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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
01-17-2022, 01:17 AM
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I remember being at a social event on one occasion, and some pretentious person looked at my camera and asked me whether it was a 'professional' or 'semi-professional' camera. I replied that it depended on who was using it.
I know there's been a bit of an idea floating around for years that if you buy an expensive DSLR or I guess now, MILC, you somehow instantly become a professional.
Someone who really knows the craft of photography could produce amazing images whether they're given a smartphone, a pinhole camera, a DSLR or whatever. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, but used within their capabilities, each can produce pleasing images.
As for post processing, these days, most of mine consists of raw adjustments to tweak the lighting, especially for really contrasty scenes, and dust spot removal if there is any, and noise reduction.
I have Photoshop, and have a reasonable idea of how to use it, but because natural history is a major interest, I need authentic images. Tweaking the colour a bit to be more pleasing I think is acceptable, as different organisms themselves have different levels of colour vision, so saying that the colour has to be exactly as the camera saw it makes no biological sense if I think I saw it differently.
Where Photoshop is interesting, is for storytelling beyond what can be done in camera. I think there are some interesting composite images that are clever that I can appreciate, but using Photoshop to correct for not using the camera properly in the first place seems like a bit of a fail to me.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
10-27-2021, 12:47 PM
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I occasionally use a monopod, if I'm in a blind or will otherwise be shooting from the same spot for a while. I typically turn off the SR when using the monopod, however. The K3III and 150-450 combo work great handheld too. This dipper was in full shade and shot handheld at 1/320 sec. I was nervous about the focus hit rate of a gray bird on gray rocks in low light but was happily surprised by the number of images that turned out in focus from this outing.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
12-31-2021, 10:15 AM
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Just there to be appreciated. :)
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
12-27-2021, 08:03 PM
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Oh, did you want a giraffe too? Mom and baby.
Sorry, KP with DA* 300. My mistake.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
12-27-2021, 08:00 PM
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And a Zebra. A nice day of phtographing the animals.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
12-09-2021, 12:06 AM
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I installed the beta 1.40 firmware (which is only available for Ricoh Imaging Photo ID members at the moment), and the sky was clear. I HAD TO test GPS-less astrotracing aka Astrotracer Type 3!
I set up my tripod in the back yard and quickly shot Orion nebula using DA* 300 at F/5, 25 seconds, ISO 400. Light pollution is terrible here so I used a cheap light pollution filter. First attachment is SOOC jpeg with Astrotracer Type 3 ON. For comparison, the second one is w/o any astrotracing. You can see how nicely the tracking worked, it really felt like magic, it was just a matter of pressing the shutter button and the camera took care of the rest!
When I pressed the shutter button, there was an initial exposure of about 30 sec, and then there was another shutter actuation to take the real picture with specified duration. I tried longer exposure up to 2 minutes but the first exposure was always about 30 sec. Anyway, I assume that the camera doesn't move the sensor for the first exposure, analyzes the star trailing and figures out how much the sensor should be moved/rotated per second.
25 sec was not the limit of the astrotracer, I started with 60 seconds and it worked w/o problem, but I was overexposing and eventually settled on 25 sec. (You can still see that the center of the nebula is overexposed, 30sec or so with ISO 200 would have been better.)
I shot 7 pictures (total of 175 sec) and combined them using Sequator, and did a very quick and dirty PP job in Lightroom, cropped and resized, that's the 3rd attachment.
If I don't have to work tomorrow I'm still shooting (after adjusting the exposure) and the result would have been greater, but this was a huge win for me as the first night of GPS-less Astrotracer!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
12-05-2021, 04:04 AM
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They were without a glass case. I suppose it is protection against the winter elements. Freezing water can split off elements. Likewise the statues in the Zwergelgarten have been protected by wooden boxes. With the glass cases, you can at least see them.
