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Forum: Photographic Technique 2 Days Ago  
Is there any trick for doing longer exposure with shake reduction?
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 46
Views: 1,377
Morning, It's called a "string tripod". Here is a link with pictures and a test. I've used this approach a couple of times and it really does work quite well. I also think that it might also work reasonably well with SR or IBIS enabled (though I've not tried/tested it).:cool:
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 03-05-2024, 08:45 PM  
I want to support Pentax, but…
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 174
Views: 5,768
Batteries - That's an excellent suggestion and observation. I had a K5 (that went to my son down in Florida) - but I kept the OEM battery and sent along 2 new third-party batteries. I also have a K5IIs with the OEM battery. Both of these batteries (from the K5's) have either gone or will be going very soon - not holding a charge. Now, I have used 3 different brands of third-party batteries - Wabsi and a couple of others. They run about 1/3 the price and their charge capacity is about 2/3 of the OEM. When I'm out shooting the Milky Way the OEM batteries are just flat-out better in terms of overall performance - observed experience over the last 7 years. Most of the time I can get a full night's shooting or at least 1/2 to 3/4 of a night out of the OEM So, I'm in the market for another 2 OEM batteries to supplement the K1 Pentax OEM battery that I'm down to. I carry about 6 spares - you drive 1 to 3 hours each way, shoot 3 to 6 hours, and you really don't want to call it a night due to running out of batteries.

So, my friend that I go MW shooting with (who also shoots with a K1mkII), are planning out our shooting schedule from April through November right now. I think that a new set of Pentax batteries is in order. I don't know why, but the Pentax batteries have just demonstrated better overall performance.

:cool:

_____________________

My main lens was the Zeiss ZK 25/f2.8 along with the DFA 15-30/f2.8. My friend shoots the Sigma 35/f14 Art which is just tremendous. For the last 3 years I've been thinking about getting the Sigma, but really wanting the DFA 21/f2.4 Ltd - but wanting an f1.4 aperture. If it was a f1.4 I would have preordered it on the announcement. I'm pretty much stuck - it's a trade between FOV and a fast aperture with better detail. However, I doubt that Pentax is going to really come out with a very fast wide-angle lens. So, late last year I bought a used version of the Sigma. I would buy new if they offered the desired produce, but I just have to make do with what I can find that has a K mount.

I really wish that Pentax would license the Sigma DSLR lenses (wide fast f1.4, f2) lenses that Sigma does not support in the K mount. That would really fill out their lens line up, and would just need to slide a K mount on to an existing design (will with either WR or AW, and perhaps some updated coatings).
Forum: General Photography 02-26-2024, 01:39 PM  
Would you reshoot the same subject with a new camera body?
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 25
Views: 753
I go out shooting with a friend, and we usually cycle through 40 to 50 locations (Milky Way over things), so yes - we reshoot locations (usually within a 3-hour drive).

I really doubt if a new body is going to exceed the K-1's 1/8000 sec shutter speed. A bit of research showed that general DSLR/Mirrorless uses 1/8000 sec and 1/4000 sec as their fastest shutter, without going to some sort of specialty camera. The K3-3 uses a 1/8000 sec shutter min, and I would think that a K1-iii would continue to use the same.

:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 01-19-2024, 11:01 PM  
Looking to upgrade from Pentax K-X
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 27
Views: 893
Depending on your budget and the features you really desire, I would suggest the KP, K3 (I or II), and the K5 pretty much in that order. They are all the top-of-the-line, metal body cameras. The prices have some wide ranges to them. You really can't go wrong with any of them. I still have my K5IIs although it gets little time now. The K5 series is in my opinion Pentax's watershead model. It's excellent, just works all the time, the image quality is excellent, and it's drop dead simple (well compared to the K1).

:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 01-19-2024, 10:42 PM  
Connecting with WiFi
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 15
Views: 611
If you want to download your images from the camera to your PC, just use the USB cable that comes with the camera. You just plug the cable into the PC and the camera, turn on the camera, and download the images. I used to do it all the time with my K100D and K20D, but just moving the images via SD card is just so much easier. YMMV

:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 01-04-2024, 10:54 PM  
Astrotracer question
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 19
Views: 824
Last July, the guy I go shooting with was working out of state and came back for a week. We went shooting up on the Mogollon Rim above Sedona - a three-hour drive and 35 miles of back dirt fire roads. We had scouted the perfect spot the prior year. We had everything nailed down. I overthought and overplanned what I was going to do. Shot foreground panos from sundown to astro twilight (darkest time), and shot everything with LENR. The sky was perfect and we captured both red and green sky glow along with a great Milky Way core. I have plenty of material to stack, and everything is pretty noise-free. The Milky Way was positioned right over the town of Sedona (an International Dark Sky Association location), and as the night went on - the city lights dimmed even more, producing a very pleasant light dome that added to the overall image. Now, with plenty of images to layer in and stitch together for once - as I always second guess myself and then discover during post I should have really done something different - I have everything I need. This is the absolute best set of raw images for the perfect location, to produce the best final image, that I have ever shot. I've been playing around with just how to stack them to the point that I just stopped a couple of months ago as I just got tired of looking at the results. I need to go back and try both StarStax and Sequator again.

Also, my friend who shot with a 35mm lens, finished up his set and his detail was much better than mine with a 25mm lens. So, now I'm more motivated to get back to the raw images again. Taking some time off helps, I find.



It's taken me a lot of time to learn the lesson of solving problems in the field, rather than cutting a corner to fix it in post - it's just not worth the savings realized out in the field. I too have lots - tons of images that I just threw my hands up in the air on.

One thing that I have learned is that when I have a location with a bush that breaks the horizon (as the example I linked to), that is the time to move locations to shoot the sky, so as to not have to contend with the bushes in post-processing. I think I need to go shoot more bearing flat desert locations where everything is just simple and easy for once.

:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 01-04-2024, 12:55 PM  
Astrotracer question
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 19
Views: 824
I picked up the o-gps1 early on and shot it with the K5 and the Sigma 18-35/f1.8. With the K5 it was always a struggle for me to get star color, although the landscape was easy. Now with the K1 the sky is easy and the landscape element is trying (the white dot noise). I'm finding that just spending the time out in the field shooting with LENR (mitigating the white dot noise in the foreground) is much easier than stacking and all the post-processing to get a good low-noise foreground.

Also, shooting in stages - getting something good enough for quick kill using a 40-second tracked image so that both the foreground and sky are just good enough is the best way to start off (you have an early success in the bag). Then go for the really difficult images that will take a lot of stitching and stacking along with compositing.

I like the 25mm lens for the balance of the amount of view and overall detail, but the fast 35mm just collects more light and greater detail at the expense of having to shoot more images to stitch. And if you are using LENR it just doubles the amount of time spent.

I like your stick analogy - it's very fitting. I like the time shooting under the stars as it's very relaxing. I hate the photoshop time as it really never goes very well and I just hate photoshop - but it's really the only tool that can do compositing well.



I'm 73 and I just see time slipping/evaporating away, and the internet is the greatest time sink ever devised (but is really the best way to find out how to use photoshop). The software is getting better, but I've found the hard way that solving problems out in the field is really a time saver - YMMV.

I'm stuck always wanting to shoot both the sky and landscape foreground from the same location. But, my friend has shown me that shooting farther back from the foreground element usually opens up the view for the sky shot, such that doing a sky replacement in photoshop just makes everything a lot easier.

:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 01-02-2024, 12:40 AM  
Astrotracer question
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 19
Views: 824
I've been shooting a number of years now with first the K5 and then upgraded to the K1. I've come to a few conclusions. By tracking the stars, you will smear the static foreground landscape element, just as you have observed.


So, just through experimentation, I've found that...
  1. If I shoot with astrotracing, but with a shutter speed of 30 to 40 seconds, the smearing is minimized to the extent that it appears to be nearly non-existent. Any time longer than 40 seconds, the smearing of the foreground progressively worsens.

  2. For the first few images, I now shoot with this abbreviated shutter speed, so that I have something in the bag that I can quickly use and enjoy. Then, I go for the longer shutter, out to about 70 to perhaps 80 seconds. My standard astrotracing settings are: ISO 800, Shutter 70 seconds, and Aperture stopped down a bit at f2 to f2.4 (using an f1.4 lens) or f2.8 (using an f2.8 lens). The lower the ISO value, the better the star colors are.

  3. I also shoot the foreground landscape using no astrotracing, LENR enabled, ISO 400, f4, and depending on the lighting situation start at 4 minutes and increase or decrease from there. If there is some ambient light coming from a light dome - 1 to 2 minutes is good. If it's a Bortle 2 location (dark dark), then it's 4 minutes (I call it the rule of 4's).

