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Forum: Pentax KP
11-02-2023, 10:34 PM
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I just spent 6 weeks traveling through Europe and am full of praise for my KP. I have a K1 system but elected to take my KP due to its lighter weight and compactness. I took 3 lenses as well, my 18-135, a 12-24 and a 55-300 PLM. On review after processing approximately 3500 raw images I see that over 95% of the images were taken on the 18-135 lens. The KP with this lens proved to be perfect travel setup for me. Being 24mp I have the option of cropping down and still having an image that reproduces well, actually I can't believe how good the images are. Always in focus with great dynamic range. I mostly shoot in TAv mode, but at times when in a hurry I used full auto with excellent results. Being so well sealed I never had to worry about getting it wet. It's an awesome camera though it seems to be forgotten with the introduction of the new K3 III. I seem to gravitate to it rather than my K1 quite often as it is so much fun to use. Even for wildlife with the 55-300 PLM I get some great birds in flight shots and the 7 FPS speed is more than enough for what I do. The KP is just a great all-rounder in my opinion. A couple of images follow.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-27-2023, 01:02 AM
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Hi there,
if I read this kind of stuff, I'm getting curious. Could you show me some examples of photos you took were you think 36mp are not enough. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but I hear this talk for the last 20 years. "12mp of the Nikon D700 are not enough, so I got the 36mp Nikon D800 and now I'm happy!" - That was 10 years ago.
It seems resolution is never enough, yet the photos always stay the same. So I would love to see the 60mp landscape shots that "outperform" the K1's 36MP.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-24-2023, 09:59 PM
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If Pentax were to move to a mirrorless platform it might regain you as a customer, but would probably lose me as one... at least so far as new gear is concerned. Thankfully, there's enough used gear around that I should be able to keep shooting K-mount DSLRs for years, whatever happens...
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-21-2023, 04:19 PM
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IIRC in live view at least on the K1 when using face recognition it's almost like eye AF as the eyes have the greatest contrast and the cdaf uses greatest contrast for focus. Not specifically eye AF but if it works then who cares what it's called.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-21-2023, 12:13 PM
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Welcome back to the fold Redcat!
Since you asked, yes I have a Sony as well, the a9. I tried the A7III and didn't care for it. The a9 I like, mostly due to the zero blackout and essentially zero rolling shutter, which is and will come in handy for the dance/gymnastics/quick movement portraiture I'll be doing, high school sports photos on occasion, plus playtime with adapted lenses, another hole to pour money in. :)
Mirrorless has its advantages.
But the Sony doesn't perform better than my Pentax stuff for general photography, static portraiture, and landscapes (prefer K1 II or K3III), nor is it the better camera option for my wildlife shooting (K3III). Sony ergonomics don't hold a candle to Pentax either.
If I could only have a single camera it would probably be the Pentax K3III, but I do like what the a9 adds and consider it a keeper. Since getting it I've had a different outlook on the usefulness of MILC's, but for me they can never replace a DSLR and and optical eyepiece.
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Forum: General Photography
06-21-2023, 04:49 AM
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Pentax was right, but unfortunately the market and competition keep going in a totally wrong direction. The market should listen to the Pentax right way of doing things.
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Forum: General Photography
06-16-2023, 01:07 AM
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I agree.
I recently bought a K-70 (manufactured Feb 2021 so should be free from ABF) to take on bike rides with my son, as I don't want to risk my K-3III and 16-50 PLM kit.
I enjoy using the K-70 because it's not as easy to use as the K-3III... I have to be more mindful of my metering modes - I can't just stick it in Highlight Weighting and go mad.
I have to think, look at the scene, press some buttons to get into the menu via the Info screen to change metering or custom image if I'm just shooting jpegs in monochrome... I like the sound of the mirror flipping up in Live View, and the rather loud shutter sound!
I feel like I'm more involved in the whole process of making a photograph. And, as you say, that's part of the pleasure.
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Forum: General Photography
06-14-2023, 11:32 PM
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A quick side-by-side comparison between the viewfinder info in the K3iii and the KP shows the K3iii to be (apparently) slightly brighter but the characters themselves to be slightly smaller … all in all very much of a muchness.
