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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
8 Hours Ago
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Now, this is way more technically advanced - with serious stacking and extreme magnifications - than I have ventured into for my closeup work. For the subjects and looks I'm after, I tend to be perfectly happy with the limited DOF I'm getting. For me, it's more about nailing where the limited DOF should land in the image to make the most sense or to be most engaging. However, for your use scenarios, I can totally understand that you would want to put less strain on your mechanical shutter and have more options.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
13 Hours Ago
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Just found the culprit: my own stupidity, or lack of practice. You can't be in Second-Curtain Sync if you want a shorter sync speed. Which makes sense, considering the flash will fire right before the shutter closes. Once I switch into regular flash sync, the times 1/200 s or longer can be selected, so everything is fine and dandy.
My bad. But thanks for helping anyway, Jens. :)
The one time I used the V860IIIP on my old K-3 for a school event, I came away pretty impressed by the generous reach it affords, by the straightforward operation, the short recycling times, and - utilizing Godox's Round Head Accessories via the S-R1 Adapter - the pleasant, natural-looking light quality I got. Now that I'm confident it will work equally well on my K-3 III, I may end up getting a second Godox unit in the long term, as a backup and for more lighting options.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
15 Hours Ago
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Actually, I did try in X Mode: no change from the 1/100 s set before. Also, I was on mechanical shutter. Hmm, weird. Can't say for sure, though, if the old K-3's fastest syncro 1/180 s was available with the Godox on.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
19 Hours Ago
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Another Observation: Put my V860IIIP on my K-3 III v2.12 for the first time today and shot a couple of test images with the flash in TTL and the camera in TAv mode (Auto ISO).
The flash fired as it should, and I got correct exposures. However, on the K-3 III, I wasn‘t able to select a faster sync speed than 1/100 s, although 1/200 s or longer should be available, without having to set the flash to High Speed Sync (which seems to work). Don‘t recall a similar limitation when sing the flash on my old K-3, where it seemed to work well.
Any ideas what could be going on?
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
2 Days Ago
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Subjectively, a lot of yearning for K1000-style-film-SLR simplicity in this thread and elsewhere online. However, when I switch on my K-3 Mark III, I can't help admiring the cornucopia of possibilities that this machine opens up for me. And the more I use it - as it does come with a considerable learning curve - I also get to appreciate time and time again how much its designers have strived and mostly succeeded in making all these possibilities accessible in a well-built, ergonomic, modern but not legacy-unaware DSLR body that feels like a privilege to use, yet never seems to limit me in where my creativity may take me. Even the menus, while slightly different from my old K-3, retain the basic Pentax logic and feel well thought out.
Yes, it is a sophisticated and fairly complex flagship DSLR, but I wouldn't say that it's overly complicated, at least not to the point where I would feel I couldn't grow with it. And when I decide to go for a flagship model, it's both the durability and the full-featured, cutting-edge imaging power that I'm after. If I'm paying the premium to get that, I don't want a tool that limits me. Rather, I want to decide on my own which options I use when and in what depth. I want to be able to self-impose limitations out of artistic considerations, but not have them dictated to me by the camera.
Can't speak for the photo industry as a whole, but something like the K-3 Mark III doesn't exactly give me the impression that Ricoh has lost its way. These are difficult times for the industry, but I wouldn't still be shooting Pentax if I felt Ricoh wasn't doing one or two things right with the stuff they put out.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
5 Days Ago
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"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, ..." Charles Dickens opened his classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, but to my mind, he could have also talked about the state of photography in 2024. We have these nothing short of awesome tools at our disposal - the cameras, the lenses, the software - and yet large demographics seem to have lost interest in taking the time to really view and appreciate photographs, at least in the way we used to. Even those moments - it must have been in the early 2010s - when at family gatherings people might take turns at summoning their latest photos on a computer monitor for the rest of the family to admire or just look at now feel like a distant memory. And, yes, as with any maturing technology, the giant leaps of innovation are over, advancements have become more incremental, and genuinely new product releases are a mere trickle. This is particularly true for Pentax, which Ricoh has wisely chosen to position as a niche brand catering to discerning photographers who happen to enjoy both the process and the results of photography, rather than committing it to its sure death in the maelstrom of the built-in obsolescence game.