---------- Post added 12-05-2021 at 12:16 PM ----------
Great shot, did you convert to B&W in camera or in PP? It's really encouraging to see that this is possible with the K-3 III.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
12-04-2021, 06:55 PM
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Do you know why the statue is in a glass case.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
09-02-2021, 07:10 AM
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Received the K3iii two days ago. Loving it! I'm steeping up from the original K3. Still early to give it a long term review, but my initial thoughts, :
- everything is better. I've always loved my K3, and have no qualms with it at all. It's a great camera in every respect. The K3iii is dialed up in every direction
- good ergonomics - it feels a lot like my K3, button placement is still great, the learning curve is very low.
- I LOVE THE FOCUS ADJUSTMENT JOYSTICK - I didn't think I'd use it, I thought this was a silly gimmick. Holy wow I was wrong, it's amazing. Incredibly intuitive and I like that you can reset the focus by pushing it in. Insanely useful.
- Focus is awesome. I had the 100mm DFA (non WR) lens on it today, this was a real eye opener, the focus speed is way faster with this long throw lens.
- Higher FPS is cool. I had no qualms with the high drive mode on the K3, but the K3iii is noticeably snappier. Good stuff!
A lot of reviewers feel the need to also balance their reviews with things they wish the camera could do better. I'm not going to do it, I really think it's awesome. It's a flat out great camera!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
06-22-2021, 04:02 AM
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Yeah, I just make one experienced add on this. I have to say that I was one day (yesterday also) shooting and quite a bit actually. With DFA*70-200 + HD TC1.4 and it has some problems to get from shortest focus distance up to infinity/past 2 meters. I suppose that it is because of that TC. As well as it does a bit decrade image quality, but that was expected. If i don't count that MFD-Infinity thing, which I can help just turning focus ring to get it to 'see' what is at there, it is actually very fast. i was chasing dragonflies(managed to follow some and camer actually did follow quite well. Not much to show thou...but i did scare a hare on move and just lifted the camera up and did manage get couple pictures before it went in bushes. What is great is that it was in shadow, there was a lot of branches and what not. It did manage to spot that hare through all that, instantly. Similar thing happened with dragonflies, When I managed to get those suckers in focus or in finder all in all, they were in focus, mostly. AND this is with 'slow focusing' DFA*70-200 + 1.4HDTC.
it seems more or less that it does focus and it does it fast, I have to say that I'm lusting after 55-300 PLM and I don't have any money...but just to see what this thing can do with appropriate lens. All in all I think that I'm quite amazed still and can't help of thinkin that this camera will enable more and more of those 'onetime in life time(which would not be true since there would be more than one)shots. There are many other things coming up my mind too...but I think that there arre even more pleasant things coming up. BTW I did use auto AF for this, as A-21 was/is better in other things. Now I'm beginning to find out which mode to use for which things and I have USER 1-4 reserved with different styles. Going to finetune couple of them with Sf functions(Very handy feature btw.) and cut it to be just 2, and doing the same to get optimum 'portrait' and 'macro' and landscape USER slot. Will save a slot for VIDEO too, as I'v played a round with that also.
Anyway, here is the picture.
 Hare by repaap, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
07-16-2021, 04:07 AM
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Completely opposite to my findings! I also went to a river's delta for some birding in various situations and I can tell you that I was impressed by the results. I will upload pictures in Flickr and then post here as well.
I read what Valeriu wrote and I have no reason not to believe him, but it just wasn't the case when I tried shooting BIF and most times getting from clear skies to busy backgrounds and vice versa. Many times I was shooting birds that were coming towards me or flying parallel to me disappearing behind plantation and then reappearing after a few seconds. In all cases the AF-C performance was excellent (not very good, I mean excellent). When I reviewed pictures after I went back home I was pleasantly surprised that many times I thought I wouldn’t have the bird infocus as I was late to find it in the viewfinder and focus on it, the pictures were spot on! Did I have OOF pictures? Sure I had, mostly in very difficult situations where I couldn’t get any clean shots before the bird disappears behind trees or sometimes due to haze when a bird flew very far away and low over the ground.
