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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 03-07-2024, 08:27 PM  
Clackers' Beginners Tip 104: The Pentax FA 77 Limited
Posted By clackers
Replies: 13
Views: 1,554
Good morning, everyone. At the weekend, I dropped into a local furniture store. My wife hated my impulse purchase of a revolving chair, but then she sat on it.

Eventually she came round.

Now, I don't like employers putting lots of conditions on their workers. An Indian restaurant I served in years ago was so secretive I had to sign a legal contract that I wouldn't share their flatbread recipe.

It was their standard naan disclosure agreement.

So, I have the Sigma 85mm f1.4 as a quality short tele prime, but it's big and heavy, and not always suited when I do walkaround photography. I often don't feel like loading it into my minimalist bag. Owners of the amazing Pentax DFA* 85mm f1.4 might even get the same feeling.

That's when I use my FA 77 Limited, which ultimately does most of what my Sigma can do, as you can see in the K-1 picture below. Why is it one of the most sought after Pentax lenses?

In the film era of the 90s, famed Pentax lens designer Jun Hirakawa (who would later head Tamron's lens division) was behind a project to make three small but quality primes - known later by some as The Three Princesses. Eccentricity seemed to be part of the philosophy ... the focal lengths were just the start.

The first was 43mm, which he had thought for geometry reasons was ideal for naturalistic street photography. A small production run was made for Leica owners too.

Second was the 77, which he saw as a smaller version of his famous FA*85 f1.4. The last was the larger 31mm, which IIRC others in the company finished, as his original idea of a descendant of his smaller FA28 f2.8 was rejected. It's a lot bigger than the FA35, too, but ... we'll see in a future tip, it's worth it!

The reduced sizes meant design compromises, and with less glass in them he sacrificed maximum aperture and sharpness for contrast and rendering. They're made of anodized aluminium and hand assembled, and have built in lens hoods. Mine is silver, and tends to get a curious second glance by other photographers. The current versions have HD coating (see Beginners Tip 103 for explanation).

If you're looking to spend on a joyful prime, used or new, to upgrade from say, a zoom, this is one to consider - iconic, even - and a fine portrait lens. Nine rounded blades contribute to the beautiful bokeh. With just a 49mm filter size, it's compact enough to even go in a pocket.

To finish with this week, there's the story of a not very bright man named Fred who goes to a doctor.

He says, "Doc, I want to be castrated. "

The doctor says, "Look, I don't know what kind of cult you're into or what your motives are, but I'm not going to do that sort of operation. "

Fred says, "Doc, I just want to be castrated, and I'm a little embarrassed talking about it, but I have $10,000 cash right here. Will you do it? "

The doctor says, "Well, OK, I guess I could make this one exception. I don't understand, but OK. "

He puts Fred to sleep, does the trick, and is waiting at the bedside when Fred wakes up.

"Well, Doc, how'd it go?" Fred asks.

"It went fine, just fine. It's really not too difficult of an operation. As a matter of fact, $10,000 is a lot to pay for such a simple task, and I felt a little guilty about taking that much. So, while I was operating, I also noticed that you had never been circumcised, so I went ahead and did that, too. I think, it's really better for a man to be circumcised, and I hope you don't mind my... "

"CIRCUMCISED! " yells Fred. "THAT'S the word!!!"

Find the rest of the series here: Clackers' Beginners Tips (Collected) - PentaxForums.com

Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 02-20-2024, 03:46 PM  
Poll: Is Pentax about to launch the Film Project Camera? Best of Pentax Forums Feb. 7 poll
Posted By clackers
Replies: 93
Views: 5,234
Yep, anything to do with AI that has money behind it, as ChatGPT suddenly found with their engineers being paid by Microsoft from 2016 onward.
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 02-19-2024, 09:00 PM  
Poll: Is Pentax about to launch the Film Project Camera? Best of Pentax Forums Feb. 7 poll
Posted By clackers
Replies: 93
Views: 5,234
Yeah, and there's a generational thing, too. In the 1980s the 'best and brightest' at Harvard or Yale were doing science and engineering. But is that where the cash is, where the brightest should get stuck? Once Defense Department cutbacks occurred after scrapping the Star Wars project, and factories in the West closed down, rewards lay elsewhere.

From the 90s onwards many ended up instead in the financial sector, and were involved in the convoluted algorithms of 'financial derivatives' that led to the market failures and so-called Great Recession of 2007.

In the last decades they've ended up in IT, working on algorithms to retain user attention on a webpage and to harvest Big Data.