  4. My friend who I shoot with uses a K1mkII and he reduces the ISO to 640 (where the Acceleration Chip kicks in).

  5. I also try to ensure that I frame everything up with as few bushes that cross the horizon or things where the background sky shines through. This just makes post-processing, really difficult when you are blending the sky and landscape foreground together (compositing).

  6. I used the Zeiss 28mm/f2.8 Distagon pretty much exclusively (for years) as a good focal length to get good foreground detail, with a fairly large field of view. However, I still really need to stitch to get the expanse I really want. Most (really all) fast wide-angle lenses have both coma and vignetting to varying extents - so you really need to stop down (hence the f4 (to sharpen up the details) on the foreground frame), to decrease the vignetting (which really affects the stitching, with a windowing effect in the final pano). The Sigma 35/f1.4 Art lens is probably the best full-frame lens available for a Pentax body, but you still need to stop down for the vignetting. The Pentax DFA 15-30/f2.8 is really excellent - with little vignetting and coma, but I find it soft in comparison to both the 28mm and the 35mm. I've also used the DFA 31/f1.8 Ltd, but I find that it has coma up in the corners (or at least my copy), so I have not really used it a lot (but others have had shown good success with it). I really wanted the Pentax DFA 21/f2.4 Ltd to have a faster aperture. I've been torn in trying to decide if it would be sufficiently fast enough without any vignetting so that I could use it wide open all the time. I just finally broke down and decided to go longer with the Sigma 35.

I've tried inserting this image, but it's not taking - https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F3kuhwp458vy01.jpg

:cool:
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 12-11-2023, 09:02 PM  
Sadly Astrotracer type 3 doesn't work with the new firmware on the K1/K1ii
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 31
Views: 2,243
I've been shooting with the original type 1 since it was introduced.


Now, this is an interesting item of information for me. I shoot with the DA 15-30, and mainly with the Zeiss ZK 25. As good as the 15-30 is, the 25 is substantially better and sharper at the same focal length. I recently upgraded to the Sigma 35/f1.4 Art lens, and that going forward is going to be my primary Milky Way lens (I wanted more light along with better detail using a slightly longer lens). So, if there are problems with non-Pentax lenses, that will potentially be a problem for me. I'll just wait till there is some better news.

:cool:
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 12-11-2023, 11:00 AM  
Sadly Astrotracer type 3 doesn't work with the new firmware on the K1/K1ii
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 31
Views: 2,243
I was thinking seriously about upgrading my K1 firmware just for this capability. This is somewhat disappointing, as I was considering going out this week to shoot the Milky Way tail that is still above the horizon as somewhat of a test of these new functionalities. I was also considering type 2 for some locations that have a fair amount of items (trees, bushes, windmills, etc.), crossing the horizon - with the thought that it would negate the necessity of working on these areas in post-processing.

I just came here to post this exact question to someone doing some extensive testing on type 2 and 3 - so, Thank You very much!!!!!!!

:cool:
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 12-07-2023, 10:02 PM  
New Pentax K-1 Mark II update improves astro photos without GPS!
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 21
Views: 2,118
This will be nice in that I will not need to take the body off the tripod for calibration. I'll use type 3, but I still want the GPS and the electronic compass for the shooting location (lat/long) and the bearing of the shot. I have the GeoSetter utility (free download for Windows) that places the image location on a map with the projected field of view. I find this very handy to use when revisiting old shooting locations.

:cool:
Forum: General Photography 11-26-2023, 05:11 PM  
Highest ISO you recommend
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 46
Views: 1,560
The answer is really in two parts. First - capturing the image, and second processing the image

Capture -
  • Use whatever ISO you need to capture the image. If you have the time, you can use LENR - dark frame subtraction to clean up the noise in the image. The downside is you need to enable LENR first, and then it's going to double your exposure time, while it's taking the second image (the dark frame). In my view LENR probably works the best of any of these approaches (capture or post-processing).

  • The other approach is, if you have the time expand the exposure time while trying to keep the ISO as low as you can - and concentrate on capturing as much light as possible. You can use the rule of Halfs and Doubles. Of the three parameters you can control (aperture, exposure, and ISO), choose two - double one and half the second. i.e. you will get the same image from both of these settings - f4, ISO 1000, 4 sec vs f4, ISO 500, 8 sec. For shooting in very dark environments, I like to use f4, ISO 400, and 4-minute exposures.

