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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
9 Hours Ago
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Both shot with Pentax Q7 and Q 08 wide zoom.
"Kotatsu"
It's a low (~60cm or ~2ft) table with a built-in heater at my mother-in-law's house, used as a dining/tea table while we sit on zabuton (cushion). 4.2mm, f/3.7, ISO100 and 1/6 sec, hand-held. Used Silver Efex Pro 2 "Fine Art Process" for B&W conversion.
"Legs"
Many legs including my wife's at a bar/restaurant at Seattle airport. 3.8mm, f/3.7, ISO800 and 1/15 sec. This was processed in camera (custom image "Monochrome", digital filter "High Contrast") and cropped a little in Lightroom.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
3 Days Ago
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Cross posted to Post your K3 iii pictures thread.
A juvenile Northern Goshawk(?) was harassed by a Large-billed Crow and flew away. This was in a small park in the middle of super-densely populated area in Tokyo and I was surprised to see the hawk at all. I'm on travel and didn't bring my DA*300 nor 1.4x HD telecon, but I'm very happy that 55-300mm PLM with K-3III did the job nicely for me.
The first 5 shots and the last three are from two different burst sequences. All cropped to ~13Mp except the last one, which is ~8.3Mp. 
I'm super happy that my panning happened to be OK on the last one, and that the camera-lens combo kept the focus on target.
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Forum: Pentax K-3 III
4 Days Ago
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A juvenile Northern Goshawk(?) was harassed by a Large-billed Crow and flew away. The first 5 shots and the last three are from two different burst sequences. All cropped to ~13Mp except the last one, which is ~8.3Mp.
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Forum: Contest Voting
08-06-2022, 11:12 PM
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I'd like to nominate this.
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Forum: Contest Voting
08-06-2022, 11:12 PM
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I would like to nominate this photo
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
08-01-2022, 03:38 PM
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Congrats Titia, congrats barondla, well deserved!!
Cipher, thank you very much, this was a great competition to see different approaches to go One Step Beyond.
(Vendee, your analog "processing" was refreshing and interesting to me!)
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
08-01-2022, 03:20 PM
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That's right JPT, this is the Shinjuku West Exit location in the Odakyu HALC building. I've never been to East Exit location, I didn't even know that it existed until your post. :lol: I added the clarification in the original post, thanks!
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
08-01-2022, 03:02 AM
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I had some errands to do in Tokyo today, and between these I managed to visit Bic Camera in Shinjuku, one of the large retail stores.
(Update: There are three Bic Camera stores around Shinjuku station, the one I visited is the West Exit Store. There's also East Exit Store which used to be called Bic-Qlo, that one doesn't have as many Pentax products according to JPT. There's yet another store (called 新宿東口駅前店 or "Store Right In Front Of The Station East Exit"), that was much smaller than the West Exit store as I vaguely remember.)
Almost exactly 6 years ago, I posted about this place (PENTAX/RICOH store presence in BIC Camera, Shinjuku, Tokyo - PentaxForums.com). I've heard that Pentax/Ricoh significantly reduced store presence in Japan since then (see this great thread about the state of Pentax availability in Japan by JPT Where to find Pentax in Japanese camera stores in 2022 - PentaxForums.com). I thought I'd make a comparison of now/then at a single location.
Today, Pentax DSLRs and lenses occupy 3 shelf units (each unit is about 1m wide and 1.8m or so tall). Two K-3III (one black, one silver) as well as a K-1II are on display, so are most current lenses, it seems, but I don't know if all current lenses are there.
Back in 2016, K-70, K-S2, K-3II and K-1 were all "current" models, and these four as well as lenses occupied four shelf units, see the picture below. As far as shelf space is concerned, now=75% of 2016. That's not bad.
Greater reduction in store space came from GR and compacts.
One shelf unit for GRIII and GRIIIx combined today VS three shelf units just for GR (distributed to three different locations in the store) back then. I only post "now" picture here.
