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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
02-05-2016, 06:51 AM
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OP here. Som sadly, my 50mm f.12 has been broken. I was using it on a Canon 1100D via an adapter and it fell off 5 feet onto concrete. As I later realised, the adapter was faulty and did not lock into position on the camera.
That's the only time I have ever broken (or even dropped or knocked) a lens, and it so happens to be my rare favourite one. C'est la vie... :-(
Anyone know of others going for sale?
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
12-16-2015, 07:00 AM
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I'm over the moon as I just found (and quickly bought) a good quality Pentax-A 50mm f1.2 on eBay.
To explain why I'm so happy: I actually already owned one of these lenses but it was stolen, along with my k-5 and some other lenses, about 18 months ago. Luckily, my kit was insured (pro-tip: everyone should get insurance for their gear) so I was able to replace the other lenses and even upgrade to a k-3 with the insurance money. But the 50mm f1.2 couldn't be replaced as it is rare. I was insured for the money I'd paid for it, at least, but I've found nothing quite like it before or since. If I could only have one lens, it would have been that one, as my review on the Pentax Lens Review Database exemplifies! SMC Pentax-A 50mm F1.2 Reviews - A Prime Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database
I've tried to find and buy a new one on forums, all the camera and lens shops in London I know of - I'm even on a notification list with a few in case they got one - and I've searched online shops and eBay regularly. But there haven't been any on sale apart from expensive copies for sale abroad - with 20% extra to pay at customs (I'm based in the UK) which pushed the cost to over £600.
But now I've finally found a good quality copy, and now I can use it with my k-3 and film k1000 and fall in love with the wonderfully colourful, sharp-yet-smooth images it makes all over again. :)
I wanted to share it here as my non-Pentaxian friends and family don't seem to quite get why I'm so excited!
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
12-13-2014, 05:33 PM
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
12-04-2014, 04:51 AM
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It might not be much, but I did email Ricoh to say how much I liked mechanical SR in the k-5 and how I was disappointed to not see it in the k-3. I mailed their general enquiries for the UK and they replied to say they would forward o the relevant department. If you want to do something about it, however small, do the same.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
10-29-2014, 07:26 AM
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Thanks all for your thoughts.
You can download the original via Vimeo if you would like a closer look (exported at 20-30mbps in h.264), and yes there's a some loss especially as Vimeo downscales playback to 720p. It looks quite similar though.
...use a serious video camera ;-) . I use the FS700, XF305 and C300 in my day job, but they're prohibitively expensive to rent for the sideline projects I do. (Nearly) everyone in my area uses Canon, so borrowing/hiring locally is almost all Canon and usually 600D, 7D or 5D mkII or mkIII and EOS lenses. Also, my FA and pre-FA Pentax lenses work with Canon cameras via an adapter, whereas they don't with Nikon and would crop too much on Panasonic. Canon's not perfect (by a long way) but they have near total penetration where I am at the amateur/low budget end (in Edinburgh). I appreciate this will be different for others in different circumstances, but the disadvantages of buying into a different system outweigh the advantages for me.
In any case, the k-3 will have its place in a way my k-5 did not due to it's lack of manual video control. For example tomorrow I will use it for a few b-roll documentary macro shots alongside 720p HDV interview footage, v handy to be able to use my k-3 for things like this and it doesn't have to match the look too closely as the shot type is so different.
I've found the latitude is so poor that I'm better off getting it right in camera, as it can't have much done to it in post without looking terrible v quickly. This is riskier, and in some cases I wouldn't want to burn in a look in camera, but where the shooting situation is controllable I prefer to get the look as close as possible to what I want in camera. If I was using a camera with much greater latitude or raw video I would shoot a more flat profile as I do with stills.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
10-21-2014, 02:38 AM
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Click above for link to video.
I got a k-3 on Friday and was keen to test the video mode.
I've found it quite tricky to find examples online of well shot video on the k-3, so I tried to shoot a variety of shots in various challenging light environments to push the k-3 to it's limits, while still trying to get the best looking stuff I could. My thoughts below, hopefully you'll find them useful.
I previously owned a k-5, which didn't have a good enoguh video mode for my purposes. Despite the high datarate, the lack of manual controls and (to my eye) muddy colours meant I could never rely on it for video work. I do occasional paid video work and I would like to use my own camera to save effort/time/money, so although I only shot the attached video for fun, I was also investigating whether the video quality and ergonomics are good enough for pro work (usually corporate films for local businesses, interviews, that sort of thing).
PS. These thoughts only apply to video, not photos! I am much less critical of the stills from my Pentax cameras and lenses!
