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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-02-2016, 12:35 PM
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Pixel shift x2 exposures of Smith Rock OR. The available detail in shadows was awesome. Not really any motion here though I did have MC on (processed in DCU) in case.
 Straight and Crooked by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
Pixel shift of Bridal Veil falls OR. This definitely had motion in both leaves and water and DCU appears to have dealt with this pretty well. I have another of Oneonta Gorge which had quite a few artifacts I had to try to clean up by hand, so leaves are still a bit hit-and-miss. Deals with waterfalls pretty well. Leaves against a brighter background seem to be more problematic than leaves against darker background. It may simply be that the artifacting (which is generally only a few pixels) is more visible there.
 Long Time Coming by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
These shots are both intentionally somewhat dark (for different reasons), but if I'd wanted to I could've brightened them up quite a bit with little noise and no loss of detail.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
01-18-2017, 03:13 PM
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RawTherapee processing looks nice! I might have to try this.
---------- Post added 01-18-17 at 05:29 PM ----------
Another pixel shift. this time with HD DFA 15-30mm. processed only in Lightroom (no PDCU).
Coal Mine Canyon Arizona. 1/180s, F14, ISO100.
Can you see the light? by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-16-2016, 06:50 AM
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One from Steptoe Butte in Palouse (washington state). I took both PS and non-PS shots here, and the PS shows a dramatic difference here in dynamic range, the foreground was pretty dark so there is still noticeable noise from lightening the shadows. But I have to say I absolutely love the quality of the noise flecks in the K-1, they are more fine-grained and so not as distracting to the eye and more like film grain (as others have noted already). This is the pixel shift version:
 Dawn's Early Light by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
01-12-2017, 06:07 PM
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An amazing early morning shoot of lava fields at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, shot from a helicopter at a height of probably 20-25 feet. One of the coolest experiences of my life.
Link to original size (with different watermark placement): Lava Creatures: The Claw (Flickr)
I incorrectly entered the lens as 150-450. It was actually taken with D FA Pentax 24-70 (I had 2 bodies with me, one with the long lens and one with the shorter).
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
11-30-2016, 02:53 PM
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K-1 and Pentax 24-70 f2.8 @70mm.
Pixel shift with 2 exposures merged. Lunenburg NS Canada.
WIshed I'd had the 70-200 to reach further over the seaweed in the foreground. Oh well. Pretty happy with IQ from the 24-70 with PS.
Maritime Adventures by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
03-06-2016, 07:48 AM
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 Black Light by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
Used pixel shift and multiple exposures for this one to try to get enough detail on the shadowy "painted" wall. I messed up on the very top of the frame (tried using a reverse GND filter but I caught too much of the top of the canyon walls with the dark filter band), but this is still one of my personal favorites because it was an extremely hard shot to make. Made me a believer in pixel shift with the right circumstances.
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Forum: Lens Sample Photo Archive
05-01-2016, 07:22 AM
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Pentax 12-24 on K3ii with pixel shift. Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge park.
And Mesa Arch in in Canyonlands NP Arizona. What I love about this lens is a) versatility and b) it handles direct light very well. While it doesn't have the prettiest of starburst patterns. It is certainly the best lens I've used for capturing sunburst from direct sun. This one took a little cleanup in photoshop to remove a few lens reflection artifacts but not much. I also tried the Sigma 18-35 F1.8 Art here and that couldn't handle the sun, massive flares and an unusable image. I believe this shot also had PS turned on but can't remember.
[source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/skymatthews/] |
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
06-12-2016, 11:34 AM
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Multnomah falls with Pentax 24-70mm and B&W polarizer with Pixelshift on.
I don't have a lot of experience shooting waterfalls and Multnomah is surprisingly hard to shoot - just doesn't come across in my photos as impressive as IRL.
Thought this would be a tough test for pixel shift, long exposure (3 sec) with a lot of moving foliage. I think it passed with flying colors. There is obviously some leaf blur (as one would expect), but I can't see any artifacts, the water blur is smooth and the detail is great (my opinion).
Very little editing except to crop and up shadows a touch and photoshopping people off the bridge.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
08-21-2017, 06:51 PM
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Some great stuff here. I really wasn't expecting to get much, first time trying this sort of thing. I was happy just to not fry my camera :o. Used a 10 Stop, 6 Stop and a polarizer with K1 and 60-250. Here in Raleigh we got to about 93% coverage I think. This was a little before max, but I like the sunspots here. Loved being able to use the Image Sync App on iPad to watch the Eclipse, show the kids, and control the camera. Worked like a charm.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
10-04-2016, 02:29 PM
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That's really cool, love the ghosting.