I’m telling you I had to try really hard to drop my keepers rate to ~12% that he is claiming he had. Also he speaks about “in good focus”, but I’m talking about perfect focus and I’m very strict to my criteria. I had over 70% of perfect focused images and the rest of 30% were mostly shots that the focus was not perfect but only about 5% were the completely OOF shots where the camera focused on the background. I’m not talking about how much improved is the AF-S focus accuracy as well and how helpful the 12fps in such situations; I’m only referring to BIFs. Most of my pictures were taken in morning and evening light on the DA560 that I had accused of not being the best match for the K-3iii in terms of speed and AF-C performance. I say it once more that I was really impressed with the combo performance and this experience restored my appreciation for my beloved DA 560!
If I had to guess what went wrong with his experience I would say that probably the AF settings were wrong or he doesn’t have been familiar with the K-3iii yet. What left me a bad impression is that all his pictures had the same settings:1/4000, f8 and ISO 640. I use TAV mode and change settings according to my liking and my goals probably every 2-3 minutes or many times within the same set of images…
Anyway one of the reasons I don’t write too much nowadays is that I’m totally satisfied by my new K-3iii and I’m trying to use it on every occasion! I can give you more feedback if someone wants to, but I really find it hard to explain findings like those of Valeriu. Maybe I’m just lucky or a better photographer after all (no offence intended).
Have a great weekend everybody!
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
06-04-2021, 11:47 AM
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I finally received my camera after 25 days of delays due to the pandemic and am enjoying it so far. The autofocus is miles ahead of the KP. So excited to learn all the bells and whistles.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
06-07-2021, 12:36 AM
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I am pretty sure I could never have caught this damselfly in flight among reeds with any other camera I have owned.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
06-07-2021, 09:13 AM
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55-300PLM
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
05-17-2021, 04:22 AM
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Thank you! I missed the chance to get some shots of Red-browed Finches; I was a couple of metres from them and my phone rang. :(
---------- Post added 17-05-21 at 09:26 PM ----------
The EXIF says "close". Any closer and she would have been standing on my boot. Not quite; she had to be two metres away for the lens to focus. :D
Female Superb Fairy-wren by RobGeraghty, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-11-2021, 08:43 PM
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Love, love, love this lens. Handheld at 450mm on a K3. One of thousands I could post.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-03-2021, 01:17 AM
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You have to absolutely try!
Neowise comet
Milky Way, Jupiter and Saturn
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-16-2021, 10:29 PM
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-16-2021, 07:21 AM
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and I focused on my German Shepard Saxon during a L burst
and the three frames showed the tongue extending
she didn't move any other way
[ my EFIX data keeps adding a teleconverter that wasn't being used ]
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-16-2021, 04:40 AM
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Can I just say, after using my K-3 Mark III today for the first time? The viewfinder experience is a revelation. It's absolutely the equal to my K-1 Mark II bodies.
And all the marketing wah about the shutter button? It's true!! Absolute bliss.
Once I wade through all the menus and options, I'm certain this will be a very rewarding camera.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-12-2021, 11:13 PM
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Is quoting yourself the same as talking to yourself?
Not great shots admittedly but given the light etc...
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-12-2021, 07:23 PM
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Ok, none of the camera but you can check the EXIF.
Also got six in focus shots of a Pacific Gull flying directly towards me, with the K3 I 'might' have gotten one.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
04-23-2021, 04:58 PM
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Real men would want a closer MFD.... a 2 meter Tiger shot....
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-29-2021, 06:03 PM
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To be clear..... us Aussies are renown for our foreplay skills...... no rush.... just lots of excitement and delayed gratification....
Anyway.... I'll only start to be concerned if next week they still say they are arriving late April.....
Off course.... I'm not going to call them.... in case they ask me for the final 20% payment.....
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
04-06-2021, 11:39 PM
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JUST TO PUT IT IN CONTEXT.
When I purchased my D*ist with battery grip way back in the long ago (2003) it cost me just on $3000.00 AUD. and a 512mb CF card was a few hundred as well.
The price of this camera does not surprise, nor has it put me off. Roll on 30/4..
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