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Forum: Lens Clubs
03-22-2012, 07:28 AM
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A little fun with minimum and maximum DoF.
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Forum: Pentax Q
03-01-2012, 06:43 PM
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Woohoo! My 02 zoom lens arrived. To celebrate, I thought I'd use it to test out some lighting gear with a self-portrait.
This is 10mm wide open. The Q is a pleasure to use in this setting. My battery died during the shoot. Since Pentax put the battery door in the side, I didn't have to unmount it from the tripod to replace it. And my Pentax remote works with the camera too. :-)
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-04-2014, 09:19 AM
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Reminds me of the Korejanai K-x:
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
03-19-2014, 03:05 PM
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I have both the DA70 and the Samyang 85mm (Rokinon branded version). Shooting on a K-3.
The DA70 is my preferred portrait lens. If you go to a casual event and just want some nice portraits of people, the autofocus makes a world of difference. As Gray mentioned, people get self-conscious quickly when taking their picture. So time is really important. If you are doing a more controlled photoshoot and have plenty of time, manual focus may be fine. But honestly, if you intend to shoot the 85mm at F/1.4, you will need to use live view to magnify things. Manual focus through the viwfinder at F/1.4 is really hard. And unless you're shooting mug shots, you may get one eye in focus and the other will be out of focus.
In terms of focus accuracy, I found my DA70 does back focus slightly at near the minimum focus distance. But it is slightly front focused at long focus distances like 8m. So I just leave the focus correction in the middle.
Again, I recommend the DA70. Good portraits are about much more than super blurred backgrounds. The DA70 is sharp wide open, great colors, and autofocus is pretty good. IMO, this is one of the lenses that make the Pentax system so attractive. Shooting these awesome compact primes and with in-body image stablilization is a Pentax-only trait!
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Forum: Pentax Q
09-17-2011, 01:20 AM
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So as some of you read, I was experiencing very odd behaior with my external flashes and triggers. I've done testing with the following variables:
Is the Flash a PTTL flash and if so, is it in PTTL mode?
Allow or disallow internal flash to fire while retracted
Flash setting to ON (forced fill, rear curtain, red eye reducer, etc) or OFF
This is a total of 12 different setups. Below are the details and then the summary below that.
| Flash used | Enable/Disable while closed | Flash Mode | Results-------------------------- | -------------------------------------- | ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------PTTL | disabled | ON | P-TTLPTTL | disabled | OFF | No flashPTTL | enabled | ON | P-TTLPTTL | enabled | OFF | No flashPTTL manual mode | disabled | ON | Fixed flash power regardless of setting on flashPTTL manual mode | disabled | OFF | No flashPTTL manual mode | enabled | ON | Fixed flash power regardless of setting on flashPTTL manual mode | enabled | OFF | No flashmanual flash | disabled | ON | No flash (NOT as expected)manual flash | disabled | OFF | Fires flash as full manualmanual flash | enabled | ON | Fires INTERNAL flash (as if no external existed)manual flash | enabled | OFF | No flash |
To summarize my findings:
When using a P-TTL flash in P-TTL mode, everything works as you think it should. The camera will use the external flash instead of the internal flash. P-TTL metering works.
When using my P-TTL flash in manual mode, things go pretty nuts. You can turn the flash off by choosing the Flash OFF setting for flash. But if you set flash to ON, the external flash only seems to flash at one level, regardless of what output I set the flash to. Full power or 1/16 looks identical. I used a Sigma 530 DG Super.
For a full manual flash or flash trigger is where it gets really complicated. If you allow the internal flash to fire while retracted, it will fire the internal flash when flash is set to ON, but the external flash is ignored. FLASH OFF yields no flash, as expected. But if you DISABLE the internal flash while retracted, you will get no flash (internal or external) when set to FLASH ON. That's counterintuitive. But if you set the Flash mode to FLASH OFF and disable internal flash while retracted, you can get the manual triggering we're looking for.
So in summary, the Q can use P-TTL flashes exactly as you'd expect. If you only do P-TTL flash, you're fine. If you want to use a P-TTL flash in manual mode, you're screwed. You have no settings that will allow this. And finally, if you want to use a manual flash or flash trigger, you MUST set the "Flash When Retracted" to "Do Not Discharge Flash" AND you must also set the flash mode to FLASH OFF. These are the only settings that will give the results you want!
Edit 2011-09-30:
I just discovered that while you can sync the internal flash to an adapted (non Q) lens to 1/13 second, you cannot do the same for manual external flashes. When using a fully manual, no electrical contact lens in front of the Q, I cannot find a way to get my external manual flash to fire at any shutter speed. However, in the same setup with no lens electrically attached, I am still able to use an external PTTL flash and sync it at up to 1/13 seconds. This is troubling because I'd like to be able to use adapted lenses AND my external manual flash at once.