Now, we can fall into despair about all this, or we can have a blast with what we still have, and make the people around us curious what this strange passion might be all about. It may help to signal to the manufacturers that for us as buyers there's more to photography than impressive spec sheets, but otherwise, I'm afraid we will have to carry the fire ourselves in a way. Mostly by quietly showing how much we're still enjoying ourselves, and occasionally sharing what we produce while doing so. The less obtrusive we go about that, the better. No one takes up photography who constantly gets it rubbed in the face what a great hobby photography is and why they're not picking up a real camera to practice it. Just my two bits.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
6 Days Ago
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K-3 Mark III with HD DA40 or HD DA21 attached and maybe one more lens for changing (HD DA70?) - no longer carried in a honking photo backpack, but rather in a low-profile shoulder bag - that's the closest I will get, and I love it. It makes me feel like a photographer, not like someone who just happens to have a camera on them.
That said, I dig the attraction of something as compact yet capable as the GR III or GR IIIx. But even those I would carry in a proper case, rather than stuffing them in a lint-infested pocket, to mitigate the dust problem.
Now, as soon as a photo walk begins and conditions allow, my camera will be out on the neck strap it came with, the lens front cap off, and one hand will be on the camera most of the time.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-13-2024, 03:10 AM
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Wow, this thread with the usual reiterations of dead horses like crop vs. FF, DSLR vs. mirrorless, and "Pentax is doomed unless ..." is already running over 15 pages, and I bet it'll be good for at least another 15.
This must be what the psychologists call repetition compulsion.
(Gently fondles his about-to-be-discontinued K-3 Mark III, with its dead-end crop sensor, a camera that is sadly not as basic and retro as a K1000 and - which, in 2024, is rather aggravating, mind you - dares to feature a mirror and a pentaprism but no flippy screen, and contemplates the spring weather and if he shouldn't just procrastinate and take the said camera out to actually go on a photo walk. Snap, he's back in the room.) :D
Oh, lest I forget. @Rondec: Amen. (#223)
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Forum: Photographic Technique
04-12-2024, 11:15 PM
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Forum: Ricoh GR
04-12-2024, 11:02 PM
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Hm. Sounds like a more than insignificant update to the AF capabilities that somehow few or any reviewers of the new expansion models are talking about. Is it as useful in practice as it appears on paper? Guess, if I had one of the regular GR III models, I would appreciate it.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
04-10-2024, 10:28 AM
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Honestly, I wouldn't recommend a K-3 III as a mere backup or muck-about-with camera. It is a true APS-C flagship DSLR - that's why it's priced the way it is - and it deserves to be appreciated on its own terms, and for its quite remarkable capabilities.
As for the DA21 F3.2 Limited, it was never intended as the last word on corner-to-corner sharpness, although it fares significantly better at that than its DA15 cousin, and the HD version continues to give me beautifully rendered, satisfying images even on the K-3 III.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-10-2024, 09:37 AM
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The K-3 III took a while until it finally saw the light of day, and several years on top of that before I could afford to acquire it. But now that I can actually shoot it, I'm glad that Ricoh took its time to make it as good as it is, and even bothered to refine it further with substantial firmware updates.
So, relax, FF aficionados, your K-1 III is under development, and I trust Ricoh will genuinely try to make it a worthwhile upgrade. Just have a little more patience - you are invested in a niche player - and as long as you don't expect it to have fire-and-forget-like-mirrorless AF, you shouldn't be disappointed.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-04-2024, 01:59 PM
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Doing a quick search at three of the more renowned German specialist online shops didn't exactly leave me desperate that no more new black-model K-3 III's could be bought anytime soon. Two of the three listed it as immediately available, while one stated that it would be "available within 7 to 21 days".
While that doesn't rule out that discontinuation could be imminent, our constant fretting about such things strikes me a bit like another outcrop of the ceaseless and by now a bit tired "Pentax is doomed" theme. Just my two bits, of course. Feel free to indulge in your conjectures. :D
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-01-2024, 12:18 PM
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Totally happy with my standard black version of the K-3 III. Guess I feel a bit about cameras as Henry Ford about his Model T: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black." Even the silver DA Limiteds are looking pretty classy on the black body, in my humble estimation.