General points:
The k-3 uses an h.264 codec and records at around 18Mb/s, which is low. I have used Canon's DSLRs a lot (mainly 600D, 650D, 7D) and it does not match up to these cameras despite being much newer. I used a 5D MkIII last weekend and this totally blows away the k-3 even at a glance at the footage - moire, artefacting, detail, dynamic range are lacking in the k-3 by comparison. I think it could be used alongside, say, 600/650D footage though without the quality difference being too stark. Obviously Canon put more effort into video than Pentax do, so you may think it is unfair to compare them so directly, but these comparisons are necessary for me as Canon's DSLRs are the standard for DSLR video work.
The screen is wonderful - very bright even in strong light, a big step up from the k-5, which is fortunate as this is necessary to nail those exposures.
The general performance is fast, zooming in on liveview to check focus is extremely fast and easy, and you can preset it to go to 10x zoom and out again at a single button press, very handy for manual focus work (which is all I do in video).
Although the dynamic range is low, the blacks and whites were not crushed too badly, no ugly blocking of blacks. Sometimes the blue sky blocked a little.
The video image stabilisation/shake reduction is a huge disappointment. It is NOT mechanical, (some older forum posts and reviews claim it is) it is software based, and the image looks smudged and still quite shaky with shake reduction turned on. I use premiere Pro CS5 to edit, and the digital Image Stabilisation it uses is much better, making the k-3's video SR totally pointless (the mechanical SR for stills is very good). The k-5 had great mechanical stabilisation for video, and it was very steady. A frustrating omission.
BUT! Despite what seems like quite a critical view, the k-3 has fully manual video with nice punchy colours, and reasonable performance up to ISO 1000 at least, so would I use the k-3 for professional video work? Yes. Definitely. It's useable. It would be nice to see a 40-50Mb/s data rate to get some more control and latitude, but if properly exposed, white balanced and coloured in camera, and intended for upload to Youtube/Vimeo or DVD, the video is good enough for low budget pro work. Just. For stills, perfect.
What I used:
Shot using a Pentax DA 55-300mm lens, a Pentax DA 16-45mm lens and a Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. Giottos lightweight tripod, not a video head so the pans are ok, but not silky smooth. I shot on the vibrant picture style as I did not intend to do any colour correction to the footage.
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
06-11-2014, 01:32 AM
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Yesterday I received my first medium format camera in the post, the Pentax 6x7.
First thoughts - it's huge! Even bigger than I thought it would be (I had seen photographs of it, and read how heavy it was, but it's somehow even more imposing and gigantic in real life.
So I took a photograph of it next to my smallest film camera, the ME. Looking forward to giving it a whirl this weekend with some hp5+ (Black and white ISO 400 film). I'm planning some full body portraits of my family in a local forest with the Takumar 135mm f4 macro.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinthebarbarian/14392499352/ |
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
06-03-2014, 07:56 AM
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Here is a music video I made with Pentax lenses (Pentax-DFA 100mm f2.8 Macro, Pentax-A 50mm f1.2, Sigma 24mm Super-wide II f2.8) and a bunch of cameras (Pentax k-5, Canon 7D and Canon 600D).
You Tube
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src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bAuDlia2qRc?controls=1" allowfullscreen>
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I used my Pentax k-5 for the bubbles in air shots (around 2:00 to 2:40), and a Canon 600D for the closest shots due to it's full-HD 3x digital zoom mode, and the Canon 7D for the remainder. Pentax lenses all the way - the 50mm and 24mm were reversed to focus very close up.
Using reversed lenses alongside a true macro lens really emphasises the weaknesses of reversed lenses - notably reduced corner sharpness and colour aberrations. However, in this case neither is a problem when shooting bubbles as they curve away to out of focus in the corners anyway, and bubbles are so awash with colours and optical effects of their own that the small chromatic aberrations of a reversed lens are small fry by comparison! Still, the true macro shots are razor sharp - see the long shot at 0:57 for example.
The bubbles were created from a litre of home made bubble mix (water with 5% washing up liquid and a teaspoonful of guar gum (thickening agent) and sugar (also helps thicken), with more water added to loosen it up for some shots). I used a variety of backdrops and intensity/harshness of light with bounce boards and diffusers and coloured card. Also for some shots a CD was placed nearby to reflect rainbow colours.
It was interesting to see the life of a bubble - it goes from opaque and slimy to increasingly transparent, then you start to see iridescence, initially in plate-like blocks of bright colours, becoming more fragmented and eventually quite muddy and partially transparent, then it goes yellowy and finally pops!
