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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-05-2012, 09:46 AM
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Oh, thanks, that explains it. I have some old glass and now I remember entering focal length into this menu.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-05-2012, 09:24 AM
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I haven't delved deep into my K10 menus for some time and noticed that Shake Reduction menu item at the bottom of the Rec menu is greyed out and inaccessible. That's independent of the position of the SR switch on the back of the camera and independent of the shooting mode. It happens with all lenses - Sigma 17-70 2.8-4.5 (non OIS), DA 55-200 and DA 50 1.4.
I vaguely remember this menu being accessible. Is there something to worry about?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-02-2012, 04:34 PM
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Coming from Canon IS lens with my K10 I was a little disappointed with sensor-shift performance. At one point I had both Rebel XTi and K10 and through unscientific comparos at same focal lengths (50-120mm) and exposure I noticed that Canon's 28-135 with 1st gen IS would give me on average at least 1 stop more of handholding than both Sigma 17-70 and DA 50-200 on K10. I observed similar differences vs my backup Pana GF1 with 14-45 (28-90 in 35mm terms) OIS lens.
Also I saw in various reviews (DPR/IR and/or Pop Photo) of subsequent Pentax bodies (K-x/r?) Pentax IBIS being unfavorably compared vs Sony. I failed to find any IS tests in DPR K-5 review.
So is K-5 IBIS now in ballpark with Oly and Sony and OIS on Canikon lens?
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Klopus's Photo Galleries at pbase.com |
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-02-2012, 12:59 PM
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I know, i know, these "should I wait" questions always elicit "get now or wait forever" or "there's always something around the corner", etc. answers which in general is right.
But I got K10 (my first Pentax) back in Jan 2007 and it's getting long in the tooth compared to modern bodies especially in high ISO, lack of video, small LCD and large size/weight.
I accumulated some K-mount glass which I really enjoy and in general, as a committed non-conformist, I like Pentax. But this orphan constantly changing foster homes makes me a little nervous. To me being an available light street shooter (amateur) IBIS is a must. Which leaves as a real ASP-C alternative only Sony which is ok since I'm not married for life to OVF and a mirror.
K-r and K-01 don't wet my appetite. I'd take smaller size/weight any day over weather proofing but I really like bright VF and extensive tactile controls and feature richness of K10/20/7/5 series.
I note that K5 is already well more than a year old. Is there a replacement on a horizon? What to expect?
Also what are your general and honest thoughts on Pentax or even K-mount viability?
Thanks for the help!
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Forum: General Talk
08-02-2007, 07:42 AM
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-18-2007, 02:41 PM
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And I don't trust Pentax much more!
Was it Hoya that drove Pentax to the current situation where Camera division is barely profitable (and even that only recently) and it makes total economic sense to dump it? It boils down to one and simple thing - for long time Pentax was offering products that were not competitive, were not marketed properly or whatever and thus weren't selling well. And Pentax was loosing ground consistently for a long time until maybe K100/10D advent which came too little too late.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-18-2007, 02:26 PM
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I posted this in a related DPR News forum thread that degenerated into heated and pointless, IMO, debate about short term mechanics of current buyout (merger or whatever) and whom to blame for how bad it's being conducted.
Irrespective to SPARX, Urano, Hoya or new/old board current situation only shows that Pentax Camera totally failed as a division. This includes its marketing, products, engineering and strategy and ultimately they have nobody to blame but themselves on all levels. If Nikon was to be bought it would be mainly for its Camera division and not binoculars or medical or whatever. And hypothetical suitor in their right mind won't debate whether to dump Camera division or juts give it a little more to die on its own.
I still hold the position that with more professionally managed Hoya, Pentax cam division has more chances at survival than on its own, especially with current board. I won't shed tears for Furano as well. Both longtime previous and present management are to be blamed for the current miserable predicament.