---------- Post added 10-04-16 at 05:39 PM ----------
Pixel Shift in Oneonta Gorge OR. D FA 24-70 with B+W circular polarizer filter. Surprisingly DCU handled some of the movement artifacts here very well. Other scenes I shot with waterfalls and leaves out there required some hand editing. I did find a few hot pixels (random pixels of red, blue, etc.) scattered around. There may be a few still hanging out in there...
 Wordless by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Photo Critique
01-14-2017, 12:51 PM
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Nicely done! I was there also at beginning of January in similar conditions. Whole area was covered in cloud except for a brief window near sunset. I used the 15-30 and I like your shot with the Sigma better because you managed to get quite a bit more of the sky in the frame. Nice color and terrific detail.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
01-14-2017, 12:46 PM
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+1. esp. shooting landscape with any sun or bright lights. I underexpose 1/2 to 1 EV typically. With pixel shift you can push it even more (i'll go to -2 ev in pixel shift without worrying too much).
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
01-01-2017, 01:31 PM
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Picked up the 70-200 just 6 days before it finally goes on sale at B&H ;)
But I had a horse show to shoot and in an indoor poorly lit arena. I was wondering whether this lens would really be worth the $, and I can now say it absolutely delivered. Required a slight focus adjust (+2) out of the box, but AF seems very fast and accurate with this combo, it doesn't hunt much at all even in poor light.
Here's a sample of a shot at 6400 ISO and F3.2 at 1/800s. Never thought I'd get usable shots at 6400ISO! This is with just a little NR applied in Lightroom.
 raleigh winter A dec 2016-164 by skymatthews, on Flickr
[Note that for equestrian photographer purposes this is not a good enough shot, as the horses legs are not even so not good enough for the missus, but photographically I like it anyway]
The 70-200 also doubles as my new portrait lens:
raleigh winter A dec 2016-114 by skymatthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
12-06-2016, 09:12 AM
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Sometimes Pixel Shift artifacts can be cool. Use PS to make your own northern lights!! Just for fun...
Peggy's Cove Lighthouse, Nova Scotia. With some PS special effects courtesy of Pentax and Adobe Lightroom :p
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-25-2016, 03:48 PM
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Fully agree with this. I don't have the K-1 grip [yet]. I have a grip for the K-3 which I think I've used maybe twice. However, this weekend I was shooting with the K-1 and 150-450. The K-1 felt awkward with this lens, my pinky has nowhere to rest and the camera seemed small compared to the lens.
If you plan to shoot with one of "the beasts", the 70-200 or 150-450, definitely consider getting the grip.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
08-29-2016, 12:05 PM
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This has not been my experience. I find PixelShift now works quite well for images with small amounts of movement. If you are doing LE, most of the water will be blurred smooth anyway so the differences between 1 image and the next in a PS shot will be very small and DCU seems to be reasonably good at removing those artifacts. Even moving leaves it seems to handle fairly well (though not perfectly).
Here's an image from Oneonta Gorge which I thought would stretch PS processing to its breaking point given the combination of moving water and foliage that is definitely not still (the waterfall here generates a fair bit of wind push down the gorge). This was processed in DCU just to push a TIFF with PS(MC) turned on to work with in LR, I did turn on some of the lens corrections in DCU but otherwise no changes in DCU. Plenty of tweaking (esp bringing up shadows) in LR after (I probably overdid some vibrancy though colors in the gorge are pretty rich anyway). I have peeped all over this to try to find artifacts. Someone else may be able to find some but if so they aren't very noticeable (IMO). There is still plenty of pixel shift value-add even after MC does its work. I did have issues with artifacts still in foliage with some other waterfall shots I tried and still had to to put in some manual effort to go clone those out. Seems particularly stressed by high contrast (leaves moving against a brighter sky). But I would say for the most part DCU deals with movement in waterfall scenes quite well (much better than I expected).
Taken with a K-1, not a K-3ii, but I don't think that should make any difference to the pixel shift processing now.