I think the resulting effect is pleasantly dissonant with the music, and has a nice abstract feel to it. Lyrics overlaid for sing-a-long-a purposes :-)
---------- Post added 03-06-14 at 02:57 PM ----------
I have additional bubble photographs here - all shot on my Pentax k-5 as tests for this video.
Bubbles - Imgur |
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
09-16-2013, 07:44 AM
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Thanks all, glad you enjoyed it.
Tzrenz0, my sister said something similar, she found the iron quite unsettling and unnatural, and quite creepy! It's interesting to hear how it makes others feel.
LaurenOE, I agree: I would like to utilise the big mjpeg files from the k5 but the manual controls, digital zoom and (particularly) the dynamic range of the Canon cameras make them my main choice for macro video.
Also, I've never been quite sure whether it's fine to post non-Pentax DSLR videos here. I don't think the subforum title is explicit either way, so I just assume it's fine unless I'm told otherwise! Also, it is shot with a Pentax lens, which I think is the principal factor in defining how the film looks with its unique, cool (in temperature and effect!) rendering.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
09-16-2013, 02:36 AM
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I made this film as I recently discovered the curious properties of ferrofluid and sodium thiosulphate and wanted to film them.
http://vimeo.com/74613572
Almost everything is shot on my Pentax-A 100mm f4 macro, with a few very close up shots using a reversed Sigma 24mm f2.8 super wide II, which gets about three times the magnification with a consequent reduction in depth of field, which is so thin at those levels as to be almost useless even at f11 to f16.
I used my k-5 for tests and stills, but used a Canon 600d with Technicolor cinestyle installed for the actual shoot, as the dynamic range is greater, and it has manual controls. The lenses are attached using a canon-pentax adapter, which can be bought from Ebay for £10/$15.
To get closer I used a set of 50mm extension tubes, and sometimes used the Canon 600D’s 3x digital zoom (which is still full 1080p HD, a useful feature and no extra depth of field loss!)
The film itself is rather light on narrative; it’s just a progression of – hopefully! – interesting shots.
Hope you like it. I’m happy to answer questions on how I did specific shots and it’s always good to get feedback.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-18-2013, 05:33 AM
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I have reasonably bad colour blindness (I have protanomaly and deuteranomaly - Color blindness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and it is occasionally a problem.
Firstly though, it's not all bad news, if you ask me! I have found that colour blindness enhances your ability to see tones as you are not be distracted by colours, so you may find black and white photography easier than most people. Also, you may find patterns and changes in texture pop out to your eyes more than others. This is difficult to quantify, but I suspect I see these things more readily than my non-colourblind photographer friends.
However, I would not restrict myself to black and white and neither should you (unless that's what you want to do).
Software can be very helpful. For fringing I use Lightroom to correct aberrations automatically (it has profiles for most modern lenses), and often I can't see any difference, though I'm assured there is! So for everyone else's viewing pleasure I make the corrections.
As an aside, even for black and white, you often CAN see the colour fringes if after you convert to black and white you start changing the lightness of the colour channels. For some lenses/conditions it's more of a problem than others.
When I take photographs I use RAW and set a white balance preset according to the conditions (ie if it's cloudy I set white balance to cloudy!) and never manually set colour temperature - though I have learned the colour temperatures of various conditions so I could estimate it I required it.
In Lightroom or Photoshop I sometimes click on an area in the shot I know is white and have the program set the white balance using that. For critical work, I will ask someone to help me identify the correct white balance or check I have it right (no shame in that!)
As for things like saturation and vibrance, it's not as if there is a 'perfect' setting - different people would dial in different amounts, Personally, I will shoot quite flat RAW then play in lightroom to make it look good to my eye. Whether it looks good to others is a matter of their personal preference, though I do err on the side of caution and don't super-saturate most pictures.
I also do video work on DSLRs, and again I use presets as post-processing gives less control than for RAW photographs. Some cameras allow custom profiles to be saved using a white or grey card, so I will often use those. Usually I'll quickly confirm the white balance with another person though, particularly in mixed or unusual lighting. Because I use presets I'm probably right 90% of the time.
I suppose colour blindness is an obstacle that other photographers don't have, but it doesn't really bother me. I've always been colour blind so it's not as if it's a sudden burden. I just like taking photographs and making videos, and most problems can be solved with a little forethought or software! Don't let it get in the way and just enjoy taking photographs that look good to you.
Good luck with your own photography.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
07-01-2013, 01:26 PM
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Thanks Lauren!
