|
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-06-2010, 03:06 PM
|
| |
I've read the "pros dissing Pentax" thread and had a bit of a laugh. I shot high-end Canon for 30 years in my film days but am at a more laidback place now during semi-retirement. For the switch to DSLR, I couldn't justify the expense - particularly for good glass - that Canon entailed and went with Pentax. I am very happy with that choice despite the occasional sneer from my former Canon compatriots.
Now, my topic. During the recent Worldwide Photo Walk, I joined 40+ area photographers for a fun day of shooting followed by a group lunch and wrap-up. In that group, I saw exactly zero Pentax DSLRs - aside from my own. I found myself "justifying" my choice not to go with Canikon during good natured discussions. Not so much distain but more "why in the world would a serious photographer NOT buy Canikon??"
Are we really that sparse out in the world?
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
10-03-2013, 06:19 PM
|
| |
Interesting answers in this post. I can honestly say that I have never used the green button. I guess it is the old-time film shooter in me but I always set my own settings. The green button is just something to avoid touching accidentally. :lol:
|
|
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
02-01-2015, 10:16 PM
|
| |
Don't be afraid to push the ISO up with that camera. I often shoot stage performances at ISO 6400 and occasionally go up to 8,000 with my trusty K-5. You will get a little noise but that is easily dealt with in post-processing. I never use AF.C for stage shooting, only sports or fast moving planes, cars, etc. You will probably need a shutter speed of at least 1/60. If the performer is really moving around, that might need to go to 1/125 or even higher. For dance performances, I use 1/250 or 1/500 at f/4 and adjust ISO as needed. You will have to see how it goes. I would say to close the aperture down a bit to provide a little more depth of focus but that lens will pretty much do that for you, forcing you to f/5.6 when racked all the way out. Take some test shots early in the evening and make adjustments as you go. Don't just look at the back LCD. Look at the histogram and zoom in on a few of your test shots to check focus. I use center-weighted metering and spot focus. Full zone metering tends to get fooled by large expanses of dark stage.
Stage lighting can be very tricky, especially when you don't know ahead of time how it will be lit. Many venues like to use arty colored lights which will mess up your white balance. I generally set WB to incandescent and go from there, making adjustments as needed. Shooting Raw helps here as you can adjust in post-processing. Auto WB does a poor job on stage lighting.
|
|
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
01-24-2015, 02:31 PM
|
| |
Popular Photography is the grand daddy of them all. It has been around for decades and usually has a good mix of photo styles and techniques, along with instructional columns. It is probably the best "generalist" magazine. That said, the one I keep taking over all others is Outdoor Photographer. My interests are landscape and nature so it is a good fit and features some really stunning images that stimulate the creative flow for me. Although I don't do astro photography myself, that mag also features a fair amount of it. Aside from those two, I've tried some of the others but let them go after a year.
My habit for finding new magazines is to take one for a year and decide if I want to continue. You can try a single issue from a newsstand but that can be deceiving as they vary from month to month.
My $0.02.
|
|
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
01-12-2015, 10:10 AM
|
| |
Stacking dissimilar filters is a bad idea. Too much chance of creating a reflection chamber between them. The only time I will stack filters is with multiple NDs to create a factor I don't have in a single. For example, a +2 added to a +3 creates a +5, which I may not have. Otherwise, when I put on, say, a CPL, I take off the clear protection filter, etc. Adding one layer of glass in front of my lens I don't worry too much about. Adding two or more, I do worry about.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
01-08-2015, 11:44 PM
|
| |
Let's see. Lens completely opened away from the sweet spot, ISO 1250, handheld at 1/20 and shot indoors with no flash. And you are not getting sharp images.
Imagine that! :rolleyes:
Have you done any adjustments to the in-camera sharpness, contrast, noise control, etc? The factory defaults aren't going to give the best possible results under such difficult conditions.
I agree with Adam. Try it again under somewhat better shooting conditions before drawing any conclusions.
|
|
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-16-2014, 02:00 PM
|
| |
I think that sometimes, with a new user, they see a high-end looking camera (k5/K3) in a brand they don't recognize and assume it is some super expensive pro camera nobody else can afford like Hasselblad, Leica or PhaseOne. It is the only explanation I can think of for the number of times I have been asked for help from a lost and confused new Canon owner. :)
I suppose it could just be my general appearance of competence and trustworthiness.
