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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories 03-10-2024, 06:49 PM  
Is there a camera backpack out there that does NOT have a laptop compartment?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 52
Views: 1,611
Anyone interested in this bag should watch the video by the manufacturer, this thing is complicated as hell and you could easily own one without understanding half the features.















You Tube



Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories 03-10-2024, 05:39 PM  
TriLens: does anybody use it?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 31
Views: 3,961
I have a trilens, its called a zoom.
If you need to change that frequently its what you should be using. With just two I cover 24-320mm though the 80-320 could use a better replacement to match the speed and quality of the 24-70 F2.8


Having one zoom on the camera and a second in an individual belt mounted hard case that actually keeps it safe would make much more sense, but I just use a small camera backpack at the moment since I usually don't need constant flip flopping.
You could technically have a bongo set of primes on your belt in individual top opening cases so having three out in the open constantly exposed to dirt and hard objects sounds rather stupid. I can't Imagine keeping all the lens caps and hoods with them that way as well.
Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories 03-10-2024, 11:31 AM  
Thematic Just Trains
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 153
Views: 3,546
Well then, here's one of the bridge in Prescott, WI over the St. Croix river right where it meets the Mississippi.
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 03-09-2024, 10:41 PM  
Ricoh want your feedback
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 182
Views: 9,208
I wouldn't mind a Pentax gopro that had better battery life and controls than a gopro and was good to 30 meters depth at least so I answered those questions thusly.


My question #15 comment was a request for a DFA WR teleconverter and updating the 31/43/77 limiteds to DFA WR bodies since there are already a bazillion lightly used ones out there for the people that still want an aperture ring. That would give them 21,31,43,50,77,85 in high quality modern WR fast primes. Though pathetically lacking in the DFA telephoto primes, it would at least be a good start and the 150-450 will do for now on the long guns though I'd like to see a fast DFA 300 eventually at the very least.

I assume a K-1 III is already in the works so I didn't feel the need to ask for that.
Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories 03-09-2024, 08:35 PM  
Thematic Just Trains
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 153
Views: 3,546
Here is one pic, I can post some others of the passenger cars getting moved later since they are neat to look at if nothing else. This might very well be the last picture taken of 787 and 788 on their wheels together at the depot. Shortly after this an epic moving mess started that took years and eventually left 787 safe at a museum in WA potentially to be restored and 788 at least somewhat saved as a conversion into a cabin in Santa Fe war bonnet colors at KOA campground in La Junta, CO.
Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories 03-09-2024, 06:20 PM  
Thematic Just Trains
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 153
Views: 3,546
Well, after some sorting and cleanup of my picture folder disaster, the folder labeled "trains" has 726 files in it, so I feel obligated to post something more.
Having to resize everything will keep my posting throttled back though. Here's a few different paint jobs to look at. Maybe next time I'll post some pics of when they hoisted the MN Zephyr onto semi trailers to ship it to its new home if people are interested. You don't often see a train fly.
I feel like anything I could post is just more of things people have seen before so I don't know what's worth it.
Forum: Contest Voting 03-09-2024, 02:51 PM  
A400 Up Up and Away
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 34
Views: 170
I would like to nominate this photo
Forum: Pentax Price Watch 03-06-2024, 07:09 PM  
PSA: very rare Pentax Ultra Achromatic Takumar 85mm f/4.5 on ebay...
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 17
Views: 978
I gotta admit I'm rather curious to see how high it goes. Luckily I don't suffer from the hoarding addiction people call "collecting" so I don't have a horse in this race.


You'd have to be on crack to spend $6k on one though, it doesn't matter how rare it is, you could get a whole used medium format kit for that kind of money.
My bet is that people are more practical right now and with such a very narrow range of actual usefulness over the modern 85mm it'll go FAR cheaper than expected.
Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories 03-04-2024, 08:41 PM  
Thematic Just Trains
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 153
Views: 3,546
It's too bad I'm so lazy, I have a number of train photos that I'm too lazy to resize for posting or anything. Here's an odd one for you that I must have posted somewhere at some point since they are already resized. It was strange enough that someone I knew who used to work in track maintenance had never heard of such a thing so maybe I had resized it to send it to him.
Maybe this is what happens when someone who plays with train sets too long gets a job in track maintenance, you forget that you are supposed to assemble them on the ground, not plop down pieces of track and connect them together. I should have looked in the hoppers to see if there was a pile of little rail joiners to go with them. Whatever those are (switches?) they are newly assembled.
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 03-02-2024, 08:13 AM  
FA20 Possible Flare?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 13
Views: 558
If you are trying to post there, you would have to join that group first, I'm not even sure how to do that as I never have bothered. But you should be able to read the many discussions about lenses there, including the thread with people posting lens tests.

