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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-07-2015, 04:16 AM
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@normhead
You taken care to explain the "nonsense" of zooming with your feets, how it is important to shoot fast to exploit the short time when an interresting thing happen and given an example with a tripod shoot of a static subject. You also taken care to explain how better a 135mm shoot @135 would be opposed to a cropped 100mm prime, in particular if the zoom is the 18-135. You were very clear on that last point how this very zoom @135mm would outperform a 100mm prime cropped to 135m. You expressed also how important for you to keep all thoses 24MP of K3.
While the overall meaning is true and you definitely have a point, it was just overstated and I do think looking at the wildlife pictures you often post to this forum - maybe I'am wrong - that you tend to crop much more often than your statements would make somebody guess it.
Your next point was that finally both primes and zooms are usefull, were I would agree without reservation.
But you didn't forget to include in the argumentation how my posts look confused, how I never post pictures and how I should avoid to quote you while you don't seems to restrain yourself much in this area when you see fit. That's a bit funny and unecessary.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-05-2015, 01:02 PM
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If you want to see what I shoot before you criticise it, help yourself but don't pretend you can't get it. It's one link away if you are that interrested. I also post pictures from time to time on the forum true, but you are not often on the threads I post in, I don't care and I think you should not care neither.
I didn't criticize your picture that is quite nice, this is just I don't think this is especially difficult or whatever to get or that is require advanced material of any kind except maybe something that can provide a bit of shallow deph of field.
Second you state your point of view: zoom are better, permit more, their quality is enough and one doesn't need primes that are less practical. That's a point of view you go own with examples and your practice. There no issue with all of that.
Then suddenly of somebody respond to you it is indeed far possible with a prime, you get ofence and say that no is impossible or very bad idea. Again that's a point of view.
There isn't much more to say.
And just for the fun, a picture I didn't take much time to take, just a snapshoot, without tripod, without special zoom, just using my F135... and quite heavily cropped at that. Like you not every picture has to be perfect, and I think it is good enough:
IMGP4916 by Nicolas, sur Flickr
Another one just when walking in the street, without even stopping, takken with FA77... This isn't that sharp neither. But hey it did work.
IMGP0093 by Nicolas, sur Flickr
An again the FA77
IMGP1918 by Nicolas, sur Flickr
It doesn't have to be difficult, boring or long you know. Maybe you thing this is utter crap, but anyway I think this is a valid practice to use primes and I don't think that you should explain how bad I'am because I don't share the same habits as you.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-05-2015, 11:22 AM
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There millions of tree elements that look like the one in your photo as the main subject. More important there million that are different and could be worse... or better. There sunset and sunrise everywhere, everydays and many are much longer than 2-3 minutes. More importantly, many different backgrounds could be as interresting. Just cut the damn subject from the tree and you'll have much more freedown to shoot it in exactly the situation you want. With much more freedom in what you'll achieve than to have to narrow on a 2 minute timeframe and a specific orientation, distance etc to get your results.
Hey you could even make pictures like that all the time like ruppert does many squirel shoots or Amelie does picture of garden gnome in every city of the world as a joke.
I respect what you want to shoot and how you want to shoot it, but there not one true way that is good and other way that have to be inferior. There pro that shoot the Olympic with large format film camera and they may sell their picture for much more than you or me could pretend... and their subject move faster and the even repeat only every 4 years.
If they can do it, you, me, everybody can do it too.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-02-2015, 11:31 PM
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This is valid for sharpness and if you think high MP and sharpess is everything (that seems to be your argument) then yes having the exact match in focal length with a very expensive high quality lense to match with perfect borders will always be better than a crop.
The first thing to do then is to stop using this 18-135 past 50mm if you are serious about this 24MP thing and consider then a 70-200 or a 50-135 lense to shoot this 135mm framing. Even under 50mm the 18-135 is okish only at f/5.6 or f/8 only. At from the tests, the 16-85 is already better cropped to 135mm than the 18-135 at 135mm... There no doubt a DFA100 macro cropped to 135 will also do better than the 18-135.