No worries Geomez, I do like a subtle lens flare - it's just like any cool effects, powerful when used sparingly but easy to overdo! Recently I was surprised to learn that the Star Trek lens flares were done in camera rather than added in post. In this article JJ Abrahms talks about how they did it, it's quite interesting: J.J. Abrams Admits Star Trek Lens Flares Are “Ridiculous” |
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
07-01-2013, 02:42 AM
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Thank you geomez. Yes, the horizontal flare was added in After Effects - I must have watched too much of JJ Abrahm's work! I think it makes the shots look a little more three dimensional than they would do without it, as the intensity varies depending on where the lighthouse is within the shot - and yes, as you pointed out, it is a nice visual way of de-emphasising the lighthouse's light in the last shot.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
07-01-2013, 01:41 AM
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This is my short film 'Light' I've been making over the last month using my Pentax lenses.
It's a very short (90 second) simple story about a lighthouse getting through the night, and features lots of experiments in cinematography - all done on my kitchen table with reversed and macro lenses and a lot of ice!
I used a Pentax-A 50mm f1.2 and a Sigma 24mm superwide II f2.8 mounted in reverse for super-close ups, and a Pentax-A 100mm f4 macro for the widest shots - none of which had an area bigger than, say, a post-it note - and some of the extreme close ups were over an area the size of a fingernail or smaller at around 2:1 to 4:1 scale. For the reversed lenses we used a Canon to Pentax adapter, then a Pentax reversing ring (52mm filter thread for both lenses), then the lens! Note, if you want to use a lens in reverse for close ups you need to use one with an aperture ring - ie the FA series or earlier. DA lenses won't work sadly as they lack an aperture ring.
I used my k-5 for test shots but we used a Canon 600D (with Pentax adapter for my lenses) for the film itself as the manual control on this camera, the full HD digital zoom ability and swivel screen made it very useful for those tiny close ups! The film is all shot "live" in 25 frames per second, it's not animated.
We needed a lot of light for shooting down to f16 at 1/50 at ISO 160 in extreme macro where you get several more stops of light falloff, and so we had a big hot 800W light. For some shots it was around a foot (30 cm) from the ice, causing severe melting problems! So we needed to be fast and accurate with focus to a millimetre level on a disintegrating, slippery set all of which was too small to position without completely ruining composition! Most of the time it was a fun challenge but was occasionally frustrating!
We edited in Premiere Pro CS6 and After Effects CS6, where we added the lighthouse light and did a little colour correction.
The film was made for the Depict short film competition in the UK. I hope you like the film, happy to explain any techniques and looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
03-11-2013, 03:44 AM
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This is a short film I shot and co-directed over the last few months:
Youtu.be
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src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gkJkrZ6zuKU?controls=1" allowfullscreen>
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I shot on Pentax-M 50mm f1.4, Pentax-M 50mm 1.7, Pentax-A 100mm f4 macro, Pentax-M 75-150 f4, Samyang 14mm f2.8, Sigma SuperWide II 24mm f2.8 (all Pentax fit) and a Canon 17-85 f4-5.6 on a Canon 7D.
We used the Technicolour Cinestyle picture style and graded in After Effects, with the effects also done in AE and Daz 3D and the edit done in Premiere Pro.
Hope you like it! Happy to answer questions about how I achieved anything in camera, and always happy to get feedback.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
03-07-2013, 04:30 AM
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The amount of light per unit area is the same if they are both at f8.
As an example, ISO 100, f8, 1/50 of a second will give them same exposure on any sensor format - whether a compact, APS-C, full frame or medium format. A lot more light is hitting the sensor on a medium format at the same settings as an APS-C, but the exposure is the same because each unit area is receiving the same amount of light.
Different sensors give the same exposure at the same ISO. However, different sensors handle increased sensitivity in different ways - and the bigger the sensor, the bigger the image you are recording - which means noise or grain of the same size will appear smaller on a bigger sensor at the same ISO as a smaller sensor. This is a major factor in the general truth that the bigger the sensor, the less noise at a certain ISO. In-camera processing and the electronics of the sensor/properties of the film are also important.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
02-26-2013, 06:28 AM
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Thanks all for your comments!
VIsualDarkness, thanks for the feedback - the lights are very white, which can make mixing them with others a little tricky, and they aren't really powerful enough to put gels on them, so we were kind of stuck! Such are the downsides of low budget cinema. But you're right, it is a little odd.
geedee, yes, it is hard! I've got better with practice, and filming in the dark helped a lot as the screen was so bright. I always look at the little reflective bits in the eye to help focus, trying to keep their size as small as possible. For some shots I also pre-focused or put marks on the ground for the actress to stand on - but still had a lot of badly out of focus bits. Managed to get rid of most of them in the edit though I think.
