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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
04-28-2015, 04:55 AM
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
04-27-2015, 10:22 AM
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Sorry it's a bit tough to download the image.... Unfortunately, it's massive.
But if you can follow the dropbox link, it's really neat to see the difference.
I wish this lens had better hyperfocal markings on it... The Zeiss lenses are awesome in that regard.
But I did manage to get all the images in focus without any form of formal focusing. Which is quite encouraging for landscape work.
Will have to try this with a few other lenses. Just ordered an old-school 45mm Pentax 645 lens off of ebay. Will be curious how this performs.
Thx!
S
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
04-26-2015, 04:43 PM
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Hi All,
First off, thanks so much for the feedback on this post. Really incredible and smart people here.
I decided to run a F-Stop test. Used a Pentax 645Z and a Pentax-D FA 645 55mm f/2.8 lens.
Shot from F-4 up to F22 using the hyperfocal marks on the lens barrel aligned to the center of the infinity mark on the lens. A bit hard to tell if I was perfectly aligned but all the shots seem focused so so far so good.
Here's what I did:
1) Used a tripod and shot across a bunch of fstops in AV mode.
2) Shot in RAW
3) Brought all the images into Photoshop Camera RAW and did an identical "auto adjustment" to all images.
4) Applied no sharpening anywhere (Camera RAW sharpening set to zero.)
5) Brought the image into photoshop and here's what I got.
LINK TO DROPBOX file where you can actually see this image.... It's resized as the master was over 1.5 GB as a TIFF. This is 44mb.
http://tinyurl.com/p6r9svg
Based on what I'm seeing, F22 looks pretty darned good. And to clarify, I literally didn't focus any of these shots with the LCD or viewfinder.... Just lined up the hyperfocal f-stop to infinity.
Plan on more testing. But F22 looks quite encouraging. Again, no sharpening was applied to any of the images.
And I'm not seeing a lot of diffraction at F22.
What do you think?
All the best!
S
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
04-22-2015, 05:14 AM
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Awesome info! I shot a ton and grabbed something shot at f8 without remembering that I swapped lenses out during an afternoon.
The photo I posted isn't a particularly good one... But it does illustrate the problem of focus.
So... I'll start experimenting with shooting at f16 .... on the 55mm prime... and worry less about diffraction... Trying to print these fairly large... Some 17X22 and up.
Last question: at f16, on a 55mm lens, on this camera, hyperfocal distance of 12.6 feet will show acceptable sharpness from 6.3 feet to infinity..
at f22, on a 55mm lens, on this camera, hyperfocal distance of 9 feet will show acceptable sharpness from 4.5 feet to infinity...
Am I reading this correctly? I realize that experimentation will be in order but trying to get my arms around what distance to actually focus at.... May try with a tape measure :)
All the best....
S
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
04-21-2015, 09:03 PM
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Hi All,
Pardon the somewhat obscure thread title.
Just came back from an awesome shoot in Death Valley. Working on getting better at landscapes and really want to get everything in the shot in focus. Did a series of focus tests (shot against a target) and determined that on my 55mm lens, f8 is my sharpest stop. Images look the sharpest there. At f22, diffraction comes into play and the images look soft to me.
So I shot a LOT at f8. And I think I'm literally focusing on the wrong thing. The center auto focus point. Tried live view but couldn't get everthing in focus there.
So:
1) Should I be shooting landscapes at my sharpest aperature (f8) or stop down to f10 or f16?
2) Read up on hyper-focal distance calculations and determined (from dofmaster.com) that if I focus 25 feet from my lens, everything from 12.5 feet to infinity will be in focus. Is this a good strategy? Should I just set the camera to manually focus at this distance and crop out the first 12 feet of the shot in post?
I know I'm covering a lot of ground here but if you are shooting a landscape, how are YOU getting everything in sharp focus? Focus stacking? Or fully understanding hyper-focal ranges and circles of confusion?
Thx muxh!
ps- attached is small jpeg right out of the camera.... no processing or sharpening....
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
02-10-2015, 05:51 PM
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On vacation now shooting with a 645z and a Really Right Stuff:
TVC-34L Versa Series 3 Tripod
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BH-55 Full Size Ballhead
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TA-3-LB-HK Leveling Base
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one on each mount point 645D
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TQB-89: Extra large tripod bag
It's an INSANELY expensive package. Kind of ridiculous. I built it up over a period of over a year. And their website is quite confusing. Just call them and they can walk you through it.
And they are always on back-order.
BUT - the stuff is fantastic. This is the only tripod I'll be using for the next 20+ years. I have an Induro (going on ebay soon)... Really nice but the Really Right Stuff is way more stable. I suspect this thing will outlast my kids. Rock solid. The thing that stinks is that it looks kind of flashy. Was going to try to beat this up some more as it looks as expensive as it was. But it's great gear. Just wish it wasn't so expensive.
S
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
01-04-2015, 07:05 PM
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Here are a few shots taken with a new 645Z.... Sold a bunch of gear to get here but I'm excited about what I'm getting so far!
S
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Forum: Pentax Medium Format
12-14-2014, 07:21 AM
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Just bought a 645z! Sold a lot of Canon gear to get here... But I'm now a Pentax guy!
Basically looking for a small bag to store a 645Z with a 55mm lens on it. I could only afford 1 lens so this will be it for a spell. I will have the AF540FGZ II flash in there too.
Haven't received the camera and can't quite visualize how it will fit in a bag given it's size.
Any ideas?
Ideally a top loader but flexible. The smaller the better... Perhaps a top loader.
Seen many a post but most of for storing several big lenses... Which I won't have for a bit.
Thx!
S
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