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Forum: Pentax Q
02-22-2012, 11:38 AM
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It adds visual interest! I like that shirt.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
12-11-2013, 02:20 PM
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Disabling the half-press AF is meant to enable you to use this setup for the focus-recompose method. If you don't disable the half-press AF, you'll be focused on whatever is under the focus point when you press the shutter button.
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
02-26-2015, 10:47 AM
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Your two points above are correct. And yes you could control the Pentax flash power remotely from the V6. That's what makes the V6 so much cooler than the V5. :-)
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
02-06-2015, 04:19 PM
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I don't understand how newer flashes could enable a faster flash sync speed. Are you talking about High Speed Sync? Isn't the maximum flash sync speed determined by the shutter?
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
02-04-2015, 03:45 PM
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Look closely at the high-res photo. The PENTAX name is on a sticker. Probably says RICOH under it. They will sell these official PENTAX stickers as an accessory at the Pentax Webstore for only $9.99. But they'll be out of stock for months at a time. People will turn to ebay for Chinese knockoff stickers.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-16-2014, 10:14 AM
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-16-2014, 10:13 AM
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What, no one there had a Q with 02 Zoom on hand for the photo? :-)
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
09-03-2014, 05:17 PM
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Looks like the old (non Art) 50mm F/1.4 is on sale for all mounts at B&H. Here it is for Pentax:
Sigma Normal 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Autofocus Lens 310-109 B&H
The lens is huge but I believe it's sharper in center at F/1.4 than the FA 50mm. I'd really rather have the DA* 55mm, but that's never going to be seen for $350 even used.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-02-2014, 03:04 PM
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Maybe they'll announce the Sigma 50mm F/1.4 Art lens for Pentax soon. Then we can have that by fall of 2015!
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-02-2014, 01:03 PM
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I accidentally read that as "new kittens." That would definitely give you a good photographic subject to test out your new camera.
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Forum: Ricoh GR
06-18-2014, 01:23 PM
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Here are a few ideas:
Full Auto mode - for handing your camera to others - multi point AF, P mode
Street mode - for street photography - full press snap focus, Tav mode, F/5.6, 1/50 sec shutter
Flash mode - For use with an auto flash - ISO 100, M mode, 1/200 sec, F/2.8 (or whatever your auto flash expects)
low light mode - for non-flash photos - Tav, F/2.8, 1/25 sec, flash off
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Forum: Lens Clubs
06-03-2014, 02:09 PM
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Taking a selfie at F/1.2 is challenging. This is the Pentax 50mm F/1.2 lens on a Lens Turbo adapter on a Sony NEX-6. I used the remote viewfinder program to help me frame the shot and guesstimate the focus point. It did require some trial and error.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-17-2014, 10:58 AM
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Wait, this is Pentax. It won't be a 70-200mm. It will be something like a 63-194mm lens. :-)
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Forum: Photographic Technique
04-01-2014, 07:14 AM
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The issue is not your shutter speed. The problem is that you are moving a relatively bright part of the image over the center of the frame during the ambient exposure. The exposure is cumulative of all the light that hits the sensor while the shutter is open. So if you moved a bright object over the center at any time, that will tend to obscure your subject. You probably want a composition where your subject is surrounded by a dark background.
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Forum: Ricoh GR
03-18-2014, 06:52 PM
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Woah, those are an excellent example of what the GR can do!
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Forum: Ricoh GR
03-11-2014, 03:21 PM
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Definitely post your impressions and some pictures so we might all benefit from your experience. :-)
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
01-14-2014, 02:22 PM
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Yes, the A version is nicer, but usually much more expensive. While having auto exposure is nice, you can use stop down metering with this lens and its not much hassle. And lets be honest, you didn't buy a F/1.2 lens to shoot it stopped down, now did you?
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
12-26-2013, 09:04 AM
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Actually, you have a third option. Get an automatic, non-ttl flash that meters the flash with its own sensor. Like the famous Vivitar 285HV flash. That should work on the Pentax and Canon equally well. Just make sure if you buy an automatic flash, that it's sync voltage isn't too high. Many of these flashes tend to be older designs and have a high enough voltage that they could break you camera. The Vivitar 285HV is a safe option. It's an updated version of the old 285 that has a lower voltage.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-01-2013, 11:32 AM
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I just got my K-3 this morning. I am very happy to report that the focus points are now much smaller. This used to screw me up when trying to focus on a model's eye and I'd get focus on the nose or something else. Or the AF would pick up a high contrast background behind the subject.
It's hard to describe the size of the focus points, but I can say this. I set the camera to center point focus. I had a small subject with a relatively large distance to the background behind it. I focused on the subject with the center point, then slowly moved the camera away and kept re-focusing until it locked on the background instead. The focus points are now so small that the focus shifted to the background before the subject even cleared the central circular area of the viewfinder!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-01-2013, 04:42 PM
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It does, but it's not totally reliable. It sometimes picks a weird point if the light is low. In good light, it works pretty decently.
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