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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
05-09-2017, 07:09 AM
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 | Slip
Posted By
jots |
Replies: 26
Views: 1,495
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Forum: Sold Items
03-08-2017, 07:56 AM
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Forum: Sold Items
03-07-2017, 11:23 PM
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-12-2010, 06:44 AM
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You just have to make sure that the + terminal and - terminal are in the same position as the K10's original battery. Then, as long as the battery will slide into the battery cavity, then you should be fine. 1620mah versus 1500mah are the capacity of the batteries.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
02-26-2010, 04:03 PM
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you can read about my experience in my article in "Accessories and Memory Articles".
"Excellent field SD backup solution"
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-21-2010, 10:40 AM
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San Francisco near Pier 39
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-14-2010, 09:47 PM
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Steve, thanks for your comment.
Johnny
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-10-2010, 12:43 PM
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A picture of Lake Louise around dusk, taken with the DS and kit lens at 18mm, f5.6, 1/20sec on monopod.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-10-2010, 01:13 AM
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My mistake. I meant to write TTL..., thanks for pointing it out.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-09-2010, 09:50 PM
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Hi Lars,
Thanks for your comment.
I don't much use flash. But if I need to use it, I use my flash with Auto-thyristor feature (AF280T) with my manual lenses and PTTL flash (AF500FTZ, AF330FTZ) with my DA lenses. It makes it simple for me.
Johnny
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-09-2010, 03:19 PM
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I like it a lot. This lens is a new acquisition for me. But then, I find all of my K lenses to produce very good pictures. I am very happy with all of them.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
02-09-2010, 12:12 AM
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SMC K 24/3.5 @f8 on a DL
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Forum: Sold Items
01-10-2010, 10:41 AM
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Forum: Sold Items
01-09-2010, 06:29 PM
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PM sent again for the 24/3.5
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Forum: Sold Items
01-09-2010, 02:07 AM
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
10-30-2009, 09:00 PM
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Since new CRV3 batteries are giving you this result, you might try one thing. Try wiping the battery contact of the camera with cotton swab wetted (not dripping) with rubbing alchohol. If you open the battery compartment you will see them deep inside the compartment and some also on the battery door. Wipe all gold color metal contacts. Then try with the batteries again.
DO NOT use any abrasive or solvents at any time.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
10-29-2009, 12:29 AM
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I have found hi-cap NiMH to be a hit and miss. I have 3 sets of 2700mAh Sanyo's and 2 sets have very short life. But 1 set works very well and even have very long shelf life; I can leave it in the DS and DL for a long time and the battery still holds up. I believe when the manufacturers push the design for the higher capacity like 2700mAh, the chemistry or something must be unstable.
Eneloops work very well for me.
I also recommend the BC-700 charger from LaCrosse. Very good charger.
Actually, when I travel, I also use Kirkland AA alkaline from costco and have had good results with them. I don't like to bring the charger to charge the NiMh when traveling.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
09-10-2009, 01:12 AM
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I have the same thing happen to my ist DL.
I bought the replacement LCD ($70 - ouch) from Pentax.
I had it replaced in China for very little $. I go there often on business.
You could have Pentax replace it for you for a few more $$; call to find out.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
09-01-2009, 11:34 PM
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If I am on a "serious" shoot, I use my Domke F-6 and stuff my things. I also have an F-2 to cover the occasion where the F-6 is not big enough. For my "casual" shoots, I will put my camera and extra lenses in a backpack and not worry about any camera bag.
I sometimes do that for my light travels also. protect the body and lenses with sleeves made from diving suit material and put them into my lugguage or hand carry bag.
Super large lenses are handled as special case; they usually are only carried in the car trunk.
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Forum: Lens Clubs
07-29-2009, 09:10 PM
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A couple of photos in soft light condition.
SMC-K 35/3.5 @8 Seat Cushion
SMC-K 20/4 @5.6 Lamp Shade
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
07-24-2009, 05:37 PM
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Check out RadioShack. they sell the Optimus 4 SD card plastic case for $2-3 USD. Real cheap , good looking and rugged.
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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
07-11-2009, 10:46 PM
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Morning sun cutting through the smoke from people's fireplaces.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
04-27-2009, 10:49 PM
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This is such great info for Pentax lens followers. Thanks for all your contributions.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-16-2009, 01:11 PM
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I primarily use AA NiMH rechargables with my 2 DS's and a DL when I am in my home base. "Home base" is when I am at or around home, with easy ability to recharge back at home. In the home base, my camera usage is off-and-on; I would take 10's of shots and the cameras would sit for days in my bag.
