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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
11-26-2012, 05:54 AM
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OK...
****Psssst...this is your conscious speaking...go get that Pentax. You know you want it, you know it's sexy...you know you love the feel of that old 50mm prime in your hands...you know the image quality is fantastic...you know the high ISO performance is king of the hill...you kow it's cheaper than the rest, so are lenses...you know you can get loads and loads of great vintage lenses for a song...so why are you hanging around here staring at a camera forum...go get that Pentax...bye****
:)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-15-2012, 07:01 PM
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here are a couple i took today with the K-x and promaster (tamron 18-200). Processed a little in lightroom to bring out the contrast and shadows. These dont seem too over processed do they?
(imgur removed the exif for some reason)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
02-07-2012, 01:50 PM
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Sometimes our dwarf cat Shiela really gets annoyed with the camera. This was one of those moments :p
META: K-5, 135mm, ISO16000, 1/125s, f/4
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
01-31-2012, 09:39 AM
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-25-2011, 09:02 AM
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Here some pictures from my K-x:
Jan.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
06-17-2011, 05:32 PM
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I wrote about the travails of getting the SMC Lens Correction Adapter M -3 from Pentax here in the USA. In the end PentaxUSA Corporate stepped up and sent me one and its now on my camera.:D
I can't tell you what a positive difference this little piece of plastic makes for me!
My prescription is -3.5 in my camera eye:cool: The built-in viewfinder diopter adjustment goes from -2.5 to +1.5 on the K-x and K-r. That's just a wee bit too little for me:( And that does make a difference. With the information at the bottom of the viewfinder and glasses on I had a choice, I could view the image or shift and view part of the image and the data. Now that I have installed the -3 adapter and set the built-in viewfinder adjustment I can shoot without glasses for the first time since I was in high school:lol: I can get my eye right up to the cup and see the entire field of the viewfinder all at once!! I've tried a couple of MF shots and its easier, far easier, for me now too.
I wish I knew who at PentaxUSA Corporate stepped up and had this sent to me, I'd like to thank them personally.:)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
06-30-2011, 06:29 AM
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Hey all.
Yesterday, my wife & I were strolling around the botanical gardens & I had my newly acquired white K-x body & Tamron SP 60-300 with me, taking some macro shots of flowers & stuff. An older lady sitting on a bench called out "Cool camera! Love that white color!" We struck up a conversation, and as it turns out, she used to teach photography. She asked me what kind of camera it was, and was surprised when I told her it was a Pentax. She said she didn't know Pentax made a DSLR. She also told me she had a K1000 in the closet and that she'd been looking at a DSLR for her daughter, but the Nikons & Canons she'd looked at were way above her budget.
She seemed genuinely thrilled to learn that a used Pentax body could be had for a couple of hundred bucks & her daughter could use her old PK lenses with it. She had me make a list of which ones to be on the lookout for, and excitedly told me she'd just figured out her daughter's Christmas gift.
Just kind of a neat little experience I thought I'd share with y'all.
Cheers,
Bobbo :-)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-01-2011, 08:39 AM
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The various camera settings, such as sharpness, contrast, white balance, etc., are not "cooked" into the RAW file, as they are in a JPEG, but the settings are attached to the RAW file. When you view the image on the LCD, those settings are applied to the displayed image.
Also, many computer programs will pick up those settings and use them for the initial display of the image. However, the original data is still present, so it is easy to "undo" the setting and use whatever you like. With a JPEG, the camera actually modifies the data, so that the PP program can not simply retrieve the original.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-01-2011, 09:26 AM
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Really, this news is in some ways quite shocking--rumors of Hoya looking for a buyer for the camera business had pretty much dried up. Let's just say, it could be worse. After all, Pentax only sold for $124 million. Pentax costs other camera companies a desent bit of sales compared with that number, and don't at least one of the big companies liscence Pentax anti-shake patents? So any of the big camera companies could have bought Pentax just to kill it and take the patents (and maybe keep the 645D and finally have entry into medium format). Nor did it go to an electronics company that might not understand the needs of DSLR users (to say the least). Considering the price, why did Samsung not buy Pentax? Clearly they could have afforded it. It tells me that 1. they have confidence in their brand name now, and 2. they see NX as the solution--they have no need for DSLRs and for a company that makes them anymore. So at least it went to a proper camera company (at heart). They are rather quirky, but so has Pentax been since the digital switch. Let us just hope the Ricoh camera trends of high-price niche, poor marketing, and poor historical decision making change with this purchase.