As UncleVanya said, the problem of returning your lens, assuming it is working correctly, would be finding a better one. Most lenses that wide have issues.
Even the new and very expensive DFA 21mm has pretty horrible vignetting in the corners unless you stop it way down.


Even the best lenses normally need to be stopped down a little bit for astrophotography or you get light bloom around the stars that make them all colored fuzzy balls.

If you want another way to test your lens on its edges in a city during the daytime and make sure its at least built correctly for a FA20, try this:
How to check how decentered your lens is - phillipreeve.net
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 03-01-2024, 05:47 PM  
FA20 Possible Flare?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 13
Views: 558
Coma normally radiates out from the center of the lens and is worse on the edges.
Even equipment used for astronomy has problems with it and is part of why you often find a field flattener in the optical train behind the telescope before the sensor for people doing astrophotography.

Some coma I think will be unavoidable in any lens meant for photography, but some lenses will be worse than others depending on the optical design.
Before you decide, I would test your lens on a field of stars because the nice pinpoint sources of light will more clearly show you any aberrations over the full field of view. Use a really solid tripod and turn off shake reduction, and use a delay timer or a remote. Just pressing the shutter button is enough to make stars blurry normally. Make it a short exposure so the movement of the stars won't effect it.
Also lenses are always worse wide open, so take several pictures with different apertures to test at what point the quality improves. When I tested camera lenses on stars, they were always big blurry blobs unless I stopped down a bit to a smaller aperture.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 02-28-2024, 07:02 PM  
K-7 vs K20D ?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 29
Views: 1,120
For me a camera is a tool to capture light, the final appearance can be fiddled with in post if I want something like vintage film colors, probably rather easily with a saved preset of adjustments that all your photos would automatically go through with one click. But I have to capture the light as completely and cleanly as possible first.
I don't want to do things like de-noise in post, because that is making up for a lack of correct data by messing it up further. De-noise on a star photo for example becomes "destar."


So when I say "better" I mean the K5 is to me a much more effective tool to capture light under a variety of difficult circumstances.
I think one of the things that attracted me immediately to the K5 on its first use was that I didn't have to thread the needle so perfectly between blown highlights and black shadows. I got spoiled by film cameras where you could compress the hell out of the highlights to get the shadows captured on the film, but you can't do that with digital. With digital I found myself pulling the shadows instead, and even at low ISO the K5 seemed to capture shadow data MUCH better so I was able to do a ton more. The ability to actually USE the high ISO and still get clean photos was amazing since I shot a lot of evenings outdoors and it opened up a ton more aperture and shutter options. There were other improvements like better autofocus that was also nice, though at that time I was still mostly shooting Pentax A lenses from my film years so that wasn't really my primary thing.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 02-27-2024, 06:55 PM  
K-7 vs K20D ?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 29
Views: 1,120
Using a K20D or K7 when you already have one is one thing, paying for one when you have better options cheaply available is another. If the images it produces are something magical to you then so be it.

I started on digital with a K20D and used it for several years with my film lenses, I think I actually took more photos with it than any other model I've used. But then I got a used K-5 and after one evening trying it out in difficult lighting I gave the K20D with an 18-55 kit lens to a friend for free.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 02-26-2024, 08:16 PM  
K-7 vs K20D ?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 29
Views: 1,120
It'll insult a lot of people, but there was such a massive improvement in the performance of the K-5, mainly in its ability to actually use high ISO without it looking like 800 speed film, that I consider anything before that literally a throw away body.
You could get a K-5 so incredibly cheap that even budget wouldn't be a reason to go older.

It's not like film cameras where you could take masterful photos with a K1000, there are honestly crippling limitations to older DSLR's. Once you reach a certain point with the newer stuff the gap closes and you could take just as good a photo with any of the last few models, but the early stuff really is outdated.
Forum: General Photography 02-24-2024, 03:35 PM  
It's good digital photography is a low upkeep cost hobby I guess.
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 23
Views: 2,022
Without bothering to get into detail, due to circumstances outside of my control I now find myself VERY much in debt and having to sell off many of my favorite hobbies entirely.
I almost was going to sell my camera stuff but then I realized something.
Photography is cheap.

