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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-03-2021, 06:21 PM
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I just wanted to thank @photogem as well for these careful, detailed instructions. I got to learn about aperture block failure a few weeks ago when all my photos of flying snow geese came out incredibly underexposed. The temporary fixes with exercising the aperture I found on the internet would only work for a few minutes for me, than back to black. I just finished installing a white solenoid from eBay and I have my K30 back in the land of the living. Thank you!!!
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Forum: Lens Clubs
09-09-2016, 11:16 PM
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In case it's of any help, I can testify that the Vivitar Series 1 1.4X TC does autofocus reasonably with the Sigma 400/5.6 APO-Tele Macro on my K-30. I still haven't made myself do a test of how it affects IQ - combination of too lazy and don't want to know the answer, if it's not the one I want...
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-01-2016, 05:44 PM
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I realized I hadn't been checking this forum for months and have been catching up and getting impressed at the great shots posted and the usually poor quality of mine. But the too close comment reminded me of this shot from a visit to a park in Portland, OR in April - handheld with Sigma 400mm APO Tele-Macro and 1.4x Vivitar Series 1 TC on my K-30. Just a mallard hen in the water, too close.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
03-06-2015, 09:27 PM
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Looking carefully at photo #2, I'm with you on the coloboma, but I think there is also vertical alignment difference. And it seems the owl can compensate well enough. Interesting! Not to mention some nice pictures.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
03-01-2015, 11:19 AM
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Sorry to hear you live in a low-wrenned district. ;-)
Here's one from last spring - alas, not sharp enough on the head, but I like the motion blur and droplets caught in the air. I think this was when the AF was broken on my Sigma and I was using manual focus with CIF.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-23-2015, 04:32 PM
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I understand that if you tickle them gently under the snout, they open to give you an amazing view of the mouth.
But shoot very quickly...
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-16-2015, 08:09 PM
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Yes, thanks! I do use continuous drive mode on high, except when I screw up. (And I appreciate someone describing their user mode settings a while back - I tried that this time and it helped some.) Maybe I need new hands, not a new lens. I should also check and see if my Sigma needs any focus adjustment set and whether I really do better without the TC to get more light/faster exposures. And I need to try turning off SR when I am using a tripod. But I'm back in MA, imprisoned by snow at present, with windows too dirty to shoot through.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-16-2015, 06:43 PM
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Darn - then I'll just have to keep thinking of how much I'd hate paying for that lens.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-16-2015, 06:10 PM
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Very nice. I have to figure out how to get such sharp shots handheld with my light(er) weight rig. I hate to even think of handholding your lens.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-16-2015, 01:55 PM
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This is not a great photo (also from Merritt Island last week) - it was hiding in dark brush, very hard to get any view, so handheld 400mm+1.4, 1/80 second. But just to prove I am not a sora loser. Rail against me if you will...
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-16-2015, 12:31 PM
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That would be tantamount to lynching, so of coarse knot. No noose is good noose, after all.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-16-2015, 10:13 AM
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Sorry, it was just a bad pun on "baby blues" - little blue heron. Sometimes I'm a little hard of heron. ;-)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-16-2015, 09:40 AM
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Those are beautiful baby blues (tricolored has white on belly/underside of neck, yellow in front of eyes; little blue has purplish head, black beak tip, among other things). I HAVE to learn how to take such sharp photos. Here's one of mine from last week, with the wind ruffling its feathers - if only it had been as sharp as Rockstar's... (This one was handheld, though.)
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-15-2015, 07:19 PM
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Pretty much my all-time favorite place to photograph birds (though I want to go back to Bosque del Apache in the winter now that I have a decent camera and lenses). I ran into a feeding frenzy by a small pool at the side of the Black Point drive a few years back, but last week didn't see concentration like what you saw. I dug up a couple of photos from back then (1-09, it seems), taken with my old K100D Super and Tamron 70-300 (the A17). The first is <300mm, just showing some of the action, but the spoonbills was at 300mm so legit for this forum.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-15-2015, 04:03 PM
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Just curious - Merritt Island NWR or where?
