Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-10-2009, 10:14 AM
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The model number is MH-C800S, as recommended earlier in this thread.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-09-2009, 10:19 PM
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All this stuff about charging rate and so on is way over my head. My Maha charger has a conditioning mode so I'm taking it on faith that it will work for me.
As for my Li-Ions, here's what Thomas says about them: "The Moby Power rechargeable lithium battery also has a Rechargeable Battery Safety Unit built in for reliability and safety. This Safety Feature prevents damage to your equipment due to over voltage, unlike other rechargeable CR-V3 rechargeable lithium batteries on the market. This battery is designed to operate within the safe voltage range of an actual CR-V3 lithium battery."
I hope that's safe.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-09-2009, 10:43 AM
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I'm back from a trip, where I was able to test some batteries.
The Eneloops performed amazingly well! I couldn't believe it -- I was shooting continuously (aside from auto-power-down) for FIVE DAYS before the first set gave up the ghost. That was more than 800 pictures, not much flash but lots and lots of autofocus seeking. The second set is still in the camera, still going strong -- and I have plenty of spares now. I never got results like this from NiMh before.
The real test comes when I use them after not touching them for a month or two.
I think my problem with the other rechargeables was the charger, not the batteries. I threw away my crappy Lenmar charger, and got one of the conditioning chargers from Maha (the one recommended here), and both my old batteries and newish ones are showing much stronger condition now. I haven't tested them all completely (I'd have to sit and fire my camera several thousand times, which is boring).
I also got some Lithium-Ion rechargeables, also as recommended here. I haven't tried them yet.
Does anyone know if it's safe or advisable to charge Eneloops in the Maha conditioning charger, or should I stick to the one that came with? And vice-versa?
I kinda miss the old days, when a AA was a AA was a AA....
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-17-2009, 11:51 AM
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I've ordered some Eneloops. We'll see if that makes a difference. What worries me is that when the camera was new a set of brand new fully-charged 2500-2700 batteries would last FOREVER -- I took the camera on a trip and was firing off 500 shots a day, dawn to dusk. Now, those same batteries, and new ones fresh out of the package, last for half and hour, tops, usually much less than that. I think it is something to do with voltage detection as you say. I'm going to try some more experiments before giving in, I guess.
Where's the best place to buy Lithiums?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-16-2009, 09:50 PM
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All kinds. I've got Sanyo, Sony, Energizer, and Lenmar ones right here, some 2500, some 2700 mAh. Some are brand new, some a year old (but still only 20 or 30 charge cycles). They're all working batteries -- they show more than half power on a tester, they power my flash, they power a flashlight. But in the camera they barely register at all, and show depleted almost immediately.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-15-2009, 07:28 PM
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This is happening with brand new batteries.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-15-2009, 07:15 PM
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My K100D has started having serious battery problems. It's worked fine for over a year; I've taken it on trips and been able to shoot all day on a single set of batteries. But now, I'm lucky if I get 25 shots from a fresh set of rechargeables.
The camera even shows "battery depleted" on brand new fresh 2700 rechargeables taken from another device that was working fine with them. I took a freshly charged set that I had just put into my AF360FGZ flash unit, which flashed just fine with them, into my camera, and it still says "battery depleted" after one or two pictures.
Is my baby sick? Can it be repaired for a reasonable amount of money, or is this perhaps God's way of telling me to ignore my wife and upgrade to a K20D instead?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-27-2007, 04:59 PM
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STRONGLY SECONDED.
I know from sad experience just how frustrating it is to find yourself in a foreign beach town camera shop finding out how much they charge for cameras there. It's a lot more than you want to spend. And Murphy ensures that the sand will always permanently destroy your camera on the first day of your trip, never the last.
It's not enough to tell yourself "I'm no dummy, of course I'm not going to put my camera on the sand". Because you probably will put your bag there, or your shirt, or your towel, or your butt. And when you get back up you will bring sand. Sand works its way into the most surprising places.
Make sure you always have a spotlessly clean place to put it, and make sure that NOTHING comes near that place that hasn't been cleaned, dusted, blown off and inspected. Be really careful!
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-27-2007, 04:49 PM
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So that's what it is!
I'm a new K100D owner too, and I've been going crazy with the Auto ISO not working, and I've checked, and its when I've got my EV set to + 1/3, which where I tend to like it.
