Forum: Photographic Technique
04-05-2020, 05:42 AM
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-26-2019, 06:21 AM
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Forum: Photographic Technique
05-14-2019, 03:03 AM
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Hello to all Pentaxians that also love aviation photography. I wanted to start such a thread for a long time to share information and photos about aviation photography and never found the time todo so, until now! I could say many things but I have to keep it simple and short (I know I can’t but anyway…) because otherwise it will become a tiresome post. A few things about how I reached to the point I am now first:
I’m into aviation photography since 1992 but back to those days with my (borrowed) Zenit TTL camera and a MTO 11CA, 1000/f10 mirror lens I found in new condition (and still have, but don’t use anymore unfortunately). I was amazed to be able to photograph flying planes and helicopters and actually have many pictures with subjects filling the frame! Until then all my photography was with my dad’s Pentax ME with the M 50/1.7. So my aviation photography consisted of planes in airports that I was allowed to photograph and some efforts of low flying jets that were so tiny in the photos you couldonly say their type from the general shape… :D
My main interest was/is military aviation and my other hobby back then was plastic modeling, which further grew my love for aviation photography. Back to the film era, my try with the Zenit and MTO combo was just to make an archive of the airplanes you could see back in the 90s-00s in the skies where I was living. Anyone who has tried using such a monster in front of a manual camera with a max SS of 1/500 knows what it feels like. That era though taught me a lot about photography and I still believe that the joy of taking a really good photo with all manual equipment and aim/focus is unbeatable and only compares to some extend to the satisfaction of taking an absolute perfect (to your standards) picture with today’s advanced equipment.
After 20 years with this equipment (in fact, at somepoint around 2000, I upgraded to a Zenit 312 and a MTO 1000A 1100/10.5 both bought as new) I decided on 2011 to move to the digital photography. After some research on the www about aviation photography and equipment I ended up to go for the Canon 7D and the 100-400 that most people were using back then! I went to one of the big stores and after one of the salesmen who was also aprofessional photographer convinced me to buy the Nikon D7000 and the Bigma50-500 OS instead! The story behind this buy is quite interesting really, because this was a very serious investment and up to a few weeks before that time I had never seen myself getting so seriously into photography and aviation photography that I loved. The turning point was that the company I was working for ceased and 15 employees were given compensations and lost their jobs. I was very worried and unhappy as the general recession in the country meant it was very difficult to find a new job and to see my future with optimism… Despite this or due to this I decided to go against my fears and invest half of the compensation to buy some serious equipment. That way I would continue doing what I loved back then that I had plenty of free time and hopefully I would avoid falling into melancholy. Thanks God, things went well and I found a new job after 3 months, so everything was OK. ;)
So I began digital photography as a Nikonian! The D7000 was a very nice camera, but somehow it never felt very attractive to me. I understood that later when I bought the K-5! The Bigma is a great telelens and gets you to the pro side of the photography in terms of IQ. It was a joy to use. The jump from manual film photography to the digital era with advanced equipment was huge! It was the first time I felt I could also make images that were approaching those I admired in the aviation magazines and websites. I had still a lot work to do, but I was studying photography and taking seminars with a great photographic team we had back then and also improving my skills in PP again learning next to professional photographers (most of them landscape and portrait oriented).
After a while I thought it was a pity my mirror lenses were staying home without being able to use them for digital photography. After some research and some articles I found on the web I ended up that Pentax cameras is a real option that works for utilizing my MTO lenses again! I knew nothing about Pentax DSLRs apart from seeing some colorful K-50s and a red K-500 in two shops’ windows! I was reading great things about the K-5 and I found a very good deal on EBay (from Japan) but I wanted to be sure before giving my money to Pentax. So this was my first post in here: MTO Lens Question - PentaxForums.com
After the answers I got from the fellow members in here, I decided to buy the K-5 and more or less end my story with photographic equipment as I would be good for anything from 18-55 with the K-5 to 500mm with the D7000 and then be able to play with the mirror lenses on my K-5… How wrongI was!
What I can’t well describe is how much impressed I was with the K-5! What a great camera in every aspect! I really loved everything about it and the images came out with beautiful rendering and IQ. I noticed that I was looking for excuses and situations to take with me the K-5 instead of the D7000! Then I understood that I couldn’t afford or justify supporting 2 systems and I had to choose. Since I liked the Bigma so much the ultimate test would be to buy the same lens in K-mount and compare it to the Nikon combo. Fair test of the same sensors on 2 completely different cameras in the way they feel in hands and operate. The Bigma on my K-5 was another huge step ahead and after 2 months of side by side shooting, everything was so clear to me. I sold my D7000 with all the Nikon lenses I had (the great 35/1.8, a very capable 55-200 I had received as a gift and of course the Bigma) and stayed withPentax.
Next part will be dedicated to aviation photography! :lol: |
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
01-31-2019, 07:02 AM
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Hi,
short sentence: PENTAX, please, putting on the maket revamped lenses is a good idea but please at least with WR and rounded iris, maybe also Quick Shift. Please.
Thank you
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
02-06-2017, 11:25 AM
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That what you get when companies think there are no alternatives.
You might want to look at Photoline (PhotoLine: Image Processing & Design Software) which is small, very fast and even has some advantages over Adobe PS, while at the same time able to run pretty much any third party plugin for PS. Costs 59 EUR once.
The unregistered version runs an unlimited time I think. Extremely powerful once you learned it. I do not expect standard users without specialty requirements ever to miss anything in there versus PS.
And it really doesnt flood your harddrive with gigabytes of crap.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-02-2017, 01:08 AM
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DOF is a relative thing. Personally, when I want shallow DOF for subject isolation, even on APS-C I prefer to stop down to f/3.5 or f/4 to have enough of my subject in focus against a OOF background. But as you say YMMV.
f/4 you say... Trouble is there are no modern best build quality WR fixed aperture f/4 zoom lenses made by Pentax for FF covering the 24-200mm range, nor are there similar f/2 lenses for APS-C covering the 16-135mm range for that matter. If you want that range in two WR fixed aperture zooms, f/2.8 is the only way to go in both formats... So in current practice, you end up comparing those regardless... Perhaps if Pentax would introduce these elusive f/4 zooms, I might reconsider...
Wim
PS: this appears to be my 1000th post. Hurray for me!! :D
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
01-01-2017, 12:07 AM
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The Giants Causeway in Northern Irland. On a foggy Day.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
01-01-2017, 08:13 AM
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-31-2016, 12:16 PM
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Sorry; I have made a mistake and was sent an old photo which something releated with new year, thought...
So, changed now and uploaded another one. (Multiple entries are not allowed, I guess. So please give comments for grey heron.)
Thanks.
Old one |
Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
02-08-2015, 08:30 AM
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Yeah but you know what... the plastic shell of my K10D doesn't show many signs of use (rubber grips aside) and scratches are a lot less visible... maybe the only donwside of using full metal alloy bodies... :)
@Sagala: thanks, mabye I'll give it a try!
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
02-07-2015, 08:36 AM
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Ahh, I am a dill. I had an output Process Recipe with a watermark setup in it. :o
Thanks Sagala
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
01-29-2015, 08:24 AM
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A mirrorless mirror camera. Is it somehow related to Schrodinger's cat? We won't know what it is, until we'll open the box?
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