Cameras? Definitely not! :)
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 02-14-2024, 04:23 PM  
Poll: Is Pentax about to launch the Film Project Camera? Best of Pentax Forums Feb. 7 poll
Posted By clackers
Replies: 93
Views: 5,234
The outgoing president spoke about the challenges of being the only player resurrecting a technology.

IIRC, the current engineers examining past drawings thought they could simplify, modify or get rid of various components, but then interviewed their retired predecessors, who laughed at these Gen Y or Z guys. They explained their purposes in a mechanical rather than electronic world. :)
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 02-13-2024, 03:47 PM  
Clackers' Beginners Tip 103: Lens Coatings
Posted By clackers
Replies: 20
Views: 1,654
All of that was super interesting, Photogem - including that Italian magazine editor lying about Pentax technology because he had connections with Fuji!
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 02-12-2024, 03:46 PM  
Clackers' Beginners Tip 103: Lens Coatings
Posted By clackers
Replies: 20
Views: 1,654
I think you're right, Martin, but the movie industry uses T stops a lot as a reference.

Cine lenses are usually advertised for them instead of f-stops.
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 02-08-2024, 09:36 PM  
Clackers' Beginners Tip 103: Lens Coatings
Posted By clackers
Replies: 20
Views: 1,654
Good morning all. It's been eventful, I ate a kids meal at McDonalds today.

His mum got really angry.

In other news, they're building a mirror factory in my town.

I could see myself working there.

This week I want to talk about the different kinds of lens coatings. They are thin layers of material that are applied to the surface of the lens elements to reduce unwanted reflections, flare, ghosting, and chromatic aberrations. They also improve contrast, color rendition, and light transmission. They're some of those letters you see on the name of a lens, and you do pay for them.

Pentax has long been known for high quality lenses with advanced coating technology. In 1971 they launched the SMC (Super Multi Coating) range, that had seven layers of chemical coating vapours deposited in a vacuum chamber to reduce reflections from 4% to 0.2% per surface at a time when competitors were mostly using two or three. IIRC, Zeiss licensed the patents to make its own T range of lens coatings. Zeiss and Pentax were buddies back then. Zeiss helped devise the K mount, and pretty much gave Pentax its own 28mm Distagon as the legendary K28 f2.0 'Hollywood'.

Ghostless Coating (GC) was introduced in 1997 with the FA*43 Limited and is another special coating that is applied to only one or two lens elements in some premium lenses. It was rumoured that the Japanese police wanted automated cameras able to identify car license plates at night that could cope with headlight glare.

Another type of Pentax lens coating was introduced in 2010 with the DA*55, called Aero Bright Coating (ABC). ABC uses nano-particles to create a honeycomb structure that reduces reflections to 0.05% per surface and is found on Star lenses like the DFA*70-200 f2.8.

High Definition Coating (HD) was introduced in 2013 and is an improved version of the original SMC. HD consists of eight layers of material that reduce reflections to 0.1% per surface. It is tougher than Aero Bright Coating, so is good for the exposed front element of a lens like the reissued HD FA35 f2.

SP coating is physical protection, resisting water, grease and abrasion, obviously applied only to the front element.

To finish with, there's the story of Barry, who had been drinking at a pub all night.

The barman finally announced it was closing time. So Barry stood up to leave and fell flat on his face. He tried to stand again ... same result, so he figured he'd crawl outside and get some fresh air and maybe that would sober him up.

Once outside, he stood up and fell over again, so he decided to crawl the four blocks home.

When he arrived at the door he stood up and fell flat on his face. He crawled through the door and into his bedroom. When he reached the bed he tried one more time to stand up. He quickly fell onto the mattress and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

His wife standing over him shouting woke him the next morning. "You've been drinking!"

Putting on an innocent look, he said: "What makes you say that?"

"The pub just called - you left your wheelchair there again."

Find the rest of the series here: Clackers' Beginners Tips (Collected) - PentaxForums.com


(Image from ??? | RICOH IMAGING)

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 01-12-2024, 03:11 AM  
Clackers' Beginners Tip 102: The DA*50-135 Telephoto
Posted By clackers
Replies: 16
Views: 1,456
Good morning all. Very disappointing, I was robbed at the gas station yesterday.

I called the police and they asked if I knew who did it.

I said, yes, it was pump number six.

Things are really not going my way recently.

So getting my drone stuck in the tree wasn't the worst thing that happened to me today. But it's definitely up there.

