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Forum: General Talk
02-19-2023, 02:31 AM
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That I cannot say, as I have yet to brave the cold to find out. I do know the X-T1 viewfinders don't play nice with polarized sunglasses. I don't know if the X-T5 does better with them.
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Forum: General Talk
02-18-2023, 03:04 PM
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It sure has a lot of inscrutable settings. The lack of a paper owners manual doesn't help me much as I much prefer to read a book than try to figure stuff out from a computer screen. I'll probably end up watching a bunch of YouTube videos.
They have taken a page from Pentax with their pixel shift technology and built on it. If I've interpreted things correctly, it takes 16 images and combines them to create a 160mp file with full color data at every pixel site.
It appears to have an extended ISO range down to ISO 64 which will be very handy in the studio as my room is small enough that I have trouble throttling my lights back far enough to allow the wider apertures I prefer for portraiture.
No astro tracer, that's still a Pentax thing, though the camera appears to have GPS as it offers to save location data. I haven't dug around on that yet.
Also, it does automatic focus bracketing for focus stacking. This is exciting for me as focus stacks are one of the things I do quite often.
It's tiny, about the same size as the X-T1. My understanding is the previous camera or two were somewhat larger.
And... It has an EVF that doesn't give me an instant headache if it's set to it's higher refresh rate, which is nice. One of my few complaints with the X-T1 was that it gave me eye strain fairly quickly.
It doesn't come with an external battery charger, it plugs into a USB-C port on the side for charging, but my pusher gave me a good deal on a third party charger that has two charging ports and came with a battery, so I have two batteries for it.
And, almost the best part was when I walked past the used gear display I found a Pentax mount (though not Pentax brand) bellows with a genuine K mount 100mm bellows lens attached to it, which they sold to me for a very small price, about 1/6th of what they seem to be going for on eBay.
This is a lens I have been desiring for many years.
Overall, it's been a very successful day so far.
I have two, or possibly three, portrait sessions scheduled for tomorrow, so I'm going to use the Fuji for them to see how it works. I've always liked the quality I get off the X-Trans sensor, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what this camera does for me.
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Forum: General Talk
02-18-2023, 01:10 PM
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I spoiled myself this morning with a Fuji X-T5 body.
It seems quite nice so far.
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Forum: General Talk
02-04-2023, 04:10 PM
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That looks like it would be a really handy addition to a K3III.
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Forum: General Talk
02-04-2023, 03:28 PM
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For the first time in almost 35 years, I have spoiled myself with a new camera bag. My old one was a LowePro Pro 35 which has served me well since I bought it in 1984 and which I resurrected last year as I had outgrown the smaller Mini Trekker that I bought in the late 1980s.
I'm a big fan of LowePro bags as they are well built and seem pretty indestructible.
I wanted a bag that would carry all the gear I want to take to location. If I want to travel lighter from there, I take what I want from the bag, generally at that point I put gear into my dog's backpack and let her earn her kibble.
The old Pro 35 finally snapped a buckle, and I had outgrown it, mostly because the DFA* 50mm & 85mm lenses take up a sizable volume in the bag. I was also wanting to be able to pack some lenses that I hadn't been able to fit into it.
The new one is a Pro Trekker BP 450 AW II which I settled on after much searching and comparing interior dimensions and the like. There is sufficient room in the lid to hold half a dozen spare batteries and an SD card case.
The first photo shows what I am packing. Clockwise from the right is the F*300/4.5, which is one of the lenses I was able to add, then a Takumar 17mm fisheye that I affixed to an M42-K adapter and modified to lock onto a K-mount camera, and a Pentax A 2x teleconverter, both are new additions. Next are the 77 Ltd (new addition) and FA* 24mm/2.8. Below that is the A20/2.8 and FA31 Ltd.
The K1 and DFA* 50/1.4 are in the case, and to the left is the FA 100mm macro, an A15/3.5, FA70-210/4, the battery grip for the K1 (kind of hidden) and the DFA* 85/1.4.
I take the 77 as the 85 is too large for my dog's backpack and I find the AOV of a short tele to be very useful.
Also in the bag is a wired remote and a couple of filter cases. The lid has a couple of zippered pouches that are holding reducing rings and the like.
And here is what it all looks like when the bag is packed and ready to go.
It's a large backpack style bag, and with that much gear in it I won't be carrying it on any long hikes, but generally I'm able to get fairly close to where I want to be in my truck, and as I mentioned, I have a 4 legged Sherpa that loves to work for me if I want to travel light from my vehicle.
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Forum: General Talk
04-08-2020, 02:02 PM
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Nice on the 43. My original 77mm was number 37.
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Forum: General Talk
04-07-2020, 04:23 PM
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The Image brand was a private label for a company called Astral Photo here in Canada. I worked for them for a few years from 1985 to 1991. I never did see lenses branded "Image by Vivitar", so I can't comment for sure that these were an Astral Photo brand, but it wouldn't surprise me if when they originally went shopping for people to build and brand equipment for them Vivitar was a chosen supplier.
Vivitar themselves had equipment built for them by other companies, they were never more than a brand name that bought jobber equipment to put their name on, so if the "Image by Vivitar" lenses were sold as Astral Photo house brand, it was a sort of jobber by jobber lens.
The Image lenses were never meant to be a high quality lens, they were a house brand lens meant to increase cash flow.
We made far more money off an Image brand lens than we made off of a first party lens.
Walking into an Astral Photo was walking into an Image brand store. The name was put on film (made by Fuji), tripods, photo albums, cheap pocket cameras, and accessories such as lens caps and filters.
When I started working for them, the lenses were made in Japan. They had mundane focal lengths with mundane apertures for the most part.
The only primes I saw from them were 28/2.8 and 135/2.8, these were often sold as a 2 lens package for perhaps as much as a hundred dollars with the purchase of a camera body.
Zoom lenses were the big deal, with 28-70 & 70-200 being another common 2 lens package. I also recall a 28-135, which was a junker lens with green glass (literally), and a 70-300 that was pretty bad as well. There were others zooms as well, but I don't recall specifics.
Late in my time with them we started to see lenses made in (South) Korea. This was the era of the Hyundai Pony car and the Korean lenses were of similar quality. But, we could sell that two lens package of 28mm and 135mm for $49.00 and make more money than we made from the camera body.
Interestingly, late in my time with Astral, Pentax started putting the Takumar name onto some of their lenses in an attempt to "house brand". What we were told was that the lenses were identical in construction to the SMC Pentax lenses, but the Takumars were not multi coated in their internal elements. The front element got the full SMC treatment, after that it was single coatings.
So if someone tells you they have a K-Mount Takumar zoom, they might very well. They exist. I believe they made a 28-80 and 80-200 zooms for the house brand market.
The Astral Photo stores were acquired by Black's Photo in 1996, a few years after I moved on to a local and horrendous lab company who's only saving grace was that I was able to collect a paltry paycheck from while I ran my own photography business out of the store I worked at. The pay was crappy, but it was better than paying rent.
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Forum: General Talk
10-16-2016, 07:09 AM
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Mine isn't this colour. I pick it up tomorrow.
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