Naahh!
|
|
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
11-24-2013, 02:37 PM
|
| |
How to win friends and influence people. :confused:
|
|
Forum: General Photography
12-12-2014, 07:35 PM
|
| |
The best camera is the one you have with you. The best picture will be the one you missed because you didn't have a camera. :cool:
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
12-08-2014, 03:02 PM
|
| |
A 1/4 CTO pretty much permanently resides on my flash. Comes off outdoors. :)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
12-08-2014, 12:57 PM
|
| |
Are you shooting with flash or ambient light?
If flash, the "Flash" white balance should come pretty close. If using ambient light, you are probably getting a mix of incandescent, florescent and window (daylight) lighting which, as mentioned above, makes it difficult to get just right. Shooting Raw and adjusting in post-processing is the best solution. Using a Custom WB setting works very well, too. Otherwise, try to see which light source is the most prevalent and use that, expecting that lamps and other sources will be visible as an off color. All that usually doesn't matter when using flash as it tends to overpower everything else.
|
|
Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
12-05-2014, 06:38 PM
|
| |
I take a lot of photos of grandkids, nieces, nephews and so forth. Birthdays, Christmas, holidays, you name it, Uncle Jim is the "official family photog." And a lot of paid shoots as well over the years.
Best advice I can offer to a beginner is to invest a few dollars in a hotshoe flash with an adjustable head. It doesn't have to be the best there is, just one that lets you rotate the flash head up/down and side to side. Do not fire this monster directly at your subjects, which can flatten out faces and leave nasty black shadows behind them. In most cases, in private homes with light-colored ceilings, I rotate the head up so it is pointing just slightly forward of straight up, bouncing the light mostly off the ceiling, or if I am near a light wall, I occasionally rotate it to bounce the light off the wall. This will soften the light and give a nice look to the kids' skin without harsh shadows. You can't do this with the little flash built in to the camera. If the bounced light is under-exposing, you can adjust that with the exposure compensation dial on the camera. A plus is that the fast flash will help in stopping motion of twitchy kids. When shooting people, I use a soft, under-powered flash even outdoors, to fill in harsh shadows left by sunlight.
With or without flash, Pro Tip #1 for shooting kids is to get down at their level. Cell phone shooters tend to stand up and shoot down at kids. That doesn't make the kids look good at all, foreshortening and distorting proportions. Sit on the floor, use a low chair or just drop down on one knee but get the lens at or slightly below the subject's eye level for more flattering shots.
|
|
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-03-2014, 05:26 PM
|
| |
If it is the DFA 100 mm f2.8 macro version, that is a very good macro lens. I had it and found it quite good. The aperture ring was a feature I used regularly. I really miss it on more modern lenses.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
12-01-2014, 10:06 PM
|
| |
Single lens solutions:
Weather-sealed - Pentax 18-135 mm
Non-WR - Sigma 18-250 mm.
|
|
Forum: General Photography
11-15-2014, 11:39 AM
|
| |
I use Mpix.com for any custom printing needs. Everything they do is good, reasonably priced and fast. Highly recommended.
|
|
Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
09-14-2014, 12:52 PM
|
| |
I have to wonder if, in constantly urging relatively inexperienced users to shoot Raw because "it is better," we may be doing them a disservice. I am not suggesting the OP here falls in that category at all. He/she may know exactly what he is doing and what is required when shooting Raw. In general, however, it seems that a lot of folks switch to Raw who are not really ready to undertake the full control that Raw requires and may not even really understand WHY it is "better" or what is needed to make it so. They just think that shooting Raw will make their images better automatically. I have seen a number of posts from folks who have started shooting Raw, only to simply use the included software to convert to Jpg using default settings and no user input. The result is often an image that is inferior to what the camera would produce if set to record in Jpeg, especially when also using the appropriate "scene mode" settings to maximize whichever extra tweaks might work for a particular image.
Whether the OP falls into this pattern or not, the reference to seeing more noise in a Raw image is pretty suggestive. Of course the Raw shows more noise before processing. After appropriate noise reduction in software it will almost certainly be BETTER than the in-camera Jpg but nothing happens automatically.
For someone who doesn't really understand the differences between Raw, Jpg, Tiff or any other file format and who isn't interested in adjusting and tweaking every image to get it just right, I have been a lone voice in the wilderness for awhile. I still suggest that a high-quality Jpg setting, coupled with the appropriate "scene mode" (I have no idea what Nikon calls it) is the better way to go.