She is great, we're working on another film (which has taken longer than 24 hours to make!) with her where she plays the same character! It's got a Facebook page with some pics and things, https://www.facebook.com/TheTentacleThing |
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
02-26-2013, 03:21 AM
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Apologies for the multiple video links! Can't see why it's doing that. I only want you to watch it once! ;-)
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
02-26-2013, 03:07 AM
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At the weekend I made this for a 24 hour film competition.
It's a bit of a strange film, but I hope you enjoy it! I was the cinematographer, so any comments on the way it was filmed are very welcome, and if you have any questions about how I did anything I'm happy to explain. :)
One very NSFW word near at the end.
You Tube
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src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VumFUVDB6ac?controls=1" allowfullscreen>
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I shot the film on a Canon 7D with a Pentax-A 50mm f1.2 lens, usually at 1.4 (and at 5.6 for the last shot.) I also used a Pentax-A 100mm f4 macro for the two close ups of the glass.
We used cheap arrays of LEDs for the outside shots and a bit of streetlighting for the reed shots. The indoor shots were LED lit too.
Shooting at f1.4 is a joy for lighting at night with weak LEDs, as it drinks up any light you have, but the razor thin DOF is a pain. It can look nice though and helps with the fantasy elements.
You Tube
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src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VumFUVDB6ac?controls=1" allowfullscreen>
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
02-18-2013, 02:25 AM
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Thanks for your reply. I shoot canon cameras/pentax glass predominantly too, so you've given me some interesting new ideas to consider!
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
02-15-2013, 09:23 AM
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Looks great, really smooth intro shots and lots of energy and pace.
Did you have to shear off the aperture pins on the pentax lenses to get them to work on the 5Dii?
What did you use to achieve the super smooth motion?
Again, great job!
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
12-10-2012, 08:27 AM
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Wildweasel did a great job of explaining what the buttons do, so here are some further ideas about when you might use them.
1. Useful for fast moving action, such as sports photography, where you don’t want a sudden change in the settings once you’ve focused and composed if you’re shooting in a partially automated mode like Av or Tv. Can also be used when shooting landscapes (in Av, for example) to deliberately under or overexpose compared to what the camera has calculated by AE-L at a darker or lighter composition before recomposing to what you want to shoot with the shutter halfway depressed and taking the shot.
2. I almost always have highlight correction switched on, to stop the detail in the highlights being lost. Useful if you are taking a picture with something white in it – like a brides dress, or a swan. Also useful for landscapes to try and save as much detail as possible in a scene with a lot of dynamic range, as it allows more to be done in post processing.
3. To save you applying these in post-processing, but will slow down the camera's burst rate. Most useful for landscape shots, where you will likely not need to shoot off a lot of shots at once.
4. For a moving subject – say a car driving past you, you can have the camera prefocused with the shutter button depressed, and the camera will take the shot at the precise instant the car comes into focus. Useful for sports and events photography. Also can be used on manual focus mode, as you turn the ring the camera will take the shot as soon as it detects proper focus.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
10-23-2012, 06:40 AM
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I used to have problems keeping up with post processing (PP) when I used Photoshop, but now that I predominantly use Lightroom I find PP much quicker and more enjoyable, as it does 90% of what I would typically be doing in photoshop with much less hassle and more automation, quicker and easier controls and menu access and lots of saved presets. Then if I need to do more I'll use photoshop for a specific picture. Automation and applying preset watermarks and so on are simple in Lightroom too.
That's been the biggest improvement I've made to keeping on top of PP, but it depends on what sort of pictures you're taking, whether you need a quick turnaround (if they were taken professionally for a client, for example) and what editing workflow you have!
Perhaps less helpfully, you could try not taking any miore pictures until you catch up ;)...
Well, maybe not something as draconian as that, but just try to find time to catch up with your PP and set aside time to do it. Also, if the reason you are falling behind on PP is that you don't enjoy it as much as taking pictures, then you could try to set up everything in camera to minimise the time you need to spend afterwards doing fixes. But, again, it depends on what you're shotting whether that would be a reasonable measure.
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Forum: Video Recording and Processing
09-22-2012, 02:49 AM
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Thanks manacho2005 and Zaphodmonster, I appreciate your comments :)
It was fun, so I'm glad that shows! I've used Canon cameras too - 7d, 550d, 600d, 5d mkii, and most recently the c300 - their new $15k behemoth - and while they have ease of use in their favour I've really found the k-5 matches them for movie image quality and supercedes them for dynamic range and editing latitude (apart from the c300), so if you can get the k-5 to do what you want in the first place (which is always a challenge with shutter speed and ISO in movie mode, though the exposure compensation helps a great deal and I shoot with the settings AE locked) then you can get really good looking video.
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