This week I want to talk about an interesting older lens that might be picked up at a good price because of a fault. It's the DA*50-135, one of my favourite lenses on APS-C. It and its sibling the original DA*16-50 debuted back in 2007 and were the first generation of Pentax lenses to have focus motors inside them instead of through a shaft from the screwdrive motor inside the camera. They were very quiet and smooth, but too small for all the high quality glass inside those lenses - they focused slowly, and tended to fail. A former service tech has said on Facebook that when Ricoh purchased Pentax production line modifications were done to reduce the failure rate, around seven years after its debut.
*
Now, the brand new DA*16-50 uses a very different and quick system, and if the DA*50-135 is similarly updated (clearing of the decks has happened, it is now out of production as Mistral75 reported), may well get the same type of PLM motors.

We need to acknowledge the old lens *was* a Star design. For all the money, they took beautiful pictures, and had great build quality - Tokina even tried selling them to Canon and Nikon owners. With internal focusing, it draws in no air when zooming so the weather sealing is better than say, the DA 55-300 I own. And of course, it's f2.8 at the long end for nice bokeh and darker conditions, versus f6.3 for the 55-300, which can't match in those important departments.

The pic below shows it in its element, lovely rendering of static situations such as portraits, landscapes and still life. For many photographers, that's what they shoot. The 55-300 is obviously better suited for action.

If you do pick one up for a bargain, it may be because those little AF motors failed. But a curiosity is that this is a lens that can be tricked into using your camera's screwdrive to focus instead, which actually speeds it up. Details were in Beginners Tip 25 Converting An SDM Lens To Screwdrive.

To finish with, there's the story of the farmer with five female pigs and, as times were hard, he had determined to take them to the county fair and sell them.

While at the fair, he met another farmer who owned five male pigs. After talking a bit, they decided to mate the pigs and split everything 50/50.

The farmers lived sixty miles away from one another and so they agreed to drive thirty miles and find a field in which to mate their pigs. The first morning, the farmer with the female pigs got up at 5 am, loaded the pigs into the family station wagon, which was the only vehicle they had, and drove the thirty miles.

While the pigs were mating, he asked the other farmer, "How will I know if they are pregnant?"

The other farmer replied, "If they're in the grass grazing in the morning, then they're pregnant. If they're in the mud, then they're not."

The next morning they were rolling in the mud, so he hosed them off, loaded them again into the family station wagon and proceeded to try again. The following morning, MUD again!!!

This continued all week until one morning the farmer was so tired that he couldn't get out of bed. He called to his wife, "Honey, please look outside and tell me if the pigs are in the mud or in the field.

"Neither," reported his wife. "They're in the station wagon and one of them is honking the horn."

Find the rest of the series here: Clackers' Beginners Tips (Collected) - PentaxForums.com

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-19-2023, 03:00 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
Tex has already posted one in this thread, Jonathan, he went the Amazon route. I got one from eBay.
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-18-2023, 04:44 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
Yes, I probably could've got a shot free of reflections dangling from a paraglider with my K-1, Rod.

It might've been good enough to justify my subsequent arrest! :)
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-18-2023, 04:38 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
Already have one of them now *and* the Lexus of such things, the Lenskirt, Tex! :)

See ffking's warning about the vignetting hazard presented by the rubber one.
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-16-2023, 03:04 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
Yeah, I've received now both one of those and the Lenskirt, Mike, they both fold flat, the skirt will better suit someone's full range of lenses (it will actually fit around the diameter of a big lens, instead of just around the camera mount and takes longer lenses too), but the rubber one's cheaper.



Yeah, in future, I will still bring a handkerchief or equivalent. The glass at an aquarium/museum or whatever will often have finger marks on them, and the best places to take a photo will have often been visited by the largest number of kids straight from the cafeteria's greasy food section. :)
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-16-2023, 02:55 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
So, this is from the sky deck at Eureka Tower, Sandy, the city's tallest building. Like the Langham, it's on the south bank of the river, not far away. Staggering distance, both of them, from the casino. :D
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-14-2023, 09:52 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
It's a bit 'Where's Waldo?'. :)
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-14-2023, 07:45 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
If you look underneath the glare spot to the left, you can see the sign on the wall behind me for the toilets - male/female. :D
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 12-14-2023, 07:43 PM  
Beginners Tip 101: Photographing Through Glass
Posted By clackers
Replies: 25
Views: 2,166
Good morning all, yes, we're back with the new monthly format, and it's been a big week. I seem to always get the same eccentric Uber driver in my area, he has all these schemes he dreams up.

He told me, "I wanna start a flight company exclusively for bald people. I'm calling it "Receding Airlines!"

But it wasn't all bad. I was delighted when the kind people at Inland Revenue wrote to me recently, telling me that my tax return was 'outstanding'.