(When I am out of my home base, I use Lithium or Alkaline. I do not carry any charger with me in the bag. That was a decision I made when I went with DSLR and PS cameras based on AA format.)
I have 6 sets of AA NiMH batteries all together. Most of them I purchased. The RadioShack set was acquired through one of my DSLR purchases.
1. Sony 2700mAh (2007)
2. Sanyo 2100mAh (2007)
3. Sanyo 2100mAh (2007)
4. RadioShack 2000mAh (2008 acquired used)
5. Sanyo 2500mAh (2008)
6. Sanyo 2500mAh (2008)
Chargers I use:
Sony BCG-34HRMF "faster" charger (4X 525mA) - charges min 1 max 4 batteries in about 3 hours. Has a refresh function, where the battery is first discharged and then charged. Some monitoring capability.
Sanyo NC-MQN4U "slow" charger (2X 250mA) - charges min 2 max 4 batteries for 16 hours or so. No monitoring capability.
After a couple years of use, one after the other, sets 1,3,5,6 started to show signs of weakness. The sets delivered very little usable time in the camera. Upon initial insertion right after a charge, the DS/DL battery indication would show full battery bar. Upon using the camera a short time, the battery bar would go down to half bar. Again after some more use, the battery bar goes to no bar and soon lock me out from using the camera.
(All the while, sets 2 and 4 functioned flawlessly. They hold charge for a long time over my off-and-on usage in the home base.)
The "short time" became shorter and shorter with those weak sets, no matter how I charge them. I tried the refresh function on the Sony charger; I tried slow charging with the Sanyo charger. Both method showed very little improvement to the battery performance.
I was getting frustrated and was ready to give up on these, and go eneloop. ( I did buy a set but am holding off deploying the eneloop. I want to get a better understanding of the NiMH's.)
A couple of months ago, I began to look into what was going on with these sets.
I built a simple load test. It consists of a single AA holder and a flash light bulb holder with a bulb that will draw about 250mA from 1 battery. I used a digital voltmeter to measure the voltage across the battery with and without the load. (All parts from RadioShack)
What I found is that, in all of the weak sets, there is 1 or 2 battery that were consistently weaker. Without load, the voltage across the battery showed the same as the others. But with load, the weak battery showed at least 1/10th of a voltage lower that the others. Probably enough to cause the ist's to stop functioning. ( For sure, the ist's have a higher requirement of battery voltage. My Canon PS using AAs, will operate happily with the weak sets. )
Further I found that this condition progresses. Something is going on with these cells. I think some of these cells goes into a "chemical" state that deteriorates their capacity.
Recently, I saw the LaCrosse BC-700 charger on sale on Amazon for $25. I purchased one and gave it a try.
This charger has a function called "refresh" that is unlike the Sony charger's. In this mode, the charger will cycle through discharge and charge, while monitoring the charge capacity of the battery. It will stop when the charge capacity cannot be improved any more. So this "refresh" function can go on for 1 day or 2, but you don't have to do anything. The charger does it all by itself. I just monitor the data on the LCD.
In the beginning of the "refresh" cycle, I saw that the charge capacity of the weak batteries were low. For example, the 2500mAh battery would be showing like 1000+ mAh. But as the "refresh" goes on, I could see that the capacity started to climb and the cycle would be completed when the capacity stops climbing. In all cases, the 2500mAh batteries stop at around 2500mAh and the 2100mAh at around 2100mAh. Amazing!!
I have started to re-use these "refreshed" battery sets in the DS/DL's in my Home Base. It has been 10+ days since, and so far so good.
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Forum: Accessory and Memory Articles
04-13-2009, 06:37 PM
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I recently bought the Panasonic VW-PT2 used from Ebay for very little money, and I think its a great no-nonsense solution that traveling photogs could use to safe guard digital files while on extended shoots. It was made as a companion to Panasonic SD camcorders but it works for any file type.
I always have the need to have a place to copy my photos on my SD cards when I am on extended photo taking trips. This can be for the reason of needing to create space on the SD cards or just to create a backup of the contents on SD cards.
I had owned a Creative Zen Vision W before. It was a very expensive device with a beautiful LCD and did a lot more things than I ready need it to do. I only want to be able to dump the contents of the SD card to a Hard Drive while on the road and later copy it to my computer storage when I get home. So I sold the Creative.
Lately, I decided to shop for another device like it but one that is a lot less expensive and did only what I needed. I looked at many similar devices some with small a LCD and player function.
I decided on the Panasonic VW-PT2; and I made the right decision, for the purpose that I need this device for.
