|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
11-20-2020, 07:49 PM
|
| |
Nice pictures!
Two answers to your questions:
First, starbursts arise from diffraction effects between the incoming light and the straight edges of the aperture blades inside the lens. Because this diffraction effect is very weak, it only appears around over-exposed objects such as bright stars, headlights at night, or the sun. The length and intensity of the starburst rays will vary with the brightness of the light source and thus also with the shutter and aperture settings. On most lenses, starbursts only appear when the lens is stopped down a bit because the wide-open aperture is usually a perfect circle that does not make starbursts. In many lenses, stopping down more (and increasing the shutter time) will also strengthen the starburst effect because when stopped down, the lens aperture is more like a polygon than a circle.
Second, the bright star in the first image is not actually visible in the other two images. It's behind the hoodoo. The brightest star in the second two images is the same as the less-bright star in the first image that is to the left and up a bit from the star-burst star. (You can confirm this by carefully noting the patterns of stars around the bright star in images 2 and 3 and then matching that to the pattern around the second brightest star in image 1.)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-25-2020, 10:28 AM
|
| |
Cool shots!
Is there any chance the gull's aggressive behavior stems from COVID-19 lock-downs? With no tourists on the beaches and boardwalks, the gulls are going hungry and getting aggressive with 'egretable results.
(The land based parallel is the increase in aggressive rats -- Rodent Control | COVID-19 | CDC -- caused by the lack of restaurant scrap waste.)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
06-28-2019, 06:14 PM
|
| |
What you say is true about not being sure where to look in the image. And it is true for exactly the reasons you state.
And yet the picture is a delightful example of a certain style of landscape photograph that strives for this very property of edge to edge detail. No matter where you look in the scene, there is more scenery. In that regard, this photograph more faithfully replicates the real world and the infinite detail it presents to the explorer's eye.
Not all photographs need a focal point. Rather than lead the eye in one direction to one thing, some photographs invite -- even force -- wide-ranging exploration. Like a "Where's Waldo" image, the point is not the Waldo but all the myriad other interesting details of the scene.
Like so many things in photography (and life), the reason one person does not like a certain photograph or camera is the same reason someone else likes it.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-22-2019, 08:08 AM
|
| |
Exactly!
Every national park I've been to has been like this.
The parking lots, trails, and viewpoints are empty while all the average vacationers sleep in, eat breakfast, and wait to be picked up by the tour bus. There's more wildlife and less human life in the early hours. And if you hike in the Rocky Mountains, a dawn or pre-dawn start is essential for getting to the top of the mountain and then back down below tree line before the afternoon thunderstorms roll in.
Practically the only time we sent an alarm clock is for vacations.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
03-03-2019, 07:55 PM
|
| |
A spiral staircase as seen from below? The central textured area is the ceiling at the top of the stairs (and contains some recessed lighting and maybe an air vent). The white spiral is the railing wall around the stairs. The various beige patches are the ceilings above the spiraling stairs.
(Awesome image, BTW!)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
01-18-2019, 08:07 PM
|
| |
Vignetting can be a very useful. A bit of vignetting helps reinforce the centrality of the primary subject, enclose it in its own little universe, invoke a nostalgic memory that is fuzzy/dark at the edges, and perhaps even add a hint of voyeurism.
On the other hand, it can harm some types of images that seek to create a more open or boundless feeling. For example, with a landscape, you might want to convey a sense that the forest, mountains, clouds, etc. extend on forever out of the frame. Enclosing such a scene would make it seem smaller and less grand. Or if the focal person in the image is looking out of the frame, a vignette would tend to break their gaze.
Like every method or rule in photography, vignetting has it's uses but can be easily over used.
P.S. I do really like the vignetting for northcoastgreg's image in reinforcing the loneliness of the derelict ship and bring forth the notion of old memories of it's past service on the seas.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
01-18-2019, 09:22 AM
|
| |
Excellent composition!
That dog certainly knows he deserves attention from the pup-arazzi.;)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-06-2018, 02:43 PM
|
| |
Are you implying that it might get me in hot water?
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-06-2018, 02:26 PM
|
| |
Nice!
That rock looks more metamorphic to me with those veins of quartz. Sea water percolating through fractures in the volcano can dissolve the minerals in the hardened lava and then those minerals can recrystallize where the water reaches cooler parts of the volcano. The dark rock might contain some interesting metal ores.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-10-2018, 03:37 PM
|
| |
You should nominate your son to Henry, the inductor to the pun hall of fame. Just don't say anything about Henry's hair, he has a coulomb-over.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-10-2018, 03:21 PM
|
| |
I'll relay your concerns and wire you the battery of results but I'm afarad that they will recoil at the suggestion.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-10-2018, 01:44 PM
|
| |
Ohm My God! How reVolting! Those are ampalling puns!