You may get high quality picture with high quality zoom, sure like 18-35 f/1.8, 24-70 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8, 150-450 would be your kit or something like that.
But if you got say a 18-135 + a 50-500 for sure, replacing that with DA21, DA35, DA70, F135, DA300 for example will give you better or as good pictures at all intermediate focal lengths in the 21-500 range.
Now if you get some lenses that are even uter crap in theory but give you a rendering you like that you want for the shoot, this is what you needr. That's why lens baby, lomography and alike exist, that why many buy very old, crap lense to play with them. That's why we have wide apperture that give soft, blury rendering with almost nothing in focus. Not everything is to be shoot at f/11 with a 18-270 super zoom.
So when I sold this 50-135 for a FA77 and a F135 this is because I know that on top of being far better at 77mm and allowing larger apperture for things the 50-135 cannot touch, for the most used range for me arround 77-120mm I'd get overall better or as good results than the zoom. I have made many pictures with both and that's how I feel it. I'am more please with the FA77 result and I'am also much more likely to have it in the bag than the 50-135 that is big and heavy.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-02-2015, 10:38 PM
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The restriction is valid for cliffs or landscapes where you might need to move a few miles (if possible) to reframe to get the same thing. For bears, honestly I don't trust it that much, maybe because we have maybe like 5 bears in our whole country where I live ?
The thing is not really zooming with you feets is better or not.
The thing is thinking that because you have a zoom the initial position and focal length (that happen to match your framing) is the best for the picture you are going to shoot. This is very unlikely. I mean it can be from good practice, but it will not be from random positionning and choice of focal length in easy mode: try the first that just match the framing.
On the opposite the example of normhead is interresting because well it is very likely in can try the same picture in a billion place of the forest because the subject is very common and so he has almost infinite choice of exact background, focal length etc. That he can find a better framing/shoot that in got even with a different focal length is almost certain. He can't get it as the time required to shoot one or 2 will mean the light changed but it is not like the it would not be possible to get a similar shoot, a bit worse or a bit better with a different lense.
The zoom is going to help once you settle the tripod and because the light will be changing fast and so in this case the time you get as good or better framing with the prime, you may miss the great background... If you didn't think of what you wanted to do a bit in advence.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-02-2015, 12:32 AM
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I would ask if you have a 100mm and a 200mm, why indeed do you need 120mm ? Is it because you exactly need the level of bokeh a 120mm lense would produce at that focussing distance, angle and with that background? Is it because you want exactly that level of perspective compression, 100mm not enough and 200mm too much? Or is it because you want that exact framing and there is no possibility to reframe it at 100mm by moving a bit ?
For me if I need 120mm framing, I'd say 100mm is perfect, even with a zoom. I find it better to frame a bit large, to get margins for post processing where correcting the lense, perfecting the horizon or the framing mean it is better to have a bit of margin on all side. Does it reduce quality? Well depend but is not usually lenses border that provide the maximum quality in particular at large appertures and on zooms. The cropping to 120mm will not really degrade the quality.
Now for me it is more when you have a 100 and 200mm and the subject is too big for 200mm that's for sure but you need really say 160-180mm. It is not easy to reframe by moving. Then you crop quite a bit from your 100mm and it is more difficult to say that the prime would maintain it's edge in picture quality.
At 141mm that's what you would get with a 12MP m4/3 body with the same lense. At 200mm that's what you would get out of a 1" sensor at 6MP. So yeah for maximum picture quality I'd avoid shooting a 100mm past 160-180mm if possible.
The thing is cropping will not change the lense rendering. The focus transistion would remain the same, the color rendering would remain the same, the flare resistance would remain the same, the constrast would remain the same... Just that you cropped more.
Also practically the lense will remain also smaller and lighter. Cropping doesn't change that neither.
If you did choose 1 lense over the other for theses qualities rather than just how it look when zoomed 10 time on your computer then it will keep theses qualities. If unfortunately your alternative zoom doesn't match that, it will not suddently start to have theses quality because you cropped your prime lense shoot a bit.