Really, this is a great purchase for Ricoh. Or at least, it can be if they manage it right. But they have bought one of the biggest names in amerature/professional photography, one far better than their own, and bought it for a song. They completely got left behind on the digital switch in the camera buisness, and now they have the chance to regain everything they lost. I think it's pretty clear that Ricoh (unlike say Hoya) wants Pentax camera for everything Pentax camera--both the name and the product lines. Ricoh certainly has the money to now make this work, and that they are purchasing Pentax suggests that they want to drop some money now to become a player in cameras again.
The only (and the biggest) question remains how will things work out. Will there be a clash of corporate cultures? Will they be able, for the first time in over 20 years, to be able to effectively market Pentax (goodness knows they havn't been very effective at marketing their own camears)? How much will they care about non-Japanese sales and support? Will they care about lenses? I'm certain they won't drop the Pentax name (it's better than their own), but we may indeed see Ricoh Pentax.
The best thing Ricoh can do right now is reach out to the Pentax community and expain their plans for the Pentax camera division. They have to assure people the K-mount will continue, and so they are safe to keep purchasing. Second, release a lens-roadmap with an agressive schedule of new releases. That will really bolster confidence in the new ownership and future direction of Pentax. This really could be a great devolpment for all of us Pentax users, and I will say I don't think we could have found a better buyer than Ricoh.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-01-2011, 09:13 AM
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+1 And to your list I would add that most of us would really appreciate more openness from Ricoh toward its customers than we got from Hoya. A mission statement from Ricoh shortly after the deal closes would be very useful. And assuming the deal closes in October as stated in the release, it would be great if we at least got a serious lens roadmap by the end of the year.
Things like this will go a very long way toward boosting confidence on the part of the photo community in general and Pentaxians in particular. And market (and marketplace) confidence is what Ricoh will need a lot of in the first few years of this episode.
In the meantime - and in the absence of additional information - I am prepared to err on the side of optimism. I wish Ricoh and Pentax all the best and I hope they work hard to make me want to remain a Pentaxian.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
06-24-2011, 02:32 PM
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About a year and a half ago, a friend of mine asked me for some camera advise - at first he wanted a DSLR, so I pushed him towards the Canon 1000D and the Kx. At that time, the Canon was selling for PhP 26K pesos and the Pentax for PhP 29K pesos.
But once he saw then in person, he felt both were way too big. So I pushed him towards a point and shoot - a Canon S90 - at that time selling at PhP 17K. He was sort of ok with the size, but he still didn't buy it.
He ended up buying a Nokia N8. It had not been officially released to the local market yet, so he paid for the early adopter import price of PhP 30K. The Nokia N8 was (and still is) the best camera phone to date, but it was still a camera phone. And it was PhP 4K more expensive than the Canon 1000D. (About USD $90 more) And about USD $300 more expensive than the Canon S90.
And yet he purchased the N8 (the poorest IQ, smallest sensor and most expensive of all his choices), and fast forward one year later, he is a very happy man. And he has taken more images than I have with my K7 and M43rds gear.
Just goes to show that for a lot of people, they just want a camera they can take with them everyday, to upload their pics to Facebook. They don't need 10fps, they don't care about Full Frame, and if you hand them a Kr, they'd trade it for a GE or Polaroid Point and Shoot in a heartbeat.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
06-19-2011, 07:11 PM
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Has anyone on this forum experienced a shutter failure of any kind on a PENTAX DSLR camera? Did the camera return any error messages, or did it just fail to take pictures or take bad pictures? How many shutter cycles did the camera have? What happened afterwards? If the camera was repaired, how much did it cost?
--DragonLord
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
06-23-2011, 06:16 AM
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-13-2011, 09:38 PM
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I subscribe to Popular Photography magazine and they talk about Pentax cameras and lenses alot. That is the biggest reason I bought my K-r last month, the review was very good in the magazine and they thought it was a very good camera for the money. They said it rivals the other two big cameras for less money. They also review the Pentax lenses or after market companies that make lenses for Pentax. They loved the K-x also when it came out last year. Pentax doesn't make as many different bodies as Nikon so there is less to look at.