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-14-2015, 11:29 PM
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Thanks! And nice gator. Looks like Florida gators may have less yellow coloration. As with my others from the trip, Sigma 400 APO Tele-Macro + Vivitar 1.4; I think handheld, but am not 100% sure. And, since there haven't been a lot of macro-type photos (I think the coffee bean was the last?), here's a thistle shot I just snapped that I kind of like. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't been so lazy, had used a tripod, and taken a variety of shots. Yes, I was even too lazy to remove the tele-extender, let alone to switch to my Sigma 50mm real macro lens. After all, I was looking at animals.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-14-2015, 04:05 PM
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Thanks. Including another - not very sharp, taken too far away and cropped, but painted buntings are just ridiculously colorful birds and I felt lucky to get 2 in one shot, with one flying. And they are very shy - I was hiding behind a tree probably 30 feet away for a long time. I do have some very close shots through the other side of the window, with sun glaring on the glass/dirt, etc.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-14-2015, 02:45 PM
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I've been amazed at the beautiful shots people have posted here but haven't posted any of my feeble efforts. I've learned a lot just reading what people say about what they do to get sharper shots. I have a K-30 and Sigma 400 f/5.6 APO Tele-macro and have been using a Vivitar Series 1 1.4x TC. I have only a cheapo Proline ball-head tripod, so we're talking amateur hour here. Anyway, I was just visiting for a weekend down in Florida and thought I'd post a few photos. I hope folks like them and would appreciate any suggestions. One thing I've figured out is that my copy of the Sigma, at least, seems to do better stopped down. I didn't do any testing, but the few times I stopped it down gave me my only really sharp photos, even if not up to the incredible standards I see in many here.
Hmmm - I'll have to figure out how to get photos to appear with comments in between. Anyway:
First, a tricolored heron, shot on a tripod at f/9. Then a handheld closeup of a wood stork feeding, also f/9. Lastly a hawk on a fencepost eating what I think is a glass snake - f/5.6, handheld - I saw the hawk on a fencepost, stopped to get a photo and it flew down behind the fence. I walked over to see if I could see what it was doing, assuming I couldn't get any photos through chain link fence, and I ended up flushing it and it flew a few fence posts away. When I got it in view, I saw it was eating and just started snapping. I got a whole series of swallowing down to the last bit of tail. I love Florida for wildlife. (And, yes, there's a sensor dust blob in the sky I haven't removed...)
I did try live view a few times to try to eliminate mirror shake and frequently my camera lost focus; any suggestions there?
Thanks again for the inspiring photos; I hope you like mine.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
01-24-2015, 08:11 PM
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I just peeked at this thread again after a month or two and wasted time I didn't have. ;-) But I haven't seen any responses about the loss of your Sigma 300mm - your earlier post said the AF died. Sigma lenses seem to have a problem with AF gears - plastic ones stropping and, If the APO-Tele Macro, the posts loosening so the brass gears grind instead of turn. There's a great page (in French) on repairing that, as well as a thread on DPreview when a couple of us were dealing with this. If yours is not the APO Tele Macro and the plastic gear is dead, you might still be able to repair by measuring with calipers and ordering a new gear from somewhere like this (no connection and I never used them, but bumped into them before I figured out what was wrong with my 400mm).
I fixed mine (except for somehow messing up the ball detent on the AF/MF switch and then losing the ball on the floor) and had never done this before, so if you're a little handy, maybe you can revive your 300mm. But Sigma is no help, which is a shame since it seems the AF gear problem is common across the line.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
11-15-2014, 07:00 PM
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Ugh - I'm guessing that's the APO Tele-Macro that you were also looking for last fall, but I hope not. If it is and is truly dead, you might pull out the autofocus gear assembly and see if anyone wants to buy it. Mine is fixed with wires but I've been afraid to epoxy things in place in case I mess up.
But I hope the rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated.