I sold off all my film stuff years ago because it WASN'T cheap to use and required you to keep up with it regularly so stuff didn't expire.
I used to shoot digital almost every day and often all day on weekends, but then I sorta lost interest and stopped entirely. Mostly due to life giving me no time for anything and other hobbies cutting into that time. Which was sorta ironic since I had waited more than a decade for Pentax to release a FF DSLR and I had finally bought one (when the last of the K-1 were clearanced out) with a good zoom as well.
Another irony is not long ago before I got hit with the debt I just happened to pick up the camera which still only has a shutter count of 170 after having it for years and discovered the playback button didn't work despite never having been abused. $500 later I had it fixed and back in hand.

But now I'm glad I did fix it and I kept that stuff because now most of the other hobbies are being liquidated, but there's my Pentax, ready to play.

I would love to have a better zoom for long range (see signature), but I make due with the one I have and just use care in avoiding water since its a non WR lens.
But really I have everything I need for a hobby that costs me nothing to do at a time when that's right in my price range.


I'm glad I bought a good body and really good short zoom back when I did have money, but if a person were poor they could get an old K-5II or later and an 18-135 lens and do some really amazing photo work without feeling short changed by the gear. When you are poor, digital photography becomes the perfect hobby to have.

I managed to find $20 to support the site as well since after years of barely checking in, I think I'll be around a bit more often now.
Forum: Pentax Price Watch 02-15-2024, 06:50 PM  
$2,716.66 Swarovski K-m
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 38
Views: 1,574
I could hand an eight year old girl a bag of rhinestones off ebay, some super glue and a crappy old k-m and get the same result for under $100.
This is gaudy crap by any standard.
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 01-24-2024, 06:54 PM  
Playback button does nothing.
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 5
Views: 527
I verified that I can get into the pictures by some other option buried in the menus. I think it was slideshow or something. The pictures also still show up normally right after taking them for the temporary time limit i set.
I even pulled the card and tried it in the other slot, then tried it in a USB card reader in my computer which showed it working normally with the pictures I took accessible on it.

When I mean the playback button does nothing I mean nothing. Not in any mode.
Camera is already on its way to precision for repair.

EDIT: Not worth another post, but $500+ later they fixed the bad button on the back and I have it back now. Kinda annoyed with Pentax for this one.
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 01-21-2024, 05:09 PM  
Playback button does nothing.
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 5
Views: 527
I tried the reset. I think the button is just dead.
I'll probably have to piss away the $500 to send it in because its nearly worthless broken and I would get the money back out of it even if I sold it immediately after.
Maybe my disappointment will have calmed down by then and I'll want to shoot photos more.
There is no excuse for a basically new flagship camera that was exclusively used and stored with brand name WR lenses (so no moisture or dirt intrusion) and never banged around to have this sort of failure. I've had film cameras and even my K20D and K5 get the crap beaten out of them and still work fine. The K20D even went down on concrete so hard it wrecked a lens and cracked its casing and it still worked perfect.
I actually read about a few other people that had the same problem with fairly new units, so there may have been a very limited number of defective new parts at some point that just don't hold up.
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II 01-21-2024, 01:53 PM  
Playback button does nothing.
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 5
Views: 527
I went to use my K-1 after a long break from photography and found it has a dead playback button. I've barely used this thing since I essentially quit photography after trading up to it from my K5 so its a little disappointing. Shutter count is only 170.

I don't actually recall if it worked correctly before because I remember thinking I needed to find the option to make it review pictures like my K5 in a settings menu or something and never figured out how, that's how little it got used.

Either way, is there a short list of troubleshooting steps I can try to see if I did something stupid like somehow reassign the button or maybe I'm just in the wrong mode for playback?
I've basically forgotten how to use the camera despite having used the K5 every day for years and the book isn't giving me any good ideas.
I feel like its impossible that something that has never been wet, banged around or stored in bad conditions could have such a stupid issue so I'm hoping its user error here.