 Wordless by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
08-27-2016, 05:42 AM
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That's an awesome action shot! well done.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
08-19-2016, 01:17 PM
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
08-16-2016, 08:40 AM
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Here's a milky way shot I took using 15-30. I did not try the Astro setting (too much going on in the foreground here). So this was 20s exposure @3200 ISO
Just playing around. One of these days I need to try one with Astro. This is obviously fairly heavily edited in Lightroom.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
08-15-2016, 08:10 AM
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Normally I wouldn't get involved in this, but I am very sympathetic to his point. Based on the fact that he's bringing a backup, he's very aware that gear fails. When the same gear (K-1) has demonstrated to him that it fails repeatedly, why would he continue to go with that gear? If I were him and that were my experience (and I had the money), I would immediately look to try another system. In fact, if I was a pro, I simply would not adopt a brand new model from any manufacturer as my primary shooting camera, being a gearhead I would love to try it out in low risk situations. But many, if not most, new models have teething issue (Nikon D600?) and I wouldn't want to risk my business and reputation on unproven gear.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
08-07-2016, 02:54 PM
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While I agree that AF is certainly not class leading, as a horse show (hunter/jumper) photographer, I feel I should provide a counterpoint to the reviewer's experience with Pentax AF in horse showw environment. I have no problems using Pentax AF.C with at least 80% hit rate. Furthermore, my hit rate has gone up with each Pentax release, having improved significantly between K5 and K-3 and now again with K-1. While i'm not a pro, I believe that my shots with K-1 and 150-450 are at least comparable to what most of the show photographers can do.
Many examples here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24843974@N00/
However, my technique is normally a bit different than that chosen by Alex. I usually pre-focus on the jump i intend to photograph them over since I know the rider and horse's head will be pretty much centered over the jump at the apex of the jump. However, I have also used AF.C (with release priority, not focus priority, since a late picture is completely useless, and no focus hold) and experienced high hit rate. The bottom line is that, for horse shows, I can focus perfectly well and get a very high hit rate with Pentax AF system.
Word to Alex: not trying to slam your review, I thought it was good and balanced, and your experience with AF is what it is. Just wanted to explain to the world that Pentax AF is actually more than capable of handling this kind of situation with the right technique and settings.
Two examples, the first head on with the horse approaching the camera at a close distance (actually the trickier situation in my experience)
 remy blowingrock 19 by skymatthews, on Flickr
The second from the side with the horse moving more laterally to the camera (with an obstacle in the foreground for added difficulty):
 remy blowingrock 4 by skymatthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-17-2016, 10:14 AM
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Today I learned! thanks, was not aware of that difference. Makes sense then why DCU would be exporting to TIFF.
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-01-2016, 08:31 AM
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Some K-1 / 15-30mm goodness
This was actually pretty underexposed to keep from blowing out the sky.
I am quite amazed at how much detail can be pulled from darker areas without being overly noisy.
I did use 2 exposures merged in Photomatix but with all the local contrast turned off to keep from looking overly HDRish.
Both exposures shot with PS turned on and processed through DCU, so really 8 images merged
Final processing in Lightroom for shadow and highlight balance and cropping.
Not the easiest workflow :(
Straight and Crooked by Sky Matthews, on Flickr
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Forum: Lens Sample Photo Archive
05-13-2016, 07:08 AM
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Haven't seen a thread here on this lens yet.
I was hoping to have it together with the K1 for a trip to Hawaii last week. But, heartbreak, my flight left literally 3 hours before the camera was delivered to my doorstep. I tried various ways to get it redirected but just couldn't get that to happen.
Anyway, on to the shots, how about some lava? shot with K3ii. handheld. hanging from a moving helicopter. a big beast of a lens but superb, pro quality IQ. Can be shot handheld with K3ii. I'm sure it will fare even better with the K1.
This was at 1600ISO, 330mm, F5.6, 1/1000
(more from this series will be posted here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/skymatthews/albums/72157665852222213)
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-16-2016, 04:08 PM
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After much internal debate (price!) I bought it for a lava shooting trip in Hawaii which I expected to be my first outing with K-1. As it turns out the K-1 arrived at my doorstep 3 hours after my plane to Hawaii had departed (:mad:), so I had it stuck on my K-3ii. I am pretty blown away by the image quality. it beats my 60-250 for sharpness (though not by a huge amount). It's a big heavy beast though. I had thoughts of selling the 60-250 but don't think I'm going to because for most travel shooting I will keep the 60-250 in the bag, reserving the beast for outings where I absolutely know I need the reach.
A couple of samples from Hawaii (1st at 150mm, second at 300mm) using K-3 @ISO 1600, 1/1000, and one action shot on K-1 at 450mm (also ISO 1600).
Other images here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/skymatthews/albums/72157665852222213
[edit] oh yeah, the lava shots were shot handheld from a helicopter :-)
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