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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-31-2023, 08:55 AM
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Wow - looks like a Turner painting!
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
12-08-2023, 04:56 AM
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And helps the case for the K3 III as well! Nice high ISO quality. And nice job getting out there and finding a Hooded Merganser (did I get that right?). Beautiful bird.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-21-2023, 04:56 PM
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-18-2023, 05:42 AM
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ISO 800-3200. Just wanted to share some experiences as a novice birder with this kit. I appreciate the high quality in terms of lack of aberrations in backlit situations. The SR is good to have in those rare cases that you have high confidence that the bird is still... VR might be more appreciated. Zoom is also rarely appreciated for me, as I don't work alone and scanning for a bird's location after hearing it and glancing at the Merlin app is sometimes done by my wife with her good binoculars, or myself with the little dinky ones, or just the naked eye. If you zoom out to scan, you are already in a situation of hunting for a really active bird, and rarely have time to zoom in once you find it. So a bright, long prime would be more appreciated; If I had something longer, I'd want zoom more, but at this max focal length I'm not interested in zooming out. More ISO never hurts.
I'm listing above a lot of the limitations - when I focus on kit, that's what I think about - know your limits and you know how to push to them.
That said, it's a ton of fun. And I have many satisfying shots. I'm using over a hundred of the favourite ones as a TV screensaver right now, and would sometimes rather watch that than anything that's on TV.
Attaching here some interesting ones that are all considered keepers, but not my luckiest or best shots - it's meant to present a realistic idea of what you could get with this kit as a novice. And as a birder, I appreciate every single shot that I can use to ID the bird.
As soon as you start using the Merlin app to listen, you enter a world where interesting birds are all around you but you can't see them :) You then get hooked on the game of finding and appreciating them.
The following are all at full zoom and shown uncropped (image downsized per forum requirements). Finally, a confession - I don't use a hood most of the time. Maybe it would have improved the thrush photo below?
Northern Parula, Point Pelee, Ontario
f/8, 1/1250s, ISO 3200
Swainson's Thrush, Markham, Ontario
f/16, 1/1600s, ISO 1600
Rose-breased Grosbeak (female), Point Pelee
f/8, 1/1250s, ISO 800
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
11-18-2023, 04:56 AM
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Prothonotary Warbler, and a quite accommodating one at that, so the lack of sharpness is a fault of my inexperience in combination with the tools - it's an image that reminds me that it's hard! But as Tom Hanks' character says in A League of Their Own, "If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it" (not necessarily a good advertisement for something, just a call for acceptance to someone who loves what they're doing).
Prothonotary Warbler Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
I find birds with the help of the listening app called Merlin, from Cornell University, and working as a team with my wife (I use the camera, she uses the binoculars). But in the case of the one above, we were on a guided walk with an expert birder.
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
11-18-2023, 04:49 AM
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Thanks for motivating me to catch up on here a bit.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
11-18-2023, 04:46 AM
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Would a computer with Ubuntu be better?
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised - to equal the performance in tonal gradations of a FF sensor in an APS-C sensor would seem to be enough to justify the product. It certainly seems hard to find test chart comparisons these days, for Pentax at least. I like test charts - I think they teach you things you wouldn't otherwise learn without shooting thousands of normal shots.
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Forum: Repairs and Warranty Service
11-17-2023, 04:45 PM
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-17-2023, 04:42 PM
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Great view!
I saw one fly by my window the other day.
An elegant species.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-17-2023, 01:37 PM
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Thanks! Yes, I hope it looks like a natural underwater scene and a good habitat for fish and shrimp. This is the trend in aquascaping the last few years and part of what drew me to it.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-17-2023, 05:28 AM
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Let's see your aquascaping photos! You could say they belong under Still Life, Nature, Architecture, etc, all at the same time...
These are photos of my own aquascape - as such, I'm responsible for the lighting, the plant growth, the trimming, arrangement of rocks and stones, etc. The closer you get to the glass, the more you must be perpendicular to it, if you want to avoid its distortion. And light from above reflects from each side of the glass back into the aquarium (depending on the angle). There are so many interesting challenges when it comes to aquascaping photography!
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
11-17-2023, 05:15 AM
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So far in my experience birding with a 55-300 plus 1.4x TC, I could almost always desire both more focal length and speed. We spend a lot of time looking for things like warblers. We get a lot of backlit situations. And we get lots of dimly lit situations even on bright days, as these little birds are sneaky. The idea of renting a lens hadn't occurred to me since I started this, but now, I'm thinking about it. There are those 2 or three big weekends in the year where it would really pay off.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-17-2023, 05:05 AM
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Gives me the feeling of a street photo, somehow. Do you agree, and if so, was that conscious or unconscious?
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-17-2023, 05:02 AM
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Impressive! How close were you?
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
11-17-2023, 05:00 AM
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Welcome! Birding is a challenge. :)
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-17-2023, 04:49 AM
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Very cool. How deep was the water? And were you standing in it?
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Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
03-23-2022, 05:10 AM
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A shallow beach, where it looks like the lake ice expansion pushed the sand up into a barrier. It's still early in spring, and I expect this barrier will stay until enough ice is clear and until there are strong enough winds to create waves to break down the barrier. The Canada Geese are probably used to it. Besides, they can just fly over :) It's the kind of sun we don't feel like this in the winter: heat from the land.
Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario (named for the large dunes, not shown)
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
03-05-2022, 05:48 PM
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Thanks for the comment! Mostly human and dog tracks there I think in this image. The scale is a bit lost - it's interesting to see how others see it.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
03-04-2022, 08:47 PM
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Thinking of the thousands seeking refuge
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
02-26-2022, 06:48 AM
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Great use of telephoto to cross boundaries (the cold). Enjoyed those cheerful shots!
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
01-28-2022, 04:10 AM
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I really like this one. The eye is lead gracefully around the frame, is rewarded. Thanks for posting.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
06-10-2016, 12:41 PM
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-27-2016, 12:04 PM
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Anyone want to go and update this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentax_cameras
Currently it says only this about the K-1:
"In early 2015, Ricoh announced development of a Pentax full-frame DSLR for release later in the year, and at the CP+ show in Yokohama Japan, a mockup was displayed that suggested the camera's potential specifications, including: an IR port for remote release, an anti-aliasing filter simulation mode, and an articulating rear LCD.[29]"
I think it deserves a little photo and some words about actual release :)
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-22-2016, 11:47 AM
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Agreed. In fact, it helps give confidence that the lenses will be good. The Tamron 15-30 gets great reviews.
Yep, taking pictures while running will be more difficult than with the other options you mentioned.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-22-2016, 11:39 AM
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I assume it's related to the fact that optical vignetting is more pronounced at the wider aperture settings.
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