If it really needs to get sent in for repair what do you think I should ask for it broken this way? I don't have the stomach to bother with the hassle of fixing it for something I never use anymore anyways.
Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals 02-19-2023, 08:18 PM  
Are used camera and lens prices falling faster than we realize?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 73
Views: 5,870
I won't sell my K-1, but if I didn't have it I wouldn't even consider buying a camera at all. Maybe I'll pick up a decent fast telephoto to go with my good short zoom just in case I get back into it.
As ridiculous as it sounds I don't even know what lenses I have. Ive been using Pentax cameras since the film era and I used to be able to list in detail a dozen or more different lenses I owned.
Maybe It'll say in my signature or something. I don't remember that either because I'm not sure I even post once a year on here anymore and I used to be on several times a day.

I can't even tell you the last time I took a picture using any more than my phone. Otherwise its all video now and I have a gopro for that.
If things are cheap its because so few people are doing it anymore. I'm glad I dumped so much of my good stuff and just kept the K-1 with the two lenses (actually I may have a few other good film era ones left too.)
EDIT: Oh hey, accord to my signature I kept my 35-105 F3.5 because it was my favorite Pentax lens ever and I still use it in a macro config with my A equipped extension tube thingy.
Nother edit: looks like the 70-210 F4 finally came out as a D FA. I loved my old A series slide trombone with a FF film body. Maybe I'll pick that up used at some point soon.
Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways 10-01-2019, 10:01 PM  
PentaxForums 100 Year Giveaway - October - General Raffle Entry Thread
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 458
Views: 19,388
Sign me up too.
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 10-01-2019, 09:53 PM  
New zoom 70-200 F4
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 1,185
Views: 114,057
How in the hell did this too often repeated topic invade a thread about the lens that I have been waiting far too long to see released? (Honestly Pentax I could have saved up for the damn F2.8 version by now.)

But since I've already stepped in the poop:

I have a mirrorless camera, its called a phone. They get better every year and fit in a pocket, why would anyone buy one the size of a brick?. A camera phone photo now a days is good enough to be usable on a website or even in a news story taken by some passer by (and often they are). They even have surprisingly decent video and sound pickup.
I would be worried that with the newest stuff like apples 3 lens cameras with actual optical zoom that it will begin to eat into APSC sales the same way they already erased little point and shoot digital cameras.

I have seriously considered whether in the future I will replace my Pentax FF with a Gopro or something the same way the FF replaced the last of my film stuff and my apsc camera in one swoop. I have far more use for a video camera for my kids and while scuba diving than a very very clunky still camera and lens that requires far more knowledge and skill on my part to get photos better than what my phone does with a single monkey paw button press.
I could see even more of the news and tabloid photographers switching to small high end video setups and just plucking choice frames out when stills are needed, never miss that one chance moment that way.

Dedicated still picture cameras are becoming more and more an art form than a practical thing. Its already at that point for me, I do it for fun when I have time.

The question is what will a mainly still camera be used for in another 10 years and what other technologies will cut into that, I would be curious to hear the views of Pentax on that topic.

But enough trailing off topic, when is my new lens coming out?
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 10-01-2019, 09:23 PM  
Are we really THAT rare?
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 7,240
Views: 984,999
I just made a new Pentaxian by selling my K1000 and lenses and stuff to a person getting into film photography.
Go out and make one yourself.
Forum: General Photography 10-01-2019, 08:16 PM  
$100 Charge To Photograph A Single Cow!
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 64
Views: 3,647
This may be a rural culture specific issue in this case.
As one who lives in rural Wisconsin I can tell you that the vast majority of people here, especially the farmers or more rural folk are ridiculously suspicious of anyone they don't know.
Where I grew up my graduating class had as many people as all the people at the local high school put together so they get used to knowing everybody here. I personally hate knowing everybody because they are always in your business and you are obligated to speak to them and inquire how their exciting country life is going when you see them or you are being rude and are shunned at the next county fair or 4H gathering.

I get along well with everybody but have absolutely nothing nice to say about them, I will just leave it at that.
Forum: Photo Critique 10-01-2019, 07:22 PM  
Nature Bird and bokeh
Posted By PPPPPP42
Replies: 8
Views: 670
I hope you don't mind me meddling with your image but I found it impossible to explain where I though it should be cropped.
I felt that the bokeh looked kinda like blobs of paint spilled onto a photo before but like this it appears as more of a background and highlights the in focus branches and bird better.
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