There are a number of high-end professionals who make excellent images and a very good living as Jpg shooters. You can do more with a Raw file but it is possible to create really excellent Jpgs as well.
|
|
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
09-21-2014, 04:46 PM
|
| |
Have you bothered to read through any of the other, earlier threads on this very subject? It seems we debate this question almost weekly. Everyone's arguments have been made, debated, attacked and supported over and over. It gets a little boring.
I am of the opinion that a beginner does not need to switch to Raw immediately. It simply adds more complexity to the process of learning photography. You can get excellent images shooting Jpeg if you do "the rest of the stuff" right. Learn how to take good photographs first. That should be job one. If you want a little more sharpness in your images, adjust that setting in-camera until you like what you are getting. Or, you can adjust Jpeg images in post-processing software as well as you can Raw images. With Jpeg, you just start out a lot closer to what you want as the end result. In my opinion, if you are simply "pushing the auto button" in Photoshop to finish your Raws, you would be just as well off, with a lot less time invested, shooting Jpeg to start with.
Will Raw shooting make your photographs better? Absolutely not! Raw gives you more opportunity to control the final image and can help correct many deficiencies by adjusting in software. It isn't a magic bullet that will make your photos "better." Only you can do that.
Like a lot of the heavy users here, I shoot in Raw most of the time and spend a fairly large amount of time in front of my computer getting everything just right. However, like most of the old timers here, I learned "photography" in the film days when everything was pretty much already a "Jpeg" whenever the box of slides came back.
My $0.02.
|
|
Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
09-08-2014, 02:13 PM
|
| |
I read the OP as saying that he shot individual portraits of 300 kids at a sporting event, kind of like a school photographer might do the same for an entire elementary school in a day or two. If that was the case, he might not have the option to only pick the one or two dozen best looking kids to shoot. :lol:
On the other hand, if he was just shooting the action at the event, I would agree. Being a bit more discriminating might help with the physical problems.
|
|
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
09-23-2014, 08:16 AM
|
| |
Which is the combination I use (plus NIK) for my Raw shooting. But your point is still valid regarding the extra layer of complexity for folks who may not be ready or willing to take it on.
|
|
Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
09-08-2014, 10:18 AM
|
| |
There are many over the counter eye drops to help with tired eyes during the day. Visine comes to mind but there are many good ones. As for waking to an eye "sealed shut," that sounds like rather common dry eye syndrome. I get that regularly from some medications I take. The solution for me is to keep a bottle of plain "artificial tears" by my bedside and put a drop or two in each eye when I wake up with sticky or sandy eyes. Works like a champ and the generic store brand drops are pretty inexpensive.
|
|
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-27-2014, 05:09 PM
|
| |
| |
|
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
04-29-2014, 10:47 PM
|
| |
Many photographers bracket their photos with no intention of making them into HDR images. We even did bracketing back in the film days. It gives you a better chance of nailing the exposure right on when you may not be completely certain from the metering. You just select the best of the 3 or 5 bracketed images and toss the others. Even the great Jay Maisel brackets almost everything in his street photography but rarely if ever does HDR.
Of course, you can always create HDR images from the bracketed shots after the fact using software if none of the single images gives you what you want. I use Photomatix Pro, which does a much better job than the in-camera software provided by Pentax.
|
|
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
03-28-2014, 12:04 AM
|
| |
You got the answer above but a few other things to think about.
The 60-250 is pro quality - better build, weather sealed, better focusing motor, better glass. Those things cost money. On the down side, you pay more than just money for the better performance as it is noticeably bigger and heavier to carry around.
The 55-300 is quite good for the money but is consumer quality. Lightweight, smaller, much slower. If you are ok with bumping up the ISO a couple of stops to make up for the slower optics, it will give you good service. I had one and liked it for travel photography because it WAS smaller and lighter. I just had to make adjustments for weather and the slower optics.
As for length for birds, more is always better. The 55-300 mimics a 450 mm on a full-frame, so is not bad. Serious birders use much longer lenses but those REALLY cost more money.
|
|
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
03-04-2014, 01:05 PM
|
| |
To answer the other part of your question, I can only give my experience. For lenses I think will not be used for months at a time, I store them in the original box and packaging, with the desiccant pack it came with. I've never had a problem with fungus or other signs of deterioration.
|
|
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-19-2014, 12:54 AM
|
| |
Are you suggesting that Alizarine is not a "beautiful model?" :lol:
|