Thanks for your post,
David
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-05-2011, 04:36 PM
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I had the opportunity to photograph with a few cameras from various manufacturers before I plunked down for my first dslr, a Pentax K-x. The camera I had shot with previous to the K-x was a Canon 50D.
The difference in dynamic range and color rendering between the 50D and the K-x was startling. The Canon wasn't even close unless I had it in controlled lighting or the best of outdoor conditions. I got some incredible results out of the 50D, but there was a lot of time and frustration spent in PP to get those results. With the K-x PP is very minimal at least 95% of the time. The 50D did have fantastic resolution; it was just an arduous, and sometimes impossible, task to get that out of the files.
The K-x really is an amazing camera. The only thing I feel it gives up to some of it's more expensive siblings and higher tiered cameras from other manufacturers is dedicated controls.
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Forum: Pentax K-r
03-07-2011, 08:55 PM
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I think you just proved his point my friend. Pity.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
03-13-2011, 01:35 AM
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added attraction
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Forum: Photographic Technique
03-12-2011, 11:07 PM
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Yesterday I did my first paid shoot, accompanying a British Pro who specialises in season as primarily an outdoor sports shooter (golf etc) and year round indoor events (balls, corporate events etc.).
The Photographers
The Pro, his wife & me.
The Equipment
Mobile studio set-up including backdrop (2.6m high x 3m wide and ca. 4m total length), two large softboxes, tripod, wireless triggers, 2 studio lights, assorted stands, clips, cables and tape.
His Equipment - Canon 7D, 50D, 40D. 580 Flash. Main lenses that I saw him use were 10-22 and 50/1.4.
My Equipment - Pentax K5 (K7 as redundancy), 3x8MB 30x and 20x SD cards, IR & cable releases, radio trigger. Lenses used in order of most use : Tamron 17-50/2.8, 43/1.9 Ltd, Sigma 10-20.
All cameras were time synched.
The Set-Up.
The backdrop was set-up not just hanging but in an L shape that clients stood on (see Notes below)
We spent ca. 20-30 mins test shooting for shadows and assessing the best fl to use.
Dual Triggers (redundancy) wired to the lights and to the 7D and to the K5 and 50D (depending on who was shooting - we took 30 mins shifts alternating between the mobile studio and in the main ballroom).
7D was set-up on a tripod (I found this camera quite easy to get used to) with the 10-22 installed. The camera was positioned in portrait format with the lense at 14 degrees. This provided virtually no distortion which was quite evident at wider focal lengths and especially in landscape orientation ( the distortion being an shortening of the body, lengthening of the legs and enlargement of the feet). The 7D once set-up was never moved - this way certain PP effects / crops could easily be applied across a thousand shots at once since the camera settings & lighting were always the same too.
We shot in jpg (on the K5 it was the 10MP setting not the 14MP) - Pro said there was plenty of resolution there for A3 prints even after minor cropping. The main reason for this was PP - far faster & easier processing.
The Camera Settings.
Mobile Studio - The 7D was 1/100, F8 and ISO 125 (if I remember correctly) (Pro said use f8 to f11 to ensure everyone’s face is in focus even if there is up to ca. a foot / 30cms difference front to back) and the K5 1/125, f8 , ISO 125. Distance to the subject(s) around 8-10 feet (2.5 − 3 metres).
Flashes - in the mobile studio : softbox and triggered. Hot-shoe flash outside of the mobile studio : Pro used 580 diffuser and bounce. Unfortunately my Metz 50 af-1 had not arrived in time so I had to make do with the on-board flash and cloth diffuser - which actually worked superbly (the ceilings were too high to bounce off anyway and walls too far away) and I had to dial back the flash to −1.0 for singles/couples and 0 for larger groups.
