Search Results - PentaxForums.com

Hi All,

I thought I'd share a photo I took this weekend with my ebay special. A super tak 75-150mm zoom lens I just picked up. For $55 bucks including shipping I thought it was a pretty good deal. I've also got three other Super taks that I've been using to teach myself manual photography with my new k-50. I love the sharpness and clarity on the super-taks. Unbelievable!

P.S. Love this thread. Keep shooting and sharing.

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 10-30-2013, 09:30 PM

K-50 metering not working well with super-takumar screw mounts
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 14
Views: 2,300

Yes. I am using fixed ISO. Not ISO auto. You definitely want fixed ISO.

Based on testing of my own and others (kozlok, Ole to name a couple) here's the behavior on metering with the K-50 and I'd guess the K-30. The below assumes you've set the aperture ring to enabled and M mode with theTvShift. And if using M42 lenses, or I would think many other older lenses, with the man/auto setting on the lens set to manual:

1.) Camera set in M mode:

A.) live view will meter with green button.

B.) Non live view will not meter with green button. The shutter speed is simply set to an approximate 1/ISO based on fixed ISO setting.

2.) Camera set in Tav, Av, Tv, or scn mode (each of which simply renders only Av mode, based on aperture ring enabled setting, as best I can tell):

A.) With either Live view or no live view the camera meters correctly via the green button. It'll even meter correctly if you extend the built in flash. It'll raise (make faster) the shutter speed accordingly.

3.) Camera set in U1 or U2 mode selected it gets even better :D. Still the camera is in Av mode but now you're a bit closer to fully automatic. i.e:

A.) If the ISO was fixed it will move to ISO auto and you can meter (green button) with or without live view. So in this mode both the ISO and shutter speed change based on the metering. And extending or not extending the built in flash unit will also affect the shutter speed/ISO. with or without live view.

So User modes 1 or 2 would be the way to go unless you're looking to have more manual control over the shutter speed/EV, etc.

So I humbly retract my earlier complaints. I think I see a method to the engineers madness. ;)

Try it and let me know if you find the above to be true.

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 10-30-2013, 08:43 PM

K-50 metering not working well with super-takumar screw mounts
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 14
Views: 2,300

Yep. You're right. Av does work. But I think it should work in Manual mode too. Maybe this is the way the chose to implement it. In Av mode I cannot manually set the shutter speed with the E-dial like I can in M mode. So maybe they figured Manual mode is just that. Entirely manual including no metering. But then why would they make Live view metering work in manual mode? Oh well. At least there are some work-arounds. By the way, thanks Ole for the quick response on this one. Much appreciated.

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 10-30-2013, 08:38 PM

Super Tak Metering Problem
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 30
Views: 5,837

On my K-50 with Av mode instead of M mode, Aperture ring enabled, with M mode set to TvShift, and a fixed ISO, I can get my super taks (m42) to meter. But Ricoh needs to fix the M mode so it will meter when not using Live view.

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 10-30-2013, 08:21 PM

K-50 metering not working well with super-takumar screw mounts
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 14
Views: 2,300

Yes. I'm setting it to manual. I was reading in another thread here people had success with using live view to meter. I tried it and in live view, pressing the green button renders a successful metering and shutter speed. If I then turn off live view, the shutter speed set in live view stays set. Then you can take the picture successfully. There was a post from kozlok. He got with Ricoh and it sounds like they're investigating the issue at least on the K-30. My guess is some software engineer thought this would be a nice "feature." LIve view only metering that is. ;-) Sorry. I test software for a living. I hear, "It works as designed", way too much. The design needs to be fixed. No excuse for this. This K-50 is my first ever Pentax camera. And I didn't expect to see problems like this. Rather disappointing.

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 10-30-2013, 08:10 PM

Super Tak Metering Problem
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 30
Views: 5,837

My K-50 has the same issue with metering using M42 Super Tak lenses. Metering works in Live view but not through the viewfinder. It wouldn't surprise me if Japan's software engineers simply made the choice to implement metering only in live view. I work for a japanese company here in the U.S. I could tell you horror stories about how Japan engineers implement "features." In some cases, their choices are not intuitive.

Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 10-30-2013, 07:50 PM

K-50 metering not working well with super-takumar screw mounts
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 14
Views: 2,300

Hi All,

I'm new to the K-50. So I hope I'm just doing something wrong. But I can't seem to get the K-50 to meter using older Super Takumar screw mount lenses. I've got a 35 mm and 50 mm Super Tak and neither of them meter worth a darn with the K-50. I've followed the guidelines here on the pentax forums as well as the same recommendation on Ricoh's website. But every time I press the green button to meter through the lens, which by the way I've tried it with the lens Auto/man setting set to manual as well as auto. And with the lens set to manual with various aperture settings I can see in the viewfinder more or less light accordingly. Regardless pressing the green button has no affect on the shutter speed setting. And the shutter speed it does select is really fast for the amount of light I know is coming into the lens. I've also tried pointing the camera towards more or less light, and then pressing the green button just to see if the metering alters the shutter speed. Still the shutter speed doesn't change. If i release the green button and then take the picture it's so underexposed the seen is almost completely black. I can barely make out the subject matter. However, I can manually set the shutter speed via the e-dial to what makes sense and it'll take a good picture. Am I expecting too much to have the camera do this for me with the green button? Is there only a limited set of lighting conditions when metering works accurately? Is there a way to calibrate the metering with a specific lens? Or is using the EV button the only option? For the record my ISO is not set to auto when I do this. Also if I look through the viewfinder I don't see the EV meter reflecting any change in exposure when pointing to more or less light either. Should the EV meter change, with the green button depressed, when pointing to/from more or less light?

Forum: Welcomes and Introductions 10-23-2013, 08:16 PM

New guy
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 8
Views: 620

Nice shots of a beautiful country.

Forum: Welcomes and Introductions 10-23-2013, 08:01 PM

Newby
Posted By ssokolich

Replies: 2
Views: 602

Hi All,

I'm a newby to the forum. Glad to be aboard. I've only dabbled in photography. It's one of too many hobbies. I've owned mostly Canon's in the past. I had a Canon SD800 point and shoot most recently that I really liked but it died. So I decided to go with a full-size DSLR this time around. And I got out of the Canon rut and bought me a Pentax K50 kit. I liked the idea of it being weather resistant and being able to use older less expensive lenses, as well as newer lenses. I've only had it a couple of weeks. So I'm still getting used to all of the capabilities. I have the 18-55 SMC DAL and the 50-200 SMC DA lens that came with the kit. It's olive drab with black rubber. I've attached some photos I've taken recently with it.

This is a great site. And the quality of the site was one of the reason's I ended up buying a Pentax camera.

Search took 0.01 seconds | Showing results 1 to 17 of 17

Forum Jump