Once cropped you may be limited to 30"x40" prints instead of 40"x60" prints like you would be with maybe a 12MP camera anyway. True. That's not that bad.
I know that for my personnal point of view that the 50-135 doesn't render at well as the FA77. The 50-135 is likely as sharp at f/5.6 but the photos are just less pleasing. The overall rendering of FA77 is more interresting and that's why I sold the 50-135 and brought the FA77 among other things. The other aspect is the weight/size of the lense. FA77 is small, light unobtrusive. Even if you crop this FA77, the rendering is still better. I later on added an F135 and even both FA77+F135 I still get the same weight overall and smaller package. The F135 is no sharper than the 50-135, it as more CA but the rendering by itself, I would say it is better than the 50-135.
For larger shoot, I got the 15, 21 and 35. Theses lenses are very different than the 77 & 135. The last 2 have really great bokeh. the 35, 15 and 21 have really great contrast. Each of my lense render quite differently than the other so when I choose one I don't only choose the framing, I also choose this rendering as it is from the perspective, the bokeh, the contrast and the colors.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-01-2015, 04:01 PM
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You got maybe many pictures and that's nice.
What I read from a book is that the landscape photographer typically study in advance the place, he is aware of the weather forecast, the sun direction and so on and go back when the condition are great for shooting. Because he took time to prepare the framing etc so on in advence he will directly go for the 1, 2 or 3 key shoot that are really interresting and get them better than if he tryed to grab everything in a hurry.
Honestly, I'am not there, by far. I prefer to just wander arround and take pictures. But I don't feel like I need to take all the pictures I can or that if I change more often lense etc the pictures will be better.
It is as likely to get a stunning shoot by taking many shoot at different focal length or by keeping only one. Even if one can think of it as trick it seems that for me prime work well as a creative tool and allow to concentrate on the shooting.
I don't know maybe it is more linked to the person but I'd say that in your situation I may decide to keep only 1 focal length for the shooting and shoot with it. I can stay with the same focal length for 1-2 hour without issue and without feeling any limitation to my creativity.
It is true as said by others that for a given event you may have to hurry or unable to move. As a professionnal you may have to deliver and that might included quantity along with variety in shootings. Here zoom can indeed help. Some pro come with 2 bodies 1 zoom in each body or 1 zoom and a prime for a reason.
Now who is more likely to get 1-2 more interresting pictures? The guy that shoot everything with a zoom and different focal lengths or the guy that stick to 1 prime for the whole shoot? I'd not conclude that one has obviously superiority over the other. This is dependant of the situation.
To me the 2 practices are valid and I would not think the one sticking with the prime would have to expect inferior results overall.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-01-2015, 03:46 PM
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That's true for events/parties and I'll add for many of theses events one get the isos a bit high and this doesn't play way with heavy cropping.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-01-2015, 12:05 PM
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I wonder what is the big kit ? :D That's already more than 2kg !
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-01-2015, 12:29 AM
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The thing is an infinite number of awesome things appear all the time. For most your are not even there. if you go to a place where you want to take something and can't anticipate and can't move fast enough, a zoom is going to save the day. But this also mean you will not choose the perspective compression/distorsion or the angle of view to the scene. This is the good compromize for many events.
As for zoom, high quality zooms are very limited in focal range. This 18-35 for framing can be replaced 99% of the time by the DA21 or the 50-135 by the FA77 you get almost the same possibility. True the 18-35 can be cropped to 50mm with high quality or the 50-135 to 200mm with high quality, very true. But the DA21 can already be cropped to 30-40mm and FA77 to 100-135mm. The difference is finally not so huge.
What would give you the most of zoom flexibility would be a zoom with a wide range like the 16-85.. or 18-135. There no way you can crop a DA15 to have good enough 85mm framing because it leave you less than 1MP worth of picture. Then we are not in the same league for apperture/size/quality as would be the prime. No way the DA16-85 approach the FA77 or DA35 macro.
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