Ambient light - don’t know what he used as I was shooting in the mobile studio when he was shooting in the main ballroom. For the K5 the Green setting didn’t work well as it slowed the shutter to 1/15 or slower so I mainly shot in manual and of course these settings varied a lot but generally (and depending on the lense in use) : f2.0 - f 4 (soft focus is OK for people portraits) / 1/200 to 1/500 / ISO 800 − 1,600 when by the stage and f2.8 - f7.1 (rarely !) / 1/60 − 1/200 / ISO 2,000-3,200 in the ballroom. The K7 (if I had had need of it) would have been absolutely fine for the mobile studio and stage but could not have coped in the ballroom without a hot-shoe flash. The shots from the K5 were superb at 2,000 but will need a little noise reduction cleaning over that - still more than acceptable for large prints if required.
The Event
St Patrick’s Day Ball in Shanghai at the 5 Star Shangri La Hotel (Pudong) - 800 Attendees and Acts from as far away as the UK.& Ireland.
Photographic Requirements
Mobile studio portraits of singles/ couples and groups - set-up in prominent position (close to the bar) !
‘Street’ style shooting of attendees
Posed groups and individuals in the ballroom
Feature Corporate Logos in shots (these need not necessarily be in focus - but must be recognisable).
Shoot main headline acts
The Lighting Conditions.
Studio - perfectly lit, flash photography.
Walkaround - very low light with multi-coloured lights on the stage changing the lighting conditions from moment to moment.
Stage - typical band/singer performance concert conditions.
Balcony Terrace - extremely low light, background of the river and lights of The Bund & downtown Shanghai.
Notes & Tips from the Pro. (there were lots more - he was brilliant explaining everything to me step by step - so I’ll edit and add to this part as I remember them) !
Constantly check shots (1 second review) for glare from glasses and for closed eyes.
Do not let clients see the shots immediately if they ask - smile and tell them politely that their prints will be delivered in a week and they can go to the website to check / select others for printing. Failing to do this will mean lost clients from those waiting in the queue (and there was a long queue) !
Do not allow amateur photographers to shoot in the mobile studio area as this could activate the softbox flashes.
Shoot from behind the performers out into the crowd to get the ambience - sponsors love these shots.
Go anywhere you want and shoot anything you want unless requested not to by someone senior in authority - push the boundaries except where safety, yours or the performers, are concerned ! Reason - these are the shots that will differentiate you from the good amateurs in the audience.
Hold the camera high above your head to shoot down on the crowd.
Green Setting (the 7D has one too) is often great for lighting conditions that change from moment to moment (with hot-shoe flash, not in ambient light as mentioned above).
Nobody starts off wanting to be a Pro - it comes out of love for photography so although you may not think about being a Pro shooter now, you can easily drift into it if you have the opportunity and time permits.
The Shoot.
We arrived 2 hours before the event started (the Pro had shot the same event last year so knew the set-up and had also checked it again prior to the shoot. We had also met and gone over my camera and lenses and some tips on the Friday).
Mobile Studio - Firstly I had to position and pose my clients (this was new to me but some things are obvious and others I picked up from the Pro). It was easier to shoot 3 or 4 shots of each couple and group shots on the 7D on it's tripod and then hand hold the K5 (on a Chinese copy of a Black Rapid harness) for close-ups or alternative shots. We did this for each person / couple / group.
The Ballroom - walked around and shot street style, also posed groups, couples and individuals that looked interesting from a promotional or just fun standpoint.
The Stage - was allowed very close access - I was literally on my knees just 4-5 feet away from and below them for some shots. I enjoyed this bit the best !
I got to watch the Pro work with the celebrities and (by then rather high-spirited) VIPs from the UK / Ireland at the end, watching how he posed them and his ideas, which was great.
Photos
Will come later ! I am allowed to keep my shots and my SD cards will be returned with all shots intact in about a week- so I’ll post some in a set of series then. In the meantime I had just a few shots left on this 3rd card for which I’ll send him a CD tomorrow, so a couple are shown below. They expect it will take them up to a month to process, print & deliver everything but all the main client photos will be delivered in about in 5 days.
My Observations - Comments (I may also add to this section later too) !
A. This is not a job for the timid or faint-hearted. Luckily I have organized and run close to a hundred corporate golf events and given many many presentations to large groups such as the Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce events so directing people and inter-acting with strangers was not a problem for me.