Pentax Camera came to this pathetic fight for survival not as a result of good management and excellence in product and marketing. People should realize that recent very relative K10/100D success came too little too late. You can talk whatever you like about Pentax uniqueness, AA batteries, small size, Limited primes, SPARX villain, whatever. People either buy your products enough to sustain and expand operation, development and brand in a competitive marketplace or they don't. In latter case you either die (see Minolta) or let others try to fix you.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-18-2007, 08:12 AM
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I also at loss to understand his point except for usual implication of negativity. The only thing that somebody who's not negatively biased and obsessed like our friend RH can conclude from IR and similar DPR measurements is that K10D is pretty competitive in its class.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-17-2007, 12:20 PM
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Despite what was said in other messages there're many free or very cheap ways to process PEF files and/or convert them to DNG (this format has a wider support among 3rd part RAW converters):- Upgrade PPL that came with your K100D to a latest version 3.10 found on Pentax site. It's free and will give you an ability to save PEFs as DNG.
- Check on Adobe site if latest ACR 4.0 supports PS7 that you indicated you use. If so you'll get PEF support for free in PS.
- While you're at this grab free Adobe DNG Converter that as a standalone app will convert your PEFs into DNGs.
- Download Silkypix Free - even in a limited (relative to full version) free form it's an excellent, fast and powerful RAW converter with support for PEF and DNG.
- Download free RAW Therapee - excellent and powerful RAW converter with support for PEF and DNG.
- Download free UFRaw - GUI front-end to Dave Coffin's open-source DCRaw command-line RAW conversion engine that supports PEF and DNG.
- Download any of the free image editors and organizers that under the hood use DCRaw to show and convert RAW images including PEF and DNG - FastStone (excellent image organizer and basic editor), IrfanView (small and fast image viewer and editor), Google Picasa (excellent image organizer and basic editor), etc.
- If you already have RawShooter (Premium or Essentials) then search DPR Pentax DSLR Forum for the link to the patched version of RawShooter that supports K100D and K10D RAW files.
- If you own a legal copy of RawShooter Essentials then Adobe will upgrade you for free to Lightroom which's a great organizing and conversion tool.
Enjoy :)
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Forum: Photographic Technique
05-16-2007, 04:19 PM
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You can change the "Program Line" setting in custom functions menu. It sets the criteria that Hyper Program should favor. Besides Deafult and MTF (favors "best" apertures for particular lens) settings there's also Shutter Speed setting which does what you need.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-11-2007, 05:00 PM
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Fully agree. Our chances to continue enjoy Pentax cameras are much higher with Pentax as Hoya then Pentax being on their own.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-06-2007, 05:04 PM
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I'm really impressed how you guys manage to determine build quality by feel and feel only :)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-05-2007, 08:37 AM
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Moreover DNG spec is open to everybody and free of royalties. That's in stark contrast to proprietary RAW formats like PEF, NEF, CR2, etc. where with each new model 3rd party RAW converters basically have to reverse engineer each and every format.
Actually structurally DNG is based on TIFF.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-05-2007, 08:19 AM
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Rice please don't pretend you don't know why you consistently and reliably cause reactions like this on every Pentax forum you lend yourself to (until being banned).
And it's not like you an objective and honest observer (almost Galileo type :) ) being hounded by brutal fanboys everywhere he goes. People get an impression that you mostly chime in into the threads only when there's a slightest possibility to say something negative about Pentax and almost never about something positive or even neutral. On top of that they don't see you much contributing to threads related to the meat of why we have cameras - general photography, techniques and such. How this may look you tell me.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-04-2007, 12:24 PM
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Sorry, but that's not exactly true. That DNG spec "allows for camera specific information" doesn't mean it requires it. Moreover the key information like camera specific tonal curve can be defined in a standard way (that's what K10D actually does).
DNG is speced in a such a way that it's fairly possible to produce a "standard" DNG file that properly coded application can render without any prior knowledge of what produced it (e.g. K10D, Leica M8, Adobe DNG converter, etc.). That's actually was the case with k10D - when it just arrived older versions of ACR and Beta Lightromm could easily import K10D DNG files though both apps were released well before K10D and that camera wasn't on their supported list.
So returning back to OP's question. The onus here on application he uses to read K10D DNG files. It probably just has a bug in rendering certain "valid" DNGs irrespective to the specifics of the camera which produced it.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-04-2007, 09:00 AM
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It seems that IR had some bad luck with pixel remapping on their test body. At least I never saw anything similar reported in other reviews or on various forums. My K10D specimen definitely doesn't exhibit this effect.
If it's in fact there then I think it's fairly possible to fix routine pixel remapping in firmware.