Particularly since I can't even remember sending it in.

This week I want to talk about the challenge of shooting through glass at say a museum exhibit or a wild animal in a zoo, which generate reflections.

For the pic below with my K-1 and Tamron 28-75mm f2.8, I wanted the scene of the Melbourne CBD as evening set in without glare from the well lit bar area behind me. The windows were naturally full of people's reflections.

The idea was to get as close as possible, with the lens hood against the glass, perpendicular, not angled, and a tea towel I had packed draped around it to further seal the light from behind. There is also a polarizing filter on the Tamron, that was rotated until the contrast and colours were at their maximum. The tea towel (you can use a spare T shirt on holiday) can be used to wipe the window in front of the lens first.

The picture is an HDR from three bracketed exposures. You can see there is still, for example, an orange vertical band in the upper right, and a glare area in the upper left corner, so to get more serious in the future I have since bought a 'Lenskirt' flexible hood that will fit most of my lenses, and let me back off, because the hood spreads out and attaches to the glass itself.

To finish with, there's the story of the man seeing his regular medical practitioner.

Guy : Doctor, my girlfriend is pregnant but we always use protection and the rubber never broke. How is it possible?

Doctor : Let me tell you a story: "There was once a hunter who always carried a gun wherever he went. One day he took his umbrella instead of his gun and went out. A lion suddenly jumped in front of him. In order to scare the lion, the hunter used the umbrella like a gun, and shot the lion, then it died!"

Guy : That's crap! Someone else must've shot the lion.

Doctor : Good! You understood the story. Next patient please.

Find the rest of the series here: Clackers' Beginners Tips (Collected) - PentaxForums.com

Forum: General Photography 12-07-2023, 05:17 PM  
Meet fellow Pentaxian Willy Kano
Posted By clackers
Replies: 5
Views: 491
One of our Belgian brothers, who when not snapping pics can also be found woodworking or hiking.


fotografie WillyKano – Let's talk in 'pictures'!
Forum: General Photography 11-29-2023, 08:17 PM  
Poll: Are you asking Santa for Pentax gear for Christmas? The Best of PF Nov 29 Poll
Posted By clackers
Replies: 56
Views: 1,727
Just remember when the relatives are over and say it'd be a good idea if everyone sat down and watched a Christmas movie, grab the remote before 'Home Alone' or 'Love Actually' can be put on ...

... 'Die Hard' for the win! :)

If they beat you to the control, head to the kitchen and see how much brandy's left over. You gotta make it through the evening somehow.
Forum: General Talk 11-19-2023, 04:13 PM  
Norm Head turned 75
Posted By clackers
Replies: 60
Views: 2,285
Many happy returns, Norm - you're a legend!
Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways 11-19-2023, 03:54 PM  
November 2023 Pentax Limited Lens & Software Giveaway: Enter here!
Posted By clackers
Replies: 1,988
Views: 31,003
Sweet, sweet FA43mm Ltd, be mine! :D
Forum: General Talk 11-16-2023, 08:24 PM  
The Joke Thread
Posted By clackers
Replies: 5,865
Views: 490,341
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 11-16-2023, 08:18 PM  
New President of Ricoh Imaging Co. Ltd., Yasutomo Mori, effective Oct/01/2023
Posted By clackers
Replies: 66
Views: 5,000
It's not unknown, Lemono.

Your K-3 III uses CDAF for the Live View autofocus, but the GR III uses on-sensor PDAF AFAIK.
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 11-16-2023, 08:13 PM  
A new Pentax camera at last (or is it?): Pentax WG-90
Posted By clackers
Replies: 161
Views: 10,276
IIRC, it's an Indonesian firm, an OEM or ghost manufacturer, that down the years has made them, and both Pentax and Olympus (the 'Tough' series) sold customized versions of the same things.
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors 11-16-2023, 05:06 PM  
A new Pentax camera at last (or is it?): Pentax WG-90
Posted By clackers
Replies: 161
Views: 10,276
Little sensor found in the old compacts limits it too, not just a zoom lens with its compromises.
Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 11-16-2023, 04:38 PM  
Clackers' Beginners Tip 100: Lighting Portraits From Overhead - Problem Solving Pt 2
Posted By clackers
Replies: 29
Views: 1,414
We've reached 100 of these now, I did think about ending them here, it's a nice number. But instead, I'll move to a new tip every fourth week now, that seems more ... sustainable. :)

Thanks to Sandy and Peter amongst moderators who've updated that complete list of tips each week, too ... unsung heroes, all that!
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