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
11-15-2014, 06:51 PM
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That has to be the lens I bought on eBay for $550 last October. I am pretty sure it did come from California (after all, it has a very dark tan ;-) ).
I can say that, despite what Vivitar says, it works with the Vivitar Series 1 1.4x teleconverter, though I have not gotten around to doing any formal tests of IQ and am NOT a pro. It does not increase the focal length reported to the camera, though - still shows up as 400mm, hence the shake reduction may not be quite optimally tuned, but probably not important at that focal length. I've attached a few handheld bird snapshots from last spring taken with the combo (a chipping sparrow, bathing yellow-rumped warbler, and bathing Carolina wren in my back yard). They were not done with a tripod, not cropped, not sharpened or otherwise postprocessed, or anything else. So not to be compared to the amazing shots posted on this site, but they demonstrate that the lens at least works with that TC.
Yikes - I see it's gone up to $300 with 8 days left. Don't people know about ignoring eBay listings and sniping at the very end? Maybe that MF version would pay for a K5iis (but won't someone then have to buy a nice birding lens?).
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
11-15-2014, 11:24 AM
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I don't think honest discussion is hijacking. I did not know there was an MF version of the lens, other than through the apparently common dysfunction of the AF. To be honest, the AF is slower than that on the Sigma 400mm 5.6 (non-APO) I had before and, having had to learn to use CIF before I fixed the AF, I still use it a fair amount of the time with birds. I miss the fast autofocus and smaller size/weight of that lens, but not the CA. I have no clue what an MF version would go for; my AF version was $550 on eBay a year ago, but I suspect would have gone for more if that had not been the buy it now price that I jumped on after agonizing for several minutes (by far my highest cost lens).
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
11-14-2014, 10:14 PM
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The title starts with "Sigma AF" and I don't think there is an MF version of the Tele-Macro (but could be wrong on that). The non-Tele Macro APO lens is MF. The picture also shows the ring with "MF/AF" on it for switching.
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
11-14-2014, 09:26 PM
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Item: Sigma 400mm APO Tele-Macro (77mm). I have NO connection to this (I know nothing about the seller or the lens beyond what the ad says) and I have my own that is NOT for sale, but I just bumped into one for sale on eBay in the US on a 10 day auction so I thought I'd post it since these almost never appear anywhere.
Price: auction (just starting around $200)
URL: Sigma AF 400mm F5 6 APO Tele Macro Lens 77mm Case Fits Pentax | eBay
The autofocus gears on mine "stripped" (really gear posts loosening so traction is lost), as they did for "Yuri" (from NZ, if I remember correctly) who bought one around the same time I did and this seems to be a common Sigma problem, not just for this lens. This has brass, not plastic gears like many of the Sigmas that apparently strip. I did fix mine (at the cost of the ball-detent on the MF/AF ring stopping working and then losing the ball in the carpet) and Yuri got his fixed in a shop. So be aware that could be in your future, but you don't need an unobtainable replacement set of AF gears.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
11-14-2014, 12:22 PM
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This seemed like maybe the most appropriate place for this, but I apologize if I am wrong. I have NO connection to this, as I have my own Sigma 400mm APO Tele-Macro that is not for sale, but I just bumped into one for sale on eBay in the US on a 10 day auction. The autofocus gears on mine "stripped" (really gear posts loosening so traction is lost), as they did for "Yuri" (from NZ, if I remember correctly) who bought one around the same time I did and this seems to be a common Sigma problem, not just for this lens. I did fix mine (at the cost of the ball-detent on the MF/AF ring stopping working and then losing the ball in the carpet) and Yuri got his fixed in a shop. So be aware that could be in your future, but you don't need an unobtainable replacement set of AF gears.
I just thought that if anyone is searching for what seems to be a cult favorite, they might want to know; this is only the 2nd I've seen pop up in the US on eBay in a Pentax mount (I grabbed the first, luckily with a buy it now price). But I know nothing of the seller or the particular lens they are selling. But it does look like I need to lose my day job and post some photos. I loved those kingfisher shots.
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