Would kinda hate to see the black standard discontinued that soon. But I haven't yet seen conclusive evidence that that is actually the case. So, not particularly fazed.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
03-31-2024, 02:32 AM
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I've left it on so far, as it doesn't bother me, but it's always good if you can deactivate such stuff. Enjoy your K-3 III, it's an amazing photography tool. And Happy Easter to you and everyone in your family! :)
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
03-31-2024, 01:37 AM
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What you're seeing is likely the Eye Sensor in action (switching the monitor backlight off when it's triggered). You can set what the Eye Sensor does in the C4 menu of the camera.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
03-29-2024, 01:29 AM
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What you're seeing at the Test Shooting Range is DxO PhotoLab 7.5 Elite (more image data available via Info button), plus one comparison edit in Digital Camera Utility 5.10.1. I used these on an original DNG from a K-3 III with firmware version 2.12.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-29-2024, 01:16 AM
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Pardon my memory lapses: The digital camera in development I make out to be the K-1 Mark III, or whatever they will choose to name it when it sees the light, but what would be the lenses? (Just for kicks and giggles. I know that everything is tentative, and Ricoh is also capable of the occasional surprise, as demonstrated by the updated 100-mil macro.)
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
03-28-2024, 02:56 PM
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Provided you found someone who would be willing to attempt the fix, it would probably be forbiddingly expensive. Even when it was new, the smc DA 55-300 retailed at about 300 euros. Not a bad affordable telezoom, I used to have one myself, but if I were you, I would either look for a mint-copy HD version, of which there still should be quite a few around, or happily entrust the super-telephoto department to the FA* 300 that you just bought, given that optically it should perform even better than the consumer zooms. Nowadays, I shoot the HD DA 55-300 PLM, which is fast-focussing, compact, and quite capable for what it is, but as a KAF4 lens, that one would be rather limited in its functionality on your K200D.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
03-28-2024, 11:50 AM
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Yep, that's how I see it too: It is the out-of-focus areas and transitions that cause the most problems for the DeepPRIME XD algorithm, with it producing splotches and lines that shouldn't be there. From what I've seen online, the improved Lightroom noise reduction seems to have a bit less of that tendency, while still retaining detail that is actually there. Can't say much about Topaz, given that I have little to no first-hand experience with that (years ago, tried the non-AI version of Denoise on one or two K-7 images). Well, may the competition compel the DxO developers to come up with something just as good or better, as the theory of capitalism would suggest. :D
I guess they will eventually, within the limits of physics and computational imaging.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-28-2024, 07:06 AM
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Well deserved, though much, much earlier. I remember comparing K-7 studio test scene files on DPR with files from the D300, back in the day, when I was drooling over my first Pentax DSLR to buy. :D
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
03-28-2024, 06:51 AM
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None of the samples looks remotely close to what a good-copy DA 55-300 would produce with proper technique.
And when you're also reporting funny noises and resistance on operating the zoom ring, that sounds rather aggravating.
I hate to say it, but my first guess would be someone sold you a cola bottle. Do you have any chance to return it?
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
03-28-2024, 06:31 AM
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Don't know about the official marketing lingo, but in terms of direct DSLR competitors, the Nikon D500 and the Canon D7 Mk. II were certainly understood to be just that by most observers, even if they were released much earlier than the K-3 III. (Sorry, Vincent, it seems you just beat me on that one.)
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
03-28-2024, 06:13 AM
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Now that I've embarked on a quest to learn my new camera and how its files behave in my RAW converter of choice, I have done some informal "tests" on a slightly underexposed DNG from the K-3 III shot at ISO 20000. My preliminary findings seem to be in line with what others have found in similar tests before, namely that DeepPRIME arguably does a more pleasing (or "film-like"?) job in dealing with high-ISO noise than the newer DeepPRIME XD variant. Maybe the latter doesn't play particularly well with what the Accelerator Chip already bakes into the DNG, but that's just a guess of course. Anyway, feel free to draw your own conclusions from what you're seeing. Just thought I'd share:
Test Shooting Range - here: DxO Denoising and the K-3 III |