Post-Processing - You can do a lot with post-processing, especially when you capture an image where you are not able to mitigate the possible noise in any way.
  • Not all raw processing software is the same. Adobe (LR, PS, along with Camera Raw), tends to push the raw files pretty hard in order to bring up the color. In taking this approach, it amplifies the noise more than necessary, and as a result, you get a pretty noisy image. Camera One on the other hand does not push the raw file as hard as Adobe, and has a lower noise profile in the image. This becomes very apparent when you shoot night landscapes with the K1 and you get the notorious white dots or impact noise as Raw Tharpee refers to them. There are several ways to handle this - 1) Shoot with LENR; 2) Use Raw Tharpee impact noise reduction (it works pretty well, but not perfectly); or 3) Load the image into Camera One, then save it as a TIFF, to be imported into LR - in this way you benefit from C1's noise reduction and also benefit from Adobe's pushing of the colors (is very effective in Milky Way landscape processing).

  • Noise Reduction Utilities - These third-party utility software usually do a nice job, but their results vary across the situations you encounter. Some do well in some situations, while others perform their best in other situations. It's somewhat of a mixed bag in terms of what utility will perform best for your own shooting situation. The 30-day trials help a great deal in terms of deciding which one works best in your situation. YMMV.


:cool:
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 11-11-2023, 11:11 PM  
Lens suggestions for new to me K1 mk1
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 43
Views: 2,722
Evening, I shoot with the original K1, mainly at night - the Milky Way and star trails over landscapes, cityscapes and architecture. It would help to know what you are referring to as "night time".


Overall, I would point you to....
  • DFA 28-105 - as others have pointed out, it's a very good kit lens, that punches way above its weight. I picked up my copy used - it's a great value. I really do like it very much.

  • For general night work, including up to and including star trails - any of the full-frame lenses of the particular focal length that you like will work very well. Just shoot off a tripod (with the center column down), and use an external shutter release and you will be good to go. You obviously will be using longer shutter speeds, and I would suggest shooting stopped down at the lens' sweet spot, for the best resolution and sharpness.

  • If your night work includes the Milky Way - then you will want a fast aperture - at least f2.8. This is somewhat of a Pentax weakness (well compared to other brands with a wealth of wide-angle fast f1.8, and f1.4 lenses). The best lenses available are the Sigma 35mm/f1.4 Art and the Pentax DFA 21mm/f2.4 Ltd. I would like to add the DFA 31mm/f1.8 Ltd, but my copy has some coma in the corners. I've shot extensively with the Zeiss 25mm/f2.8 Distagon - which is excellent, but I've always wanted more light. I do like the DFA 15-30/f2.8, but in comparison, it is slightly soft with the details - otherwise an excellent lens. Just a note - I live in a very dark donut hole location (15 sq miles of no street lights) within a large metro area. I was shocked when my new Sigma 35/f1.4 auto-focused and instantly locked on doing a midnight landscape. I usually have the body in manual focus, but this time I had it on AF from a previous shoot, and was blown away. This never happened previously.

  • The older lenses are excellent on the K1. In particular, the K 28/f2.8 Shift is really nice. I also have converted two Contax (Zeiss) 28/f2.8 Distagon and 85/f2.8 Sonar. My SuperTak 85/f1.8 is also excellent.


The main con with the K1 crop mode is that you lose resolution when compared to the crop bodies. The K1 will shoot at 15MP while the K3's are at 24MP.

Overall, I really enjoy having the GPS built-in and continuously enabled. Additionally, I can no longer live without the moon lander rear screen. It's just a really excellent camera.

:cool:
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 10-22-2023, 07:43 PM  
info on 35mm lens
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 17
Views: 1,233
This old lens database specializes in the m42 mount, which has been discontinued, but still lives on the wayback machine (Feb 2015).Funny, that it does not have a "Power" brand/manufacturer listed.

:cool:
Forum: Photographic Technique 10-15-2023, 10:53 PM  
Diffraction vs Depth of field in macro.
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 14
Views: 942
I see on a lens review the sweet spot for the lens is f8, but I would have to believe that f11 is close enough and there is probably little to no diffraction. The lens review is somewhat dated using the K10D body, but with Pentax you take what is available, feeling lucky that someone actually reviewed it at all. Personally, I think that f11 improved the image quality significantly. Spiders are not my thing, but the results are excellent!!!