FWIW … the K-5 is also very similar and... surprise, surprise! … the information in the *istD viewfinder is larger and brighter than all of them :)
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Forum: General Photography
06-14-2023, 07:46 AM
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I'm a very tactile person, and for me, the OVF is the more tactile experience. I feel less separated from the scene at hand. The EVF feels like an additional layer.
And nice to see this article, especially the lead photo.
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Forum: General Photography
06-13-2023, 04:09 AM
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I will be keeping my KP; I am under the care of an eye doctor, but that camera is all that I could ask for.
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Forum: General Photography
06-13-2023, 03:46 AM
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Just different approaches, I guess, Vincent... Obviously it depends on focal length and how much of the distance range you want in acceptable focus. With the Q7 and 02 lens at 15mm and f/5.6 (wide open :p), everything from 3 - 4 meteres out to infinity can be in acceptable focus. Compare that to a 70mm lens on full frame, where you'd have to stop down to beyond f/22 or smaller for similar depth-of-field. Of course, there's focus stacking as you say - but that depends on the scene being fairly movement-free. Then again, the Q7 is compromised in many other areas - dynamic range being just one of them... but like everything else in this hobby of ours, there are (thankfully) multiple ways of achieving the same thing, with different compromises for each. I like using the Q7 when it's well suited to the task... not least because it's very small and light :)
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Forum: General Photography
06-13-2023, 03:08 AM
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I have never particularly felt that way.
I shoot landscapes stopped down enough that I get maximum depth of field (f8 or 9 on APS-C and f11 on full frame). I typically try to use a tripod to keep iso low and even use pixel shift if possible. The issue for me is not depth of field (you can always do focus stacking), but rather dynamic range and you lose that quickly as you increase your iso.
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Forum: General Photography
06-13-2023, 02:22 AM
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I haven't heard that before. I've heard more people complain about EVFs messing up their night vision or struggling when shooting into the sun.
Regardless, if you can't see through an OVF, then you should definitely use an EVF camera. As I said earlier in this thread, new EVF cameras are the rule -- they aren't going away -- it is those of us who prefer OVFs who may struggle to find gear that works for us in the future.
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Forum: General Photography
06-12-2023, 01:09 PM
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I am officially an old fart. When the 35mm SLR came out it put a major hurt on the premier 35mm rangefinder camera market for the serious amateur photographer. They pretty much killed off the excellent offerings that Nikon and Canon had in their lineup. The advantages were quite obvious. You see the same image the film is seeing. You have no parallax problems to deal with as close in on your subject. Macro photography became orders of magnitude easier. Macro photography with a rangefinder camera can only be accomplished with a lot of effort.
While the mirrorless viewfinder provides something that looks like the subject matter it is not the subject matter. Instead of seeing actual light gradients, you see a digital representation of them. For me flicker/delay drove me nuts on the early cameras. It is better now, but Istill prefer to see the actual subject.
Like I said, the mirrorless format cameras look like SLR cameras for a reason. Most of it ergonomics but some it is psychological. The 35mm SLR camera is a pinnacle of design excellence. It was so popular for a reason. I have no beef with mirrorless cameras. They are awesome image capture tools. I just see them as a return to the days of rangefinder cameras with their almost silent shutters, smaller size etc. Not bad things. That is just what they most remind me of. As you stated they do solve the problems that rangefinder cameras have. I hope this explanation makes sense.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
05-27-2023, 05:47 AM
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I do a lot of macro photography, and an OVF is a must for fine focus. I would never buy a mirrorless SLR unless there were absolutely no other option. I'm delighted that Pentax remains committed to the DSLR with an OVF.
Can't wait to see their new film cameras!
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Forum: Flashes, Lighting, and Studio
05-21-2023, 09:10 PM
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I have both 201 and 540.
For the 201:
Dawn and dusk when you need to fill in the shadow - yes.
High noon - not really powerful enough unless you are close.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
05-13-2023, 06:30 PM
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I went from the K70 to the K3iii and didn't consider the K1 because I had more modern glass for aps-c. While I have allot of full frame glass, it all film era lenses. I'm glad I went with the K3iii.