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
03-01-2018, 12:02 PM
|
| |
Yes! The tilty screen is awesome
It's great for low-angle shots as normhead and WPRESTO mentioned (ground-level, knee-level, waist-level, and sitting chest-level shots).
It's also great for high-angle shots (over people's heads, over a fence, over railing/cliff edges, and to shoot museum art without keystoning, uneven focus and reflections from lights)
And it's great for astrophotography: I can set up my tripod and camera however I want and then angle the screen so I can watch the progress of the shots while I sit or lie down nearby.
Best of all (and better than almost any other tilt-screen camera out there) it works in both landscape and portrait orientation: up, down, left & right!
"Pentax: cameras made to expand your photographic possibilities."
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
08-05-2017, 06:28 PM
|
| |
Great capture!
Yet I have no doubt that Otis shall have that bird arrested on charges of seed-knapping, disorderly conduct, and Jay walking! ;)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-18-2017, 10:30 AM
|
| |
Great color!
(I hope it did not quack your lens....... )
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-08-2017, 12:14 PM
|
| |
I see Rupert's returning to form in the form of squirrel pictures and running color commentary (and B&W commentary, too). LOL!
I'm glad to see you on your feet and at your keyboard!
Regards! :)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-05-2017, 05:35 AM
|
| |
Nice wrendering! ;)
(and good composition & choice of backgrounds)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-01-2017, 04:41 PM
|
| |
Get well soon (or sooner)!
Those squirrels look like they are as eager for your pictures as we are.
And that last shot looks like the squirrel is showing you how to get well -- just drape yourself over a branch and wait for the peanut sap to come to you.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
06-17-2017, 06:40 AM
|
| |
Long focal length lenses require long extension tubes to get decent magnification.
30 mm of extension will only "add" 30/300 = 0.1 to the magnification.
If you want a 48 mm x 72 mm (2 in. x 3 in) scene to fill the frame of a K-1 which is a 1:2 or 0.5X magnification ratio, you'll need on the order of 75-80 mm of extension tubes on top of focusing at the minimum focus distance.
If you want a 24 mm x 36 mm scene to fill the frame of a K-1 which is a 1:1 or 1.0X magnification ratio, you'll need on the order of 230 mm of extension tubes on top of focusing at the minimum focus distance.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
05-04-2017, 07:38 AM
|
| |
What cheater branches? I don't see any cheater branches.
There's only a beautiful set of peanut sap spigots.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-16-2017, 07:41 AM
|
| |
Otis' "Guide to Beastly Birds" says this is the Foul-Feathered Sap-Stealer.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
01-28-2017, 01:00 PM
|
| |
What an excellent photo in so many ways:
1. the way the ice-steam-cloud splits sky and ground yet has space around it to define the cloud's floating condition
2. the star-burst explosion of the ice-steam radiating from the sun
3. the strong perspective/vanishing point of roof & rail that: both centers on the model and creates the opening frame for the ice-steam-cloud
4. the clipped position of the model leaning in from the far edge as if she's afraid of what might happen
5. the tension in the models' body: legs, wrist tendons, neck, & face
6. the model even conveys the chill in clutching the the very heavy sweater tightly
7. the juxtaposition of warm heavy wood, the blue of the sky and shadows on the snow, and the delicate streamers of ice-steam
Overall, one of the key elements of this image (and MikeSF's images often have this too) is that the image can be broken down into a tangram-puzzle-like geometry of similar-sized polygons. This particular composition is filled with triangles of similar size and many with similar shape but then are pieced together in different orientations. To my eye at least, such composition create a pleasing assembly of parts that make a whole.
Excellent creation!
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
11-28-2016, 05:50 PM
|
| |
Another "smile for the birdie" image -- great shot!
(BTW, I notice this bird has bands on the legs. Do you ever send copies of such photos to the local bird watching societies? There's probably some scientist somewhere who would love to know that bird XXX was in some known location on some known day.)
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
11-18-2016, 10:12 AM
|
| |
The moon actually moves about 3.7% slower than the stars. Astrotracer will mostly but not completely stop the motion of the moon. For every 27 pixels of star motion removed by astrotracer, the moon will shift by one pixel relative to the stabilized background star field. Thus, to a first approximation, you'll be able to use a shutter speed about 27 X slower with astrotracer than would have without astrotracer for moon shots.
Of course, if the atmosphere is turbulent (which can be especially true of shots with the moon just rising or setting over a landscape) then fs999 is correct that shorter is better.
|
|
Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
11-09-2016, 06:29 AM
|
| |
Excellent photo! That area looks ripe for more photos (e.g., at the right time of year, the sun will be directly behind that lone tree on the center right and something like a 75mm to 150mm lens would get a great portrait of it with the sky and rippled water.)
(P.S. Methinks Luna is happy to be out but wondering why you spend so much time petting that strange black-headed, three-legged creature.)
|
