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Forum: Post Your Photos!
08-29-2011, 09:27 AM
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This is an Argiope Lobata (Loabed Argiope) spider. Female I think. She's made her home in our garden for the last few weeks having spun her web between our fence and our Yuca, so I thought it was about time I took some photo's of her. She's approximately 5-6 cms front to back, side to side, including her legs.
K5 + grip + Sigma EX DG 180mm Macro + AF160FC flash . . . and a torch.
The torch was not strictly necessary because the modelling lights of the flash cast enough light for focussing, until the batteries failed.
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Forum: Photo Critique
08-20-2011, 09:28 AM
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Your picture does have a clear focus point/subject, but it's lost in the rest of the image. It just needs some help.
Sometimes, a little post-processing goes a long way to redeeming an otherwise less than perfect picture, if you can see a picture within the picture.
I've had a play. I hope you don't mind. This took about 2 minutes in Picasa. A crop, sharpened a bit, added the soft focus effect. Job done.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
08-19-2011, 09:00 AM
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You can also just point the camera at a mirror and press the shutter when looking through the viewfinder. You will see the pre-flash in the mirror because the camera's mirror is still down at that point. The main flash which makes the exposure can't be seen because the camera's mirror is up when it fires.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
08-13-2011, 04:25 PM
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If you are new to macro photography, you've made a good start and your kit is capable of truly superb images.
I noted that you used a high ISO (3200), yet the shutter speed was only 1/90th sec.
If you haven't invested in a flash yet, you will need to soon if you have caught the macro 'bug'.
Using a flash will allow you to use slower ISO speeds (100, 200, 400 max) producing less noise, higher shutter speeds for faster moving critters, or smaller apertures to give a greater depth of field (DOF).
Keep trying though, coz when you nail a good image, you'll know that it was all worth it.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
08-12-2011, 02:08 PM
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The flange/lens illustration above is that of a KF mount that was only ever used on one Pentax body, the ME-F, and is not a KAF auto focus mount. AF lenses used on the ME-F had motors etc, inside the lens itself. Pentax AF bodies since the ME-F have had the motor inside the body with a mechanical screw coupling to provide lens motion.
Drawing of the KAF mount from Bojidar Dimitrov's K-Mount web site
Pentax lenses having an F, FA, FAJ, DA, DA* suffix (EG: smc Pentax-F or smc Pentax-FA) are all AF lenses. Pentax lenses having the suffix A, M, or no suffix are manual focus lenses.
Most of the Pentax AF lenses use a screw drive mechanism with the motor in the camera body. The mechanical coupling takes the form of a slotted hole in the lens mount, and a narrow blade in the body mount. Some newer DA & DA* lenses are SDM only and can only be used in MF mode on older bodies.
With no lens fitted to your camera, look at the mount whilst changing the focus switch from AF to MF. You will notice that this pin is retracted in the MF position, and proud of the mount face when in the AF position.
Looking at the lens mount of an AF lens, holding it with it's red dot uppermost (12 o'clock), the slotted hole can be seen at the 8 o'clock position approx.
Finally, if a lens has the letters AF printed somewhere on it, it is likely to be an auto focus lens, but not all AF lenses have AF printed on them. From memory, none of the Pentax lenses are labelled neither AF or Auto Focus.
Hope that helps.
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
08-12-2011, 07:08 AM
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Your camera/flash combination is functioning as expected.
The P in P-TTL means Pre-Flash. You will see this pre-flash in the viewfinder (mirror down), when the main flash fires you will not see it because the mirror is up by that time.
The pre-flash is measured by the metering system in the camera to determine how much flash is required for the scene and uses that calculation when the main flash fires.
Hope that helps.
PS: It's actually a lot more complicated than I have described. Suffice it to say that your camera and flash are working OK.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
08-12-2011, 07:18 AM
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You can do this in Library View in Lightroom.
Select the images you want to convert > Click the Library tab in the menu > click Convert Photo(s) to DNG.
Choose appropriate settings in the dialogue box that appears, including 'Delete Originals after successful conversion'.
You will have to do nothing else, the catalog deals with this change automatically.
I do this on a regular basis, converting .PEF to DNG to save HDD space. It works faultlessly and there is no need to use the standalone converter.
EDIT: I just read that you'd prefer not to "manually pull individual catalogs", so why not have just one catalog. This area of Lightroom has vastly improved in Version 3, negating the need for mutiple catalogs.
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