0.5 shelf unit for tough compacts (one shelf unit shared with Olympus and Kodac(!?)) today VS two shelf units back then.
And they used to have 0.5 shelf unit for Q and 2 for Theta, I found zero today (though I didn't search seriously).
To give you some sense of scale, the store space for Pentax/Ricoh combined today is about the same as that for Olympus (I know because I counted the number of shelf units), and probably about 3-ish times smaller than that for Nikon/Canon/Sony (I don't know for sure as I didn't bother to count :lol:).
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-31-2022, 11:06 PM
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-31-2022, 06:48 PM
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Thanks for the picture and the roadmap! When they showed that comparison, many were typing おお!! or "ooh!!" in the chat. Same pronunciation, same meaning, different language. :lol:
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
07-31-2022, 02:24 PM
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I was thinking about Dali when I shot the thermometer/hygrometer, wondering if he was in Tokyo in summer when he painted his melting clocks. :lol:
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-31-2022, 02:38 AM
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I've just attended the online event. This is a short report about the "just a bit about new product" part.
That new product was the new DFA 100mm macro (exact model name wasn't revealed) to be released in 2022, which was a total surprise. The lens is not on the roadmap yet but will be on the new roadmap.
They already had a sample image (sorry, forgot to take screenshot), they showed side-by-side comparison of the new and the old, and the reduction of purple fringe in the new one was very impressive. The designer (O-ishi san) said that he personally wanted to improve the purple fringe of the current DFA 100mm macro and started working on the new design using his spare time (yes it's the new optical design!!), apparently that was the start of this new lens. It will be an HD lens. Expensive glass material is used, and the price will be "a bit" higher than the current model.
Many asked about K-1III in the chat window but no discussion or even mention of the development status of new body.
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
07-30-2022, 09:29 PM
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Title of the picture is "Morning, 29 degrees Celsius, 91% Relative Humidity". I'm in Japan now, this was shot in the morning where the temperature was low, and it was already so uncomfortable I felt as if everything was slowly melting. Later it went up to 35C or 95F.
Google Pixel 3, converted to BW, deformed using "Liquify" effect in Photoshop.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-30-2022, 06:13 AM
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I went to the Club House today.
Due to COVID concern, only 10 visitors were allowed to stay inside, and only for 30 minutes. The first 10 visitors went in at 11AM (I was among them), came out at 11:30, at which point the next group of 10 went in.
It was very nice to be able to talk to Pentax people like Wakashiro san and TKO. They offered some stories regarding memorabilia (e.g. Wakashiro san told me that the leather for LX gold edition is supposed to be crocodile but this specimen that was rescued from North American branch office has cow leather and probably that was the feature of gold edition LX for North American market.), we talked about cameras, I complained a bit about marketing effort in North America (or lack thereof esp. something to engage the users compared with Japan). I wore a Pentax Forums T-shirt that I designed (https://pentaxforums_shirts.creator-spring.com/listing/pentax-pentaprism-2021-shirt), so we talked about that too.
Oh, Pentaxians' Yearbooks (The PENTAXIANS Yearbook) were featured there, Wakashiro san said that a Pentax Forums member in Japan brought them in.
This is a small place, but 30 minutes was absolutely too short.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-29-2022, 01:40 PM
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The online meeting (where they will talk about the clubhouse, Katen custom image and "only a tiny bit" about the future products) will be held tomorrow, the event already reported is the grand opening of the clubhouse.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
07-27-2022, 02:44 PM
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Beautiful storm, I like it!
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-27-2022, 02:41 PM
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I based this on the "AP" trademark originally granted to Asahi Kogaku in 1961 ("AP" represents Asahi Pentax) and eventually transferred to Ricoh. In Japanese language, Single Lens Reflex is called 一眼レフ = "mono eye reflex", thus Cyclops' eye.