It's especially annoying because you don't notice it until you get in a low light situation and you hear that clunk...clunk of a second or half-second exposure. In ordinary daylight, being stuck on ISO 200 isn't a big deal, because there's a good chance the Auto's going to pick 200. But when you want 1600 or 3200 -- and I do shoot quite a bit at 3200 -- those four stops make a big difference.
I agree -- they should fix this in a firmware update.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
04-18-2007, 05:53 PM
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Nope. All lenses are labeled with their honest-to-gosh focal length. The focal length of any given lens gives you a certain amount of field of view on a 35mm film camera, but a smaller field of view on a Pentax DSLR. That's why they call it "equivalent"; the 18mm setting still has a focal length of 18mm, but on the DSLR it will give the same field of view you're used to from a 27mm lens on your film camera. But it's still an 18mm lens!
This is true of every lens. Whatever length it is, you can multiply by 1.5 to get an idea of what 35mm film camera lens the field of view will look like. If you're used to 120 film, or 8x10 field cameras, or whatever, your mental calculation will be different!
So: if 28mm is as wide as you can go with your current glass, you are very rapidly going to want something wider. The results you're going to get on the K10D are going to look like what you're used to from a 42mm lens. That's not even as wide as you get from a cheap point-and-shoot. This may not bother you -- lots of great photographers shot a 50mm lens their whole life -- but you more likely will find yourself wanting wider.
I think you should get the 18-55mm kit lens. It's really cheap, and more than adequate in quality. It will look like 27mm at the wide end to your film-trained eye. And if you break it, you're not out much. After that, you can see what you find yourself wanting. That's when you're going to get into trouble! So many to choose from....
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-28-2007, 05:27 PM
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Think of it this way. A 50mm lens is still a 50mm lens, no matter what it's attached to, and it shines the same amount of light no matter what. What's different is the little rectangle that's going to record that light.
If you can imagine shining your lens on a wall, with no camera; what you would get is a round (or nearly so; the actual shape is a polygon determined by the number of aperture blades) image on a big field of black. Then imagine drawing a rectangle on that image to represent the portion of the lens's image that film will record, and a smaller rectangle inside that one representing what your DSLR will record.
With 35mm film, the native "light throw" (I'm sure there's a technical term) of the lens covers the entire film rectangle, and "wastes" some of the focused light around the edges. On a DSLR, the sensor is even smaller, and takes up less of the focused light from the lens, and "wastes" even more.
That's why it's called a "crop factor" and not a "magnification factor" or something like that. The image is the same, but with the DSLR you're cutting out, or cropping, a smaller rectangle, for your picture.
The focal properties of the lens are completely unchanged, however; the focal length of the lens, the amount of linear distortion, etc. etc. are all identical. What's changing is the field of view, which RESEMBLES the effect you get by changing to a longer lens on a film camera, but is NOT exactly the same. The image on the DSLR shows less width in the projected image, but the lens doesn't know what kind of a camera it's attached to!
Remember that most lenses get worse as you go out to the edge: fuzzier, more linear and chromatic distortion, and so on. With a DSLR, you're throwing more of the distorted parts around the edges away, which is good. You're getting the FIELD OF VIEW characteristics of a longer lens, but not the distortion characteristics (or lack of them).
So a 17mm lens attached to a film camera would show a wider view than it would on a DSLR, but it would show more edge distortion too -- edge distortion that still exists on the DSLR but is outside the edges of the sensor. The reason the new DA lenses won't work on a film camera isn't that they won't WORK; it's just that the circle they throw is too small to completely cover the film, and would cause really bad vignetting.
I hope that answers your question. In short, the answer is no: the crop factor means that the lens has the field of view of a 1.5x longer lens but not the distortion characteristics.
That's my understanding of crop factor at least. I am prepared to be embarrassed by an expert telling me I'm all wrong!
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2007, 04:03 PM
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On the off-chance that you are serious, and not a lunatic as your posts suggest, I urge you to consider that perhaps the reason no one but you is discussing this "issue" in the forums is that it's not an issue at all?
There is no "sticky strip" problem with these or any other cameras.
The only problem with your camera, or cameras, which I frankly do not believe you own at all, is behind the viewfinder.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-27-2007, 03:56 PM
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Personally, I am eagerly awaiting low-noise 6400 and 12800 ISO. At screen resolution, which is what I do most, even the current 3200 looks very good! Imagine Panache's shot above at ISO 400.