:cool:
Forum: Welcomes and Introductions 10-07-2023, 11:01 PM  
Hello from California
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 11
Views: 271
Hi Victor, Welcome to the Forum!!! That's a great kit - you will be able to shoot a lot with that. The K1000 is an excellent body - tried and true. I have an old Spotmatic that I picked up while in the Navy back in 70. They are excellent cameras.

:cool:
Forum: Pentax K-70 & KF 09-21-2023, 12:01 PM  
Top/bottom discoloration issue- Astrophotography
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 9
Views: 827
There is a very active subgroup here on the Forum for Astro - that specializes in deep space, that should be able to help you out.:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 08-18-2023, 01:18 PM  
How to photograph northern lights
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 34
Views: 1,943
I would just like to add a couple of items here.
  • Tripod - do not raise the center column. Having the center column raised just adds vibrations back into the structure that the legs just removed. Just use the tripod with the center column not raised.

  • Use a wired or IR remote shutter release. Using the 2 or 10-second shutter delay may not be sufficient time to dampen out any induced vibrations. By not having to touch the camera shutter button in the first place does not induce any vibrations into the tripod structure.

  • Mirror Up - after composing the shot, use the mirror up mode, and thus you remove any vibrations from having the mirror slap.


:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 08-15-2023, 04:22 PM  
Batteries
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 39
Views: 1,375
I have several Pentax D-LI90E OEM batteries that came with my K5 (2011), K5iis (2013), and K1 (2017). I use them interchangeably across my K5IIs and K1 (the K5 went with my son to Florida, with 3 third-party spares). The K5 battery died a couple of years ago, while the K5iis battery died a couple of months ago. The K1 is still going strong.

I picked up 3 sets of 4 third-party spares over the years. They all die after about 5 years of use, while it seems that the Pentax OEM takes about 10 years to kick the bucket. The third-party batteries cost about 25% of OEM, charge in an hour as opposed to 6 hours for the OED, and last about 75% of an OEM.

The first couple of sets were Wasbi and the last set I picked up are BM Premium. I've been thinking that it's been nice having 2 OEMs along with several third-party spares, so considering actually buying a new OEM one.

When I go out shooting the Milky Way, it's a 1 to 3-hour drive each way, usually 3 to 5 hours of continuous shooting and I usually go through 1 OEM or ~1.5 third-party batteries.

:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 08-11-2023, 03:47 AM  
Beginner Photographer with a PENTAX K-1
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 27
Views: 1,704
Good Morning, I see you have a couple of excellent responses already. Yes, the K1 is not a beginner-friendly camera. That said, it does not mean that you are unable to start out with it. It's an excellent camera, and the lenses that came with it are some of the best Pentax has to offer. Probably the best introductions are some video tutorials, and I see Jeff posted one already. I would suggest that you start with the 31mm Limited lens, and then work you way to probably the 77mm, the 100 and then the 200. If you were to buy an additional lens the DFA 28-105 would be the general all-around lens, that is a zoom - while all of your other lenses are prime lenses (single focal length - non zoom).

Here are some additional tutorials that would help....

Here is a free 10-class beginner's photography course, that will show you how to use the camera to take the pictures that you want to capture.Here are some videos that will help you understand all of the controls on the K1 camera - the knobs, dials, buttons, menus, etc.

A brief introduction to get you started















You Tube





A more in-depth tutorial that might be somewhat duplicated by the one Jeff has suggested.















You Tube





The ones above are specifically about using your K1 - they explain all the camera's bells and whistles, knobs and dials. Here is a video on how to use the camera to take photographs - basically how to set up the body and lens (knobs and dials) to take the type of picture that you want to capture.















You Tube




Hope that helps a bit more...

:cool:
Forum: General Photography 08-09-2023, 06:04 AM  
new Pentax e-store?
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 24
Views: 1,482
I saw this thread the other day, and decided to ask Ricoh at - https://us.ricoh-imaging.com/ via their "Contact Us" page (down at the bottom). I just received their response email from Ricoh-USA.com
Hi

Thank you for reaching out. The Shop Pentax website is a Ricoh Imaging authorized website. We are keeping our main Ricoh Imaging website and have created a Shop Pentax website to give customers another avenue to make a purchase of our products. If you have any additional questions, please let me know.

Thank you,
Swati
So, yes Ricoh says that it is an official Ricoh website.