The VW-PT2 is a very simple Hard Drive based device that will copy any content on the SD or SDHC card that you insert. It creates FAT32 folders with a date stamp. The date is derived from the date of the photo files on the SD card. So there is no need to set any clock on the unit itself. Very simple design. Later when you attach the device to your computer (PC or Mac), it shows up as a USB storage device. You can then copy the folders onto your computer storage and organize them as you wish.
The VW-PT2 does not have any complicated user menus to learn. It communicates with you via a few LEDs and push buttons. It uses a rechargeable Lithium battery that should last for 90 minutes of copying. Each 4GB SD card is claimed to take about 10 minutes to copy to the Hard Drive. So you can copy quite a lot on one charge of the battery. Battery charging takes about 1.5 hour. The charger is 100-240V world voltage.
Operation:
Insert an SD or SDHC card into the SD card slot.
Turn the Power switch to ON.
Wait for the COPY light to be lit.
Press the COPY button.
The COPY light will start to flash indicating that stuff from the SD is being copied. The SD card slot access light also blinks indicating SD card is being read.
When the copy process is done, the COPY light stops flashing and stays on solid.
You can now turn the POWER switch OFF and take out the SD card.
That's it.
Other lights and buttons:
Hard Drive remaining capacity indication: there are 3 lights (FULL, 75%, 50%) to indicate the Hard Drive fullness.
CANCEL button: if you want to cancel a copy process that has been started. Pressing this will remove what was just copied to the Hard Drive.
ERROR light: if there was a problem reading an SD card. You are instructed to power off and re-insert the SD card and try again.
Low battery: it is indicated by the POWER light flashing slowing while using the unit.
Auto Power Off: when the unit is not used for 3 minutes, it shuts down itself to conserve battery.
There is also an Hard Drive Safety feature where the copy process is stopped if the unit was moved. It can be defeated by a switch.
My Conclusion of the unit:
This is a very simple and inexpensive device for a photographer to have as a backup device in the field when carrying your laptop is not practical.
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Battery Life Test on the VW-PT2
I did a test of the Li-on battery on the Panasonic.
I started with a full charge that took about 1.5 hours.
I copied approximately 2-GB worth of PEF files from my computer to a 2-GB SD card.
Inserted the SD card and repeatedly backed up until the POWER light started to blink (indicating Battery Low) and then continued until the unit quit.
The POWER light started to blink on the 12th backup.
The unit quit on the 15th backup.
The test was done over a 3 day period, to simulate backing SD cards in the field.
Some backups were done back-to-back, some were done with delays in between.
Analysis:
Each 2 GB backup took about 5 minutes according to my measurement.
The unit quit after 15 backups. (15 * 5 = 75) minutes.
I had about 10 minutes of usage on the battery outside of the test.
The battery life came close to Panasonic's claim of 90 minutes.
The thing to note is that you have about 15 minutes of safety from the time Battery Low happen to the time the unit quit.
The unit can backup 12# of 2-GB SD cards, before the Battery Low indication comes on. Counting frames in RAW 6MP *istDS term: each 2-GB holds approximately 180 pictures according to the camera. So you can safely backup (180 * 12 = 2160) pictures before the Battery Low warning. Depending on how much one shoots in a day in the field, the Panasonic can backup quite a few days of shooting on one battery charge. I think that is a usable model for a field backup device.
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Concerns of copy verification and copy speed on the unit
Some folks may be concerned about needing the verification of the copied contents on the unit itself. I concluded that for me the real final verification is when I actually view it on my computer screen and see that the image I shot is there. The drive industry have nailed this concern pretty well, so I can "almost" trust the drive. So the other area is the SW and the electronics in the unit itself. I am a little less confident about after-market companies' capabilities, but in general, there should not be a lot of problems there too. The question is do I believe when the unit "tells" me it has verified the copy. In my case, the answer is: maybe. Nowadays, most of these units are made by after-market companies. I went with a unit that Panasonic is willing to put their name on. It takes a lot for these big companies to put their name on products.
For the question of backup speed, my rationale was backup speed of the Panasonic was "good enough". If a unit takes hours to backup a card then definitely it is not good enough for me. But if it takes a few minutes then it is "good enough". Whether it is 10 minutes or 1 minute to back up a 4GB SD, then it depends on how much I have to pay.
In the final analysis, it all boiled down to how much I am willing to spend for this SD backup device that I can toss in my camera bag and not feel like I have a few hundreds of dollars just collecting dust. I sold my Creative Zen Vision W because of that. In my case, I don't use it to play games or watch video, or get on the internet, etc. I have my iPhone and my PC for that.
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