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1800/TR/JP-1959-034775/A288224C73446ADEF5...B29525BA/40/en
TKO (the designer of J-limited series among other things) says that there are two variants for this. Earlier version had inner as well as outer corner of the eye, but later they thought that an eye of a mono-eyed creature cannot have "inner" and "outer" corner, so they changed the design.
?????? (PENTAX by RICOH IMAGING) - [TKO??] ?????TKO???
Note to Adam: I'd like to be careful as the AP trademark is still active and I don't intend to infringe on anything. If this wins (hey, I can dream big :lol:), I'll ask Ricoh Imaging Japan if this is acceptable.
FYI, my hope is that the PF logo works as Cyclops' lips. Pointy part of the logo below P means that he's sticking the tip of his tongue out to the right. :lol:
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
07-21-2022, 04:52 PM
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Cinema.
Pentax Q7, Q 06 Telephoto at the long end (EXIF says 44.7mm), which wasn't long enough so I cropped to just 2.7Mp from the original 12Mp. ISO100, f/2.8, 1/30sec. Radial blur was done in Photoshop.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
07-18-2022, 12:47 PM
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When I first bought O-GPS1, I just did High Precision Calibration on my KP and astrotracer worked. High Precision Calibration doesn't require simple Calibration. I'm not sure if I've ever done simple Calibration.
I've just tested it and it took me about 3 seconds to rotate the camera more than 180 degrees in all three axes, gripping the camera with both hands from the start to finish w/o changing hands (that's Ricoh's recommended method). I didn't try to be quick or anything. Of course O-GPS1 would have failed if I attempted to calibrate using such a (not-so-)fast motion. I hope that O-GPS2 will take it. I'm going to buy it anyway and will report back in early August.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
07-18-2022, 08:28 AM
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This person says that precise calibration takes only up to 5 seconds using O-GPS2, which is a substantial improvement.
https://shironagassu.hatenablog.com/entry/2022/07/11/193616
Good point. Though the two might be similar when they're just barely acquiring their positions, I doubt that the accuracy of O-GPS1 and O-GPS2 are the same when both are running under the best conditions (though of course that depends on what O-GPS2 does internally). For geo tagging, that improvement might matter.
For astrotracing, GPS accuracy isn't a problem as far as O-GPS1/O-GPS2 acquires its position. We'll be fine even if we have a huge position error (like e.g. 1km, which is equivalent of about 0.028 degrees maximum of lattitude error). Accuracy of electronic compass and tilt meter are far worse.
Another thing is the availability of satellites. If you're surrounded by buildings or at the bottom of a deep valley or something, more systems means more chances of having some satellites in your limited view.
(Update later: AstroDave beat me to it concerning astrotracer, thanks!)
(Update 2: Fixed the link for the O-GPS2 calibration.)
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
07-17-2022, 10:53 AM
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Big difference is that more satellite systems are supported, leading to a better accuracy at any given time and location. See attached.
GPS, GLONASS and Galileo have global coverage.
SBAS or Satellite-based Augmentation System is something to enhance the performance of satellite based navigation systems like GPS, typically using an array of ground-based stations and geostationary satellites. They used to list three SBAS systems (WAAS/EGNOS/MSAS) for O-GPS1. Since then, India's GAGAN SBAS has become available but it's not clear if that's supported by O-GPS2.
QZSS is the Japanese regional satellite navigation system that mostly benefits Japan.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-14-2022, 09:15 PM
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Forum: Pentax Q
07-14-2022, 07:04 AM
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The developers said that's not it. From DC watch interview (https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/interview/1197105.html):"小型化を実現するためにフラッシュを非搭載にしたということではありません。" i.e. "Keeping the size down is not the reason why the flash wasn't built-in. "
In the 2nd article of the same interview (RICOH GR III???? - ???? Watch) they said that the startup time (0.8s) is the shortest among all GR models, that extending the lens barrel was a big factor, and that they were able to use a bigger motor in GR III to drive the lens barrel because of the space that used to be occupied by the flash in GR II.
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