:cool:
Forum: Photographic Technique 08-05-2023, 07:19 PM  
They lied to you: You shouldn’t always keep ISO as low as possible
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 132
Views: 4,500
It appears that I've arrived at the party late again. In my opinion, you need to use/adjust ISO to fit the situation you are presented with, for the best exposure. I tend to shoot night photography / astrolandscapes (the Milky Way over things - valleys, mountains, deserts - whatever), as it's 111+ outside during the day, and the nights are just cooler. As such, a large dynamic range is very helpful, and a low ISO enables the greatest amount of information on star colors to be collected. Even with using astrotracing, your time is somewhat limited to around 70 seconds before wide-angle lens distortion catches up with you and your stars in the corners start to trail (mainly due to the rotational component of the sensor tracking).

So, your ISO selection is important. Pentax's use of Sony sensors being iso invariant, helps a lot here. For bodies without the acceleration chip (K5, K3, K1) 800 appears to work very well, With the acceleration chip, you really want to slide the ISO to maximize the dynamic range - so, that 640 for the K1mkII, KP, and K70 and for the K3mkIII I would certainly go with ISO 400. With the information collected on the sensor, you are then free to move the exposure to where you need it to go in post-processing.Also, Pentax has been working on the analog side to reduce input noise off the sensor, thereby boosting the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as early as possible in the image processing chain.Some lenses heavily vignettes wide open along with some coma, so shooting wide open brings problems in post-processing, so applying some balance to the overall activity and stopping down when shooting, can solve a lot of problems later on.

Also, noise is not the exclusive domain of ISO and sensor heat. The white dot noise on the K1 (and I've also seen it on the K70) - also labeled as impact noise in Raw Tharepee (noise reduction area), is really somewhat of an artifact of the Raw Processor software in use. The noise is usually instantly observable upon loading images in Adobe's product suite - LightRoom, Camera Raw, and PhotoShop. Using Camera One, none of this noise is observable. It's quite dramatic when the same image is loaded into both post-processing environments. Having said that, there is still no free lunch. Just my opinion, but it appears that Adobe pushes the raw images for color, and Camera One by not pushing the images as hard in the Raw Processing is not quite as colorful - especially in the star colors.

Staying on the topic of the white dot noise - an alternative solution is to remove the noise as early as possible in the image processing chain. That is able to be done by using LENR/DFS (Long Exposure Noise Reduction/Dark Frame Subtraction). Doubling your exposure time with LENR can be tedious out in the field, but can make the rest of your life easier. Again, it's balancing the entire process of photography.

:cool:
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 08-04-2023, 03:18 PM  
Astrotracer with old lenses
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 8
Views: 586
Afternoon, I have use older manual lenses with the astrotracer capability without problems. I've used the M28/f2.8, the K 28/ff3.2 Shift (it has larger lenses with no vignetting but has some coma), along with the Contax 28/f2.8 (with the Leitax K mount conversion), all without any problems. Up until last week, the Zeiss ZK 25/f2.8 has been the main goto lens that I used, until this new Sigma 35/f1.4 arrived.


If you are using an M42/K adapter with a flange you will not be able to achieve infinity focus, since the flange thickness adds to the registration distance between the sensor and the lens. But since you indicate that you have achieved sharp stars in the past - without the astrotracing, this is probably not the problem - just guessing that your adapter is the one from Pentax.

If you do not want to turn off the camera body between lens changes (and recalibrating), the lens' focal length can also be changed on the (Info) button page. It's usually down in the lower right-hand corner, that you can arrow (<>^v) over to.

I will add that the best astro (milky way) lens [available in a Pentax K mount] you can use on a crop sensor body is the Sigma 18-35/f1.8. Virtually no vignetting and no coma, and is very sharp wide open.

:cool:
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 07-30-2023, 06:53 AM  
Distortion correction profiles for older Pentax lenses for software like ACR
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 9
Views: 835
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 07-28-2023, 08:56 AM  
Looking at buying Pentax K-1 II and need some advice
Posted By interested_observer
Replies: 46
Views: 2,956
PS in this reference is Pixel Shift. The K1mkII performs a 4 frame PS, where each frame is a 1 pixel shift (the K1 combines all 4 shifted frames into a single Raw file - capable of being processed in LightRoom). The Fuji PS is a series of 20 frames, each frame is shifted by a half a pixel.

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