VPN mostly shows when exposure is heavily "pushed" at high ISO. D200 reportedly also exhibits some kind of "blooming" (not VPN) under similar conditions. Sony 10MP CCD noise characteristics probably have some part to it but it looks like it's more related to hardware readout bug as implemented by Pentax (at least GordonBGood from DPR forums very convincingly proved it). As such it's very unlikely that Pentax can fix this in software.
Above items along with JPEG sharpening "problem" strike me more as some "fringe" usage artifacts mostly good for theoretical obsession on forums.
To my mind what Pentax really needs to improve to be competitive in realistic intended usage (not in pushing the envelope and in researching pixels) is AF performance (speed, precision, tracking and noise), AWB (especially tungsten) and to lesser extent AE (mostly reliability and repeatability). They badly need to stop treating SDM as some kind of "star" luxury and start pushing it down the ladder to consumer lens like Canon and Nikon do. Modernizing AF and AE engines will also go a long way. That's what mostly puts K10D even out of D80 league not speaking of D200 and 30D.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-04-2007, 07:51 AM
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Huh? Ben was talking about his personal face to face communication with Pentax brass (and not only French). In my book it beats in trust and relevance "talking about published news and/or rumours" rehashed by some biased blog.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-04-2007, 06:06 AM
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Impossible miracles (like changing hardware or core algorithms) or full implementation of personal pet peeves wish list.
Actually I'm quite impressed with the pace, scope and quality of K10D firmware updates, at least compared to Canon from which I recently migrated. V1.10, for example, added quite significant usability (direct ISO manipulation, etc.) and functional (wireless flash) features while fixing whatever Pentax engineers felt they can reliably fix at the time (long exposure banding). V1.20 and Remote Assistant support is also a substantial feature for some uses. Also note that with Nikon, for example, one has to pay for analog to RA.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-04-2007, 05:50 AM
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Contrast mostly comes from strikingly different levels of both in terms of access to internal information, relation to Pentax and type (and results) of practical usage of Pentax equipment.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-03-2007, 01:45 PM
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Exciting! Thanks Benjikan.
I understand two new DSLRs are one below K100D (to compete with D40x and Oly E-410) and the other above K10D (to compete with D200 and 40D successors). Correct?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-03-2007, 05:38 AM
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Size, weight, ergonomics and finish and color of the outer plastic shell have nothing to do with "build quality". "Feels like toy" is just that - subjective perception.
That K10D weigh almost twice as XTi doesn't mean that it by definition built to higher standards, with more stringent QC, with better tolerances or uses more rugged chassis design or better materials. All cams you mentioned use basically same construction - internal metal chassis and an outer polycarbonate shell with metal lens mount. On the other hand 30D and D200 indeed use mag alloy shell that may (or may not) lead to higher rigidity.
There's no data to suggest that XTi has higher problem rate than K10D. Moreover, I bet if you drop on concrete floor from the same height both cameras chances are that K10D will suffer more damage simply because of its hefty weight.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-10-2007, 03:49 PM
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Camdapter still doesn't have the Plus (with a lip) version of the Manfrotto plate. The regular Plus plate and the Arca Swiss one are blocking the battery door on K10D according to the thread on DPR and correspondence with a Camdapter guy.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-10-2007, 02:04 PM
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To be fair Hakuba LH also has this extra lug for the neck strap. Compared to Camdapter Hakuba has only one advantage - it's like 3-4x cheaper. It also has a lip on a long side of the mounting plate that makes it more secure and easier to align. Camdapter has a Plus version that also features this lip but as with Hakuba the Plus version blocks battery door on K10D.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-10-2007, 01:10 PM
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For sure you aren't the only one. For my shooting style I hate neck straps in principle. Now I use the hand strap - Hakuba LH (Hakuba Camera Grip LH). There're better ones from Op/Tech USA, Nikon, Camdapter(TM) | Hand Strap Solutions for DSLR cameras | Made in the USA!, etc. but LH is simple, cheap and convinient. Hand strap allows you to keep the camera secure but always ready in your hand. When not needed for a long time I just put the camera back into my KATA T-240 sling bag.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
03-15-2007, 11:15 AM
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RiceHigh, on which features precisely except for LiveView (which indeed could be a boon in some whacky framing situations and macros) "E-510 must win" over K10D? Non weather-sealed body or 3 AF point (vs 11 AF points) or single command dial or dimmer and smaller OVF or lack of available vertical grip?
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