While I'd like a full frame Pentax (I've got 2 Nikon FF, D700 and Z5) at this point I'm waiting for a K1iii option with better AF. When I first got a Pentax DSLR (K2000) there was no full frame option. So I built an aps-c system, got lenses and a K10D, K-S2, and eventually the K70. With Nikon, I had allot of film lenses, from early non-AI to AF-D lenses, so I picked up a D700 which is a 12mp full frame.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
05-08-2023, 11:13 AM
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That's probably got a lot to do with the content being useful. DPR has a long history of being imperfect and I have a long history of disagreeing with much of their editorial content, but anyone who expects perfection from anything is going to spend their life being angry and disappointed.
They have been around since the dawn of consumer available digital photography, and as a historical document, they are an important resource to photography and photographers.
I see DPReview haters as being on about the same level as the professional Adobe haters flock of sheep. They don't know why they hate it, they just do because their shepherd has told them to.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
05-08-2023, 10:29 AM
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The history of the site stretches back to the Dawn of digital. They’re a great source of history. Additionally, forum hits are frequently useful when Google searching a problem. Ignore reviews opinions - look at factual data.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
05-06-2023, 08:33 AM
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I agree with your "business" statement, but that was never the issue for me. As UncleVanya wrote, the core issue is the planned shuttering of the information contained in DPReview despite its importance to the history of photography. I can still go to museums and libraries to see old Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles, an RCA Victrola, and read old newspapers . . . even old photography magazines, some which wrote terrible reviews of the work of some of today's revered masters, such as Alfred Stieglitz. The impressionist painters were likewise destroyed by writers in the media of their day, but that has no bearing on those artists' importance today.
The root of the problem is a "throw away" mentality, held simply because something looses its business currency, with no regard for its long-term significance.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
05-06-2023, 07:38 AM
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I agree with you Don.
Still, Amazon is evil, and has been ever since they took over and dominated the book selling market, which evolved into the retail dominance of today.
It may be just business, but it only serves the shareholders, at the expense of the consumers.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
05-06-2023, 06:15 AM
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What makes it different is the rich history of the reviews and articles and the SPEED of the original announced dates. It was fairly unclear at first what might happen to the content. The early history of digital photography is strongly documented there.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
04-27-2023, 10:46 AM
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Similarly, while I understand that manufacturers have needs different from me, the user, I will still rate the price:value ratio according to the features that I will use, not to the ones the camera *has*.
For instance, I'd almost certainly have upgraded to the K-3iii from a K-7 or a K-5 - probably also from the K-3 or KP. Were I a Sony user, I wouldn't even think of upgrading from, say, a Sony A6000 to... Basically any APS-C body they've made since. There just isn't any meaningful improvement for my uses, though I'm sure anyone who makes use of the other parts of the specsheet would be ecstatic to use the newer models (and that's okay).
(The bottom line is, just give me a better OVF and as many quality-of-life improvements for the K-1iii and I'll get it :D)
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
04-24-2023, 08:58 AM
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I recall some years ago when Thom Hogan was waxing eloquent about the noise levels in some new Nikon and how noise control was the most important thing to look for in a camera.
Then the K5 came along, using the same sensor as whatever camera Thom was having a love fest with and lo and behold, the K5 had better noise control than the Nikon.
And... the very next blog entry Thom had changed his mind about noise control being the most important thing, in fact it was, apparently, a non issue.
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
04-22-2023, 07:17 AM
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I'm personally very disappointed that the site is closing.
Based on my experience of the imaging resource and photo.net (I joined that early than this site), the disconnect of online community (and real life meetups!) from user data sales and commercial links is very interesting (and rather depressing).
As others mention, the opportunity to constructively contribute is a key part of being online, and one which is increasingly been swept way in favour of simple interactions (e.g. liking an Instagram photo). This includes being able to review the interactions with respect to history and what came before. Really, the user data harvest model, so that items of interest can be identified and sent as something to buy by the user is what Amazon requires. This is a disconnect from a community and technical resource (the Amazon IMDB ownership comment earlier was interesting as that community is also used professionally). Hence the site closure is not surprising to me.
We should respect (as per this community) that servers cost money and take time and expertise to run. We were getting that service for free at Amazon (although they had a derivatives license that allowed them to take anything posted if they liked).
I guess my point is that communities are important, history is important and the people within are most important. I do value this community, even though my Pentax shooting these days is really limited to my GR and Film camera.
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