Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
07-21-2012, 11:12 AM
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I think the blue K-30 is the best looking DSLR ever and I don't see the smooth finish being a problem, more of an asset in keeping it clean. I'm hoping there's 18-55 WR kit lenses bundled with it soon then that will be my buying choice. I just want one WR lens and that will do.
Edit:- I found a close up video of the blue K-30 with a shiny Limited on it - looks so nice...... You Tube |
src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h2EdDjKnruE?controls=1" allowfullscreen> |
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-04-2012, 12:25 AM
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
10-02-2013, 11:00 AM
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It doesn't need fixing. Page 107 of the manual.......... Hold the OK button during either MF or AF half press gives x10 magnification (after a second delay though, that's the annoying bit) and in MF it holds x10 in real time while focusing.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
09-29-2014, 10:54 AM
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Sounds like a mixture of the overdone Bright setting and white balance being a bit on the cool side. I tend to use RAW mostly, but have found these settings give nigh on perfect JPG skin tones (and in RAW if RAW converter uses camera settings) in my K-30, which hopefully will be the same as the K-50..............
Natural adjusted to +1 Saturation, +1 Contrast; AWB set to +2 Amber, Daylight set to +1 Amber. Then it's just a case of getting the exposure right.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
08-31-2014, 03:07 AM
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Not the best Eurofighter Typhoon shots, it was a rainy dull day and needed severe cropping due to only 200mm FL on Tammy 70-200 @f5, but I'm pleased and the AF was easy on the K-30........
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
05-05-2014, 05:39 AM
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There was some talk a while ago about moisture getting under the LCD screen if insufficient glue had been used on particular examples, but it should eventually dry out and not cause any failures. When I heard this, I wiped a smear of black RTV into the tiny crevice around the screen to be on the safe side. Pentax fixed this in production I believe after it became evident as an issue but I can't be definite in any of this, it's just one of those 'distant memories'.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
02-13-2014, 11:54 AM
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You may find tuning the AF micro adjust for each lens could help. The only lens I've really gone to town getting the AF right on is my 35/2.4, a great lens in a lot of ways but for long distance shots my copy definitely has a curved focal plane which is totally unnoticeable at closer than roughly 25 metres. After centre AF 'perfect' adjustment, taking a shot of a lone tree (about 250m away I would guess) at the far end of a wheat field clearly showed the plane of focus curving back towards me at the left and right edges of the frame (not the corners) probably 40m away roughly. I could tweak the AF the get these edges in sharp focus at the tree's distance but then the centre suffered, so in the end I set it halfway between and got a better consistency across the frame but not quite as sharp as possible if tuning for centre alone. It's still very good with this compromise though.
A zoom lens might be a bit tricky to get good results across the range though but I would say it's worth a go.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
01-14-2014, 11:59 AM
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Sigma's P-TTL works well enough for me but there's a marked difference between direct flash and bounce. I only ever use bounce flash so -1.5EV compensation is permanently dialed in on the flash and exposures are spot on every time. HSS allows fast shutter speeds on my K-30 but I've yet to get anything auto happening with exposures, I play around with the aperture until it's right LOL. Possibly a later EF-610 than mine (Dec 2012 direct from Sigma Service) may have better firmware to fix this, dunno. If I were buying again I would go for a Metz USB updatable model but I got the Sigma a lot cheaper than a Metz as a trade in for an older Sigma so I'm happy enough with the EF-610 DG Super.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
12-28-2013, 03:30 AM
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The 1/FL rule of thumb came about in days of FF film, so there's a 1.5 crop factor and the 100% pixel peeping that happens nowadays to contend with, so today's rule of thumb with APS-C probably ought to be twice the speed as a minimum, so 1/(2xFL), more or less cancelling out SR's benefits so we're back to 1/FL using SR. Perhaps :)
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
12-03-2013, 11:46 AM
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My K-30 makes this noise also. I just tested it with a 35/2.4 on. However it's substantially quieter than a toast crumb being dropped from a height of 4" onto a sheet of A4 so I can't say I'm too fussed to put it mildly. The sound effects volume slider made no difference FWIW.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
09-14-2013, 02:30 AM
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Well, I'm still playing around and have no conclusions as yet other than reds look more real to me, but if you use Photoshop CS6 (or earlier I reckon) and ACR to convert your K-30 DNG files, then this may be worth a look.........
Go to profiles and download the 'K-30 RawStudio Advanced Profile' file. On my Win7.64 setup I created a folder called 'Pentax K-30' in C:\Users\myName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles (where myName will be different on your PC) and copied the downloaded .dcp file into this folder.
Now when a K-30 DNG is loaded up into ACR, click on the 'Camera Calibration' tab and in the drop down in the 'Camera Profile' section, a new option called RawStudio Advanced Profile' will be available. Select that and see the difference to Adobe Standard.
It's possible that the dcp file is only supposed to be used in RawStudio, but I'm not so sure - we'll see. EDIT:- they're compatible, It implements the DCP spec of Adobe for DNG colour profiles evidently.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
10-30-2013, 03:32 PM
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It's much the same as a loudspeaker playing all the different notes of music at the same time. It WILL work.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
06-30-2013, 02:31 PM
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The purple colour came out pretty close to natural so I was quite pleased.........