B. 7D vs K5 - quality-wise there is nothing in it. Both performed as required with no hiccups or blips. I loved the wheel on the 7D to quickly scan though all the photos on the CF card - awesome ! You can search through something like 10 shots a second which is far far faster than pushing the directional buttons on the K5. However for individual photo review the K5 is better because on the 7D there are two buttons to zoom in. zoom out whereas on the K5 one flick of the back wheel has the shoot zoomed in to the magnification you want and one more push takes you bak out again.
C. I was frustrated sometimes that my fingers would catch and spin one of the K5 wheels - changing my settings - there must be a way to lock these in somehow (I can’t use AE-L for every shot). Maybe as a User setting ?
D. Canon’s high end flash locking system is a great idea - no wheel to turn just a simple lever locks the hot-shoe flash into position.
E. I can see myself doing more of this - I enjoyed myself tremendously, although it was very hard work (8.5 hours with no time to sit or eat). Next up the Pro has asked me to do a charity golf event with him in April - so more fun to come !
F. The K5s battery was amazing ... although of course a lot of the mobile studio shots were taken on the 7D all my hand-held ones were taken with the K5. In addition of course all the Ballroom and Stage shots (with and without the pop-up flash) were taken with the K5. When I got home and checked the battery (I was carrying a spare of course) it still read full ! Had i been using a hot-show flash then the battery drain would have been much higher of course.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-28-2011, 06:01 AM
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It was not that long ago I was squeezing inside rock caves, looking up through hollow stumps and crawling around on my belly to take photos with my P & S, the Optio W80. The freedom of that little camera is amazing. I would get home sit back and think, ahhhh, beautiful colourful interesting scene lovely subject good photo.
But I started to compare my images with my partner's. He uses a K20D and various lenses. I became disillusioned and dissatisfied with my own work.
Enter K-x and the kit lens. Good, but still not good enough. Enter new semi-pro lenses of various lengths. Enter post-processing. Okay, getting there. Enter tri-pod.
Have you ever tried to crawl around on your belly or get inside a hollow tree stump for that strange and unusual shot using an expensive camera and lens and an inflexible
metal tripod?
The loss of mobility and acrobatic angles has hamstrung my creative spirit.
But, the big but, now when I process my photos I can see the sharp little fins of a fungi the size of my baby fingernail. I can almost feel the fuzzy surface of lichen. I can see the glint of love in my dog's eyes. When I take that far off landscape with the zoom I can count each needle cluster and branch on the trees, see the creviced iron orange cliffs as if an abstract on the wall in front of me.
That tripod is a pain in the butt though. The forest floor is never even. My neck hurts from trying to get the unusual angle, from working on the composition. It takes ten time longer to take photos. And, I worry all the time about the camera getting damp, something hitting the lens, about tripping and falling while hiking...
I miss the creative freedom of my point and shoot. I love the technical results of this new gear.
Anyone else have a similar rant you'd like to unload? Maybe you can tell me it gets easier, or the journey is worth the effort????? Maybe there are secret means and ways of being exceptionally creative with a stiff metal tripod and lumpy camera with a delicate lens?
(........ the real bummer though........ my photos still don't turn out as technically good as my partner's... maybe his 55 years of experience will always set us apart? :o)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-05-2011, 04:18 PM
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Here are two of my favorite shots i have only had my kx for about 3 weeks so far still need to learn alot more
KX
DA-L 18-55
55MM
1/400sec.
f9.0
KX
DA-L 18-55
18MM
1/400sec.
f7.1
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-01-2011, 11:46 PM
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-08-2011, 09:34 PM
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In my personal experience, photographers, especially professional photographers (or wannabe professionals), can be very elitist about a variety of different things. With the rise of digital photography, I feel that these photographers started to feel their skills were becoming less appreciated, and thus became more apt to point out the flaws of those who aren't as good as they are as a way of separating themselves from the pack. This is part of why I think chimping gets made fun of so viciously, because it's something that professional film photographers who were affected by this transition never needed to do (as they didn't have the option).
On a practical level, though, if you're looking at the back of your camera you're not looking at what is going on right in front of you, and this can lead to you missing shots you might have gotten otherwise. So there is a practical advantage to weening yourself away from looking at the back of your camera too much. It's something I'm still trying to improve on after a couple of years of DSLR use.
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