Even with all the advances photography is still only a small portion of light and vision. You might as well ask "why does anyone need a 200mm (or 20mm) lens?" or even "why does anyone need adjustable aperture and shutter speed?" The answer: to see more and capture more.
Now, where's my 24mm f/0.95 lens, darn it?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-26-2007, 04:08 PM
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Wireless is where I want to end up, but funds are an issue. What about one of the cheap Chinese transmitter/receiver combos on Ebay? Will they work? I gather they'll trigger the flash, but will I lose my P-TTL magic?
See This item for an example.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-26-2007, 01:17 PM
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Thank you all. Jfdavis58, can you tell me if I'm understanding this correctly -- to go off camera with a wire, I need three, uh, four things: - a thingie that fits on the flash end which has a mount (tripod? hand-held frame? bare hand?) on the bottom and a shoe on the top (adapter F)
- a doohickey that fits the camera's hot shoe (adapter FG)
- the wire that runs between the two (F5P or F5PL)
- a flash unit.
There appear to be two different versions of Adapter F on that page, but it's not clear to be what the difference is -- do I need them both? Or does one just provide the remote flash, while other provides remote flash AND a new on-camera hotshoe? If so, why does the latter appear to be less money?
Seeing as how none of this stuff works without a flash in the first place, my best bet is probably to just get the flash unit, and then worry about off-camera use, wireless, and related magic once the household temperature has gone down a bit.
The conversations right now are still in the "I don't see why I should ever believe anything you say" stage, as I in a fit of defensiveness MAY have uttered the words "I'll never buy anything again this year, I promise", and then of course immediately went out and bought a padded Domke insert for my bag. The "well, it's expensive, right, I can't have it banging around loose in there" argument is only barely holding the fort here; the "flash is an accessory" argument has no chance. If I get caught fondling a diffuser the next accessory I'll be buying is a tripod fitting for an electric wheelchair.
The fact that she's purchased at least TWENTY cameras in the past six months (none for more than ten dollars, though) isn't helping me much either. On top of everything I'm being accused of being a "traitor to film"! The worst thing is, she's ten times the better photographer even when she's using some piece of thrift-store garbage. All I can do is spend money to keep up!
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
03-25-2007, 04:57 PM
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I've owned a Pentax K100D for just two days now. I have the kit lens as well as the DA 10-17mm fisheye and the DA 50-200mm. I have a fair amount of experience with an ancient (early 70s) Nikon F, with a wide variety of lenses and strange attachments (including a Speed Magny Polaroid back), but my digital experience is limited to a series of point and shoots - a Sony DSC-S30, a Minolta XTi, and a Panasonic DMC-FZ3.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-25-2007, 04:48 PM
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Oh, just give me a chance to prove myself!
Thanks, these are great suggestions. I'll be immersing in Strobist ASAP. My last question none of you can answer: "if I buy a 360 or 540 flash, will my darling wife divorce me?" The camera itself, and lenses, have put a bit of a strain on things already...
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-25-2007, 01:44 PM
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I'm brand new to DSLRs -- I've owned my K100D for two days -- and brand new to flash period. I barely even know what "TTL" means! My SLR experience is ancient history, with all-manual everything on a Nikon F, and frankly I never figured that out worth a damn. One nice thing about the K100D DSLR is I won't be wasting entire rolls of film trying to get it approximately right.
So where do I start?
My two questions are, one, where's a good place to learn, that's hopefully not too technical, and geared at a person like me who starts to cry after thinking about guide numbers and stuff too long, and two, what are my options besides the built-in flash?
I know I can get a Pentax AF-360FGZ or AF-540FGZ and get great results off the hot shoe. I also understand that my flip-up will NOT work as a master to fire either of those units (or any other) as a slave. Is there a wireless master adapter that will fit my hot shoe and fire a 360 or 540 as a slave, and still work as P-TTL? What about a wired connection? I see a bewildering array of Pentax accessories, but I don't know which ones work, or how to connect them.
As far as I can tell, my options are: - flip-up flash
- AF-360FGZ or AF-540FGZ on the hot shoe
- 360 or 540 on the shoe driving a second 360/540 as a wireless slave
- Wireless gizmo on the shoe driving a 360 or 540 as a slave? Is this possible? What part number? Is the advantage of getting the flash off the shoe and away from the camera worth the trouble? Am I an idiot?
- Wired gizmo ditto?
Help is much appreciated.
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