They didn't predict Topaz and AI processing. I took my original file, ran it through Apple Photos (quirky, and, poor at some tihings, but definitely not IQ and it has a version of Photo AI s developed by Apple for their phones) (Except Photos usually makes some small improvements in iPhone processing) Then so spot sharpening with Topaz Sharpen AI and finishing with Topaz Denoise.
 2013-08-08-Canoe- by Norm Head, on Flickr
Incidentally T has upgraded her K-5 to a K-5II and my K-3 will turn 10 years old this year. I guess we'll buy new ones if these ever break.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
04-16-2024, 10:01 AM
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Thanks Mike... I'm thinking of printing large and adding it to the wall collection.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
04-15-2024, 06:24 AM
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I'm doing OK, I could be a lot better, but at this age, that goes without saying. I've had an inordinate number of hospital visits over the last year, with many tests, that all turned up nothing. So, I suspect I'm suffering from something, but, I don't know what. I finally had to give up my last competetive sport volley ball. I was getting severe headaches after every game. But hey, I still ways have a camera with me, even if most of the time it's my phone.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-16-2024, 02:14 AM
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I've heard rumours that if you play the video backwards, there's a hidden message at the end giving the precise date on which Pentax is doomed...
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
04-13-2024, 08:33 PM
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The M 50mm f2 certainly has a place. It is very hard to objectively demonstrate this but I feel it has bought a certain charm in the bokeh and 3d pop to this image that is a little different to the 1.7 and 1.4 50s.
The f2 is definitely a little softer at focus but sharp enough to get by in the less critical genre like portraiture.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
04-13-2024, 04:39 PM
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There was a discussion nearby about M series lenses including the M 50mm f2 having it's virtues so I thought I would do a comparison.
Of course a depressingly expected outcome! The cheapest and the fastest compete for the worst performance wide open. And the more glass the better @ f4.
The background rendering is very similar once the varying dofs are taken into account.
Noticeable vignetting on the K 1.2 and to a lesser degree on the M50mm2. All lenses had the same hood length but the 50mm2 has a slightly recessed front element which may account for a difference. EDIT in fact it is the 50mm1.7 that stands out as having less vignetting. Note these are after-market metal hoods that are similar to the Takumar 50mm hoods.
Saved to raw, developed in Darktable - base curve and a slight correction of exposure to match each other. No sharpening - no denoise.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-13-2024, 03:03 AM
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If I made decisions for Pentax, I would work really hard to emphasize the differences between SLR design and MILC and try to show the craftsmanship that goes into each one of their cameras as well as the benefits one gets by slowing down and paying attention to the process of photography.
Most of us aren't professional photographers. We don't need 20 frames per second or "Moose Eye Recognition" on our cameras. We do want nicely exposed, sharp images. At the same time, if we lose the joy of making photographs -- if the tools we use no longer provide some degree of satisfaction, we will burn out. I am convinced that this is why so many people stop the hobby after a while. You come to realize that every image you take has been taken by someone else -- only better, your camera does all of the work for you, and other than posting occasional images to social media for people to express their "likes" of your work it seems to have little purpose (and you get just as many likes with your cell phone pics). Eventually, even the dopamine hit you used to get from social media likes goes away.
This is the banality of photography.
The solution is to slow down, to enjoy the process of making an image as much as the image, and to take pleasure in all the aspects of that process -- even the clunkiness of using an SLR in an MILC world.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-10-2024, 09:37 AM
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The K-3 III took a while until it finally saw the light of day, and several years on top of that before I could afford to acquire it. But now that I can actually shoot it, I'm glad that Ricoh took its time to make it as good as it is, and even bothered to refine it further with substantial firmware updates.
So, relax, FF aficionados, your K-1 III is under development, and I trust Ricoh will genuinely try to make it a worthwhile upgrade. Just have a little more patience - you are invested in a niche player - and as long as you don't expect it to have fire-and-forget-like-mirrorless AF, you shouldn't be disappointed.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
03-20-2024, 10:07 AM
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Having some time to spend, and seeing birds going from a tree branch to land at a finding station in the garden, I decided to try catching these landings.
I needed to be close enough to the bird, but the field of view has to be wide enough to catch the entire bird evolution to be sure it will be in th frame. (Bird trajectory is difficult to predict)
Some view tests told me that my K200 f2,5 (300mm on APS-C) would be ok for the shooting distance (10 feets).
The 2,5 aperture permits to shoot with minimal exposure time / not so high ISO. The manual focusing is perfect to pre-focus the target area.
The equipment: K30 + K200 f2,5 mounted on tripod with wired remote trigger. Pictures are taken through a double bend house window.
The way of doing:
K30 in AV mode, so the pictures are taken wide open with tis K lens (f2,5) - ISO 1600 -> exposure times were all between 1/5000 and 1/6000.
Focusing by advance on the feeding station area....waiting while watching directly the scene (not in the viewfinder)....depress remote control at the moment the bird leaves the branch to land at the station. (little birds are very fast and spend few tenths of second to go from the branch to the station).