DA35/2.4 @f7.1 iso 250 1/80sec
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
07-03-2013, 02:16 PM
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IMHO it's best to use fixed ISO 400 or less for consistent flash results. Flashes can only be turned down to a certain minimum brightness, so if the ISO is too high there's more risk of hitting the end stops resulting in overexposure.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
06-20-2013, 10:25 AM
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My 610 DG ST Super works OK in P-TTL on my K-30 but it has the bounce flash issue that K-5s have, i.e. as soon as the head is tilted even slightly it overexposes about 1 stop. I only use bounce flash so it's not really a problem to me, I keep -1EV compensation dialled in on the flash permanently and exposures are consistent thereafter. HSS sort of works, it seems to allow fast shutter speeds but has little control over exposure so the non-Super Sigma 610 without HSS would be just as good and a lot cheaper I would say.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
04-20-2013, 03:58 AM
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As the title says, I just got to wondering how effective it was at firmware 1.04 and decided to try it out. I tried EA AF when I first bought the K-30 at firmware 1.00 and don't remember it working as well but that might just be the way I did it then. Anyway I was surprised at my findings.
My method was holding my index finger up in front of the mostly white Pentax Forums page but with screen details behind my original finger position the camera could focus on if it felt like it, the K-30 being 2ft from the screen and my finger half-way between. I would centre point AF on my finger (using 35/2.4 lens) then move my finger to one side where the next sensor is but using different AF modes to see the effect. I also moved my finger forwards/backwards to make sure AF-C was functioning. Well, the only setup that works as intended, with lateral AF point handover and tracking on fore/aft movement both functioning is........
AF-C..................................ON
Expanded Area AF.............ON (obviously)
AF Active Area..................11 point selectable (i.e. the icon with 11 points), it doesn't have a name!
i.e. it doesn't work at all if you have centre point only (single dot icon) selected. There is no handover, and the AF locks onto the screen where my finger used to be before I moved it. I dare say some people realised this but I sure didn't as the menus still let you select EA AF even when using centre point only AF!
When setup right, it seemed very effective.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
02-01-2013, 10:41 AM
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My K-30 overexposes by about 1 stop when bounce is used with a Sigma EF-610 DG Super in P-TTL and K-30 M mode (and other modes). As I only ever use it for bounce it doesn't really matter to me, -1EV on the flash seems to work consistently enough for my needs. I don't know why flashes can't have separate EV compensations for direct and bounce.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
01-04-2013, 07:35 AM
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No experience here as I've yet to buy a sealed lens, but I've read a few things, seen some videos. I think it will put up with any weather, but don't take the SD card or batteries out after rain because water will be caught up between door edges and the seal, and the water may dribble inside once you've broken the seal by opening it up before water has had a chance to evaporate. Even the slide catch on the battery door seems to be sealed if my blowing test is anything to go by LOL.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
01-03-2013, 11:52 AM
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I'm not sure what you mean by preview mode, but the chosen AF point shows in the VF when taking the shot and it also shows up in the detailed playback mode (via the INFO button). I don't think you can look at 2 images side by side, the best I've found is the 4 image thumbnail display described on page 179 of the manual.
Also if the shots are taken consecutively, you can zoom in on one and rotate the front dial to go to the next image (and the next, etc) at the same magnification - I find that one very useful for comparisons.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
12-08-2012, 07:55 AM
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
08-23-2012, 02:21 PM
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I think the CDAF speed confusion in reviews is generally due to a lack of the authors' descriptive abilities. They commonly fail to differentiate between still shot CDAF and video CDAF. The K-30 looks to be just about the fastest DSLR for live view stills from what I've seen, but videos wouldn't look right with a really fast AF so they're always slowed down on purpose I reckon but ideally they should go smoothly from subject to subject without hunting but most DSLRs fail to achieve this.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
08-02-2012, 01:31 PM
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I seem to remember K-5 reviews also saying about clipping easily, and I think to get the required tone curve to help avoid this you have to leave Highlight Correction on.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
07-11-2012, 11:07 AM
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My K100D is the loudest DSLR I've ever heard if that helps.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
03-11-2011, 12:47 PM
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Why can't Pentax have AF correction that can be calibrated so as to give the same focus as LV. i.e. in this new 'calibration' mode using a tripod, a shutter press, automatically and in sequence, AFs on a chart in LV mode, then AFs in PD mode and then the camera adjusts its AF internal settings (rather than moving the lens internals) to align the electronic PD signals. It could even have several settings for a zoom to maintain accuracy over its range of FLs and even subject distances etc.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-04-2007, 05:10 AM
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I've got a K100D and Sigma EF-500 flash and it's quite easy to get good indoor bounceflash action shots. However, DOF won't be as deep as a P&S, not by a long way, so you really do need to hit focus to get a good shot even at small apertures. It's usually fine.
By far the easiest indoor shooter for action shots is to get a P&S with a hot shoe, there aren't many around now, but if you can find a flash that works you can preset the focus distance manually to perhaps 6ft and get a massive DOF so everything is in focus, the flash freezes the action and EVERY shot comes out perfect. I did this with an Olympus C750 in manual mode using an old auto thyristor flash (a Nissin 360TW) to get the exposure right automatically (more or less). So easy once you've got used to it and bouncing gets rid of harsh lighting.
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