I didn't use the continus shooting of the K30 thinking it would waste dozens of pictures and make less fun to do.:):)
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-26-2024, 02:35 PM
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Well, I trust they will stick to their publicized convention of retaining the K-3 moniker and counting through the marks, which is a straightforward solution that signals pride in the legacy they have created with the K-3 series. But then, we don't even know if a K-3 Mark IV is even on the drawing boards yet. We might as well stop speculating and refocus on photography with the amazing tools that we have right now.
I mean I've just bought the apex of Pentax APS-C body technology. Last year I was able to update three DA Limiteds to the HD-coated versions. I now have a fully fleshed-out suite of original primes and zooms at my disposal that covers a focal range between 10mm fish-eye and 300mm super-telephoto and lets me explore macro too. Honestly, what more could I want at the moment? The current limitation is me, not the gear that I have.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-24-2024, 03:20 AM
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If the sky is dark grey, the advice from most landscape photographers is: Don't bother. Just stay home and do something else. Re-process old shots or watch a good film.
Challenge accepted. #2 and #4 have artificial lighting (5000K LED pocket floodlight or halogen torch/flashlight) and only #2 has been post-processed (denoised, sharpened, contrasted). The rest is SOOC.
@Dartmoor Dave Have you ever considered HD Pentax-DA 16-85mm F3.5-5.6 ED DC WR? I know it's quite expensive and bulky lens, 85 is definitely less than 135... but the output! (judging from sample photos, no personal experience)
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Forum: General Photography
03-24-2024, 06:45 AM
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Usually when I'm out shooting photos, there are very few people around because they don't want to get up before the sun rises. I've asked my wife if she wants to come several times, she would rather sleep to have energy for shopping/s. It still happens occasionally, that some early walkers will scare birds away, they don't realize that they were my "extras" in a nature scene. Sometimes though I may want a couple walkers in a landscape, that's usually when they courteously walk around, lol. Occasionally there will be someone that wants to talk with you while you are shooting, but it's easy enough to talk and keep on shooting since there is only so much time when the light is right. But the last couple of morning I was out there were very few if any people, none for my woodlands walk this morning, and only a couple at the beach Friday morning. So I got to enjoy these twilight colors by myself:
 Twilight Color by Tom Ramsey, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
03-19-2024, 05:29 PM
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pentax K-3ii...sigma 150-500os......not sure what the lil fella is......
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
03-15-2024, 03:19 AM
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Depends on what you mean by performance. I seem to have different criteria from you in that I am not interested in fps, eye focus, video, focussing speed and the other usual YouTube influencer obsessions. For example I have never once used any of my DSLRs in continuous shooting mode. As a photographic hobby, I am interested in landscape and townscape and am more concerned with weather resistance, ergonomics and general robustness. While I also take some other types of shots like family photos, that is not as part of my photographic hobby and not something alone for which I would want a DSLR, I would use a phone camera for it.
I have no doubt that the vast majority of buyers who insist on leading edge video tech end up producing the same sort of boring amateur clips that my parents and their friends used to inflict on each other in Super-8 cine camera days. Few meet any dreams of becoming the next James Cameron or even reaching 1 on a scale of 10, despite the capability of their kit.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-13-2024, 10:05 AM
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Agreed. Indeed, most of my work is with the older (vintage?) lenses. "Sterile, boring, and characterless," they are not. I am sure a large cohort of our site would find problems with every one of them. But I am not looking for lens test results, I am looking for pictures.
My work is displayed in art galleries and shows rather than photography competitions. At these venues no one is concerned about lens speed, soft corners, pixel-peeping, camera settings, etc. At these displays and exhibitions the focus is on the complete photograph — the wholistic image or final result if you will.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-09-2024, 10:16 AM
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Thanks for the clarification, biz - I can absolutely see why you bought the K-1 now. Unfortunately - and this isn't a criticism, but merely an observation - you bought it with the expectation that as-yet-unreleased products would come to market... but there was no firm commitment from Ricoh, only a loose plan in the form of a roadmap - and as you well know from your day job, plans change all the time. You got everything you paid for - cameras, lenses, warranties (assuming you bought them new)... what you didn't get - and it was never part of the deal - was a guarantee from Ricoh that it would deliver all the products on the roadmap, or others that you hoped for. You assumed it would, but that's on you and you alone, I'm afraid. I've advised other members here in these forums several times previously, only buy into - or stay with - a system based on what currently exists in the line-up, not what the manufacturer says - or you hope or think - might be coming months or years down the road (a recipe for disappointment - though I completely understand the temptation). This way, the likelihood of frustration is minimised, and any subsequent product releases are simply welcome bonuses that you may or may not choose to buy.
None of this really matters, biz. Whatever each of us may want from Pentax, the line-up is what it is. In time, it will change... Ricoh will (at least we hope it will) release new Pentax products in future, in its own good time - but we don't know what they'll be or when they'll materialise. There's absolutely zero benefit to navel-gazing on what could have been and what might be. You're far better off acknowledging and accepting the current state of things, then either (a) knuckling down, making the best of what you have and actually enjoying it, or (b) taking some positive action to identify and switch to a system that already offers everything you need for both your hobby and part-time professional photography (and if it doesn't exist or you can't afford it, choose option "a"). Either way, repeatedly focusing on the downsides, failings and flaws in Pentax and Ricoh Imaging does none of us any good, yourself included :o
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