johnw436

<p>Supriyo, indeed. The Great Lakes can be some of the most treacherous waters on Earth during storms. These are a veritable graveyard of ships. The waters of the Great Lakes are violent beyond compare during big storms because of the confused wave state, which is responsible for the truly dramatic photos in this series. The swell is moving with the wind, and the waves returning from other direction will collide with the swell and against the wind and the result is very large waves crashing head on. Sailors around the world have the utmost respect for Great Lakes sailors. I have been on ships in the North Atlantic and I have been on ships when we sailed through hurricanes. The Great Lakes can be worse. Instead of long, rising swell the confused chop on the Great Lakes beats you from every side and all at once. </p>

<p>The Tamron 28-75/f2.8 is my go-to lens. It is mounted permanently on my camera. (It was permanent on my K20 until it became permanent on my K3) It is a superb lens. There are times when I want a wider lens, and then I use my Sigma 10-20. How often is that in day to day shooting? For me- rarely. I would not trade the Tamron for another lens just to get a wider focal range, speaking for myself. I get no noticeable distortion at either end of the zoom range. I just can't say anything negative about it. When I first bought the lens I thought it felt a little bit under built. After several years, those worries were unfounded. The lens is perfectly robust and adding weight to it would serve no purpose. </p> <p>I have the DA40 and DA70 Limiteds. Images from the Tamron are nearly indistinguishable. </p> <p> </p>

<p>I hope you are right, for no other reason than to see Pentax establish itself in the FF market. Personally, I'm more than happy with Dx. Are there times when a 10mm lens isn't wide enough on Dx? Not for me. I can't remember that happening. I'm still giddy shooting my K3, and I'm still more than happy with my K20 when I'm not shooting in the dark.</p>

<p>This is the equivalent of two kids in the back seat of a car on a long, hot, summer vacation from Hell. One kid (the drone operator) is holding his finger one inch from his sibling's face saying "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you" which is an obvious attempt to draw a forceful response from the sibling, to bait a smack from the sibling who will then have crossed the line in response even though said response is warranted.</p> <p>For what justifiable purposed, legal or not, can a drone operator fly a drone over someone else's property before it becomes a nuisance or worse? Since the property owner can't know what the intent of the drone operator is, the property owner has to on one hand tolerate the finger in the face for fear of repercussions, or on the other hand address a nuisance/ peeping tom/ instigator by disabling the drone. He can't call the police because he has no idea who to report and the drone won't be there when the police arrive. An unauthorized drone within striking distance, within the confines of a property, is a drone that is intentionally invading private property.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Christian, if you don't get a pretty good answer here quickly you'll probably have a lot better luck asking this question in the Classic Manual Cameras forum. While this forum is Pentax-specific, the Classic Manual forum is full of people who spend all day tinkering with older cameras of every stripe. </p>

<p>I haven't tried product shots with a polarizer. Interesting idea. I won't cost me anything to try, so I'll give that a shot next time and see what turns up. So far I've only been working with lighting variations.</p>

<p>As for me, I'm still working on my still life lighting. Knives, being reflective by nature, have proven to be a real challenge for me. My goal this week was to get enough light on the handle to show the depth in the wood (chatoyance) without blowing the highlights completely. The handle is finished with a very reflective oil finish and I wanted to use enough fill to accent the lines with highlights but not blow the blade completely out.</p> <p> K3 with Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 shot at 55mm @f/22. <br> AB800 through scrim as main light, ABR800 as fill light.</p> <table > <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/gRTPDRrmOmvH5be03M8rBNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VsrTmOflgnw/ViWuCpImBvI/AAAAAAAAGOE/_3BnW33cjRc/s800-Ic42/2015.10.19%252520Gyuto%2525208in%252520AEB-L_Pommelle%252520Koa_side.JPG" alt="" width="800" height="532" /></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td >From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/john.jwphoto/Knives?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">Knives</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

<p>Matt, your compositions are so strong. The images you post always jump right off my monitor, but aside from the sharpness and color, etc. it is your composition that always pulls me into the photo. I just want you to know that I admire your work a great deal. PN seems to have slowed down an awful lot in the time I've been away and most photos don't get a lot of feedback.</p> <p>Doug, I really like your hawk photo. the sharpness and framing are wonderful. I can't quite make out what the bird has in its beak. Makes for a very interesting photo.</p> <p>Javier, it is great to see you back. From following your posts it seems you disappeared for some time. I see you haven't lost the touch for street photos.</p> <p>Harry, those colors really pop in the soccer photo. Great timing on the capture, catching the guy on the left completely off the ground.</p>

<p>I think there is great value in a book like this. Many people going into a profession are kids in love with an idea, and absolutely no life experience to guide them. They've been given such sage advice as "do something you love" by people who don't depend on doing what they love to make a living. Every vocation seems exciting when a person is fixated on the fun part of it. </p>

<p>I really appreciate you doing that. It's never my intention to clutter the site. Thank you.</p>

<p>Harry, you may be correct that I just haven't seen the issue. On that note, I ran across a YouTube video saying that the default setting for auto iso noise reduction were causing the person a lot of unpredictable results. By setting noise reduction to OFF (100-1600 iso), LOW (3200 - 12,800) and MEDIUM above that, the issue went away for the person who shot the video I watched. I did apply those settings. According to him, before he made that change the camera would at times freak out for whatever reason and apply a bunch of noise reduction, ruining the shot. I certainly can't speak to it, I only know that I've played with this camera in near pitch-black and it performed wonderfully. Only time will tell. I can only say that this camera has worked amazingly in conditions where my k20 wouldn't even try to consider firing the shutter.</p>

<p>My apologies. Andrew helped me out on how to post images, but I wasn't able to delete the two previous dead links.</p> <p> </p> <table > <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_Ir-6URurvR_SzXFouTiYdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VIZeHm-oCOw/VhL6qiFYMLI/AAAAAAAAGNM/mhTmPXiyOL4/s640-Ic42/spine%252520view%252520makers%252520mark.jpg" alt="" /></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td >From</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>K3, 1/160 @f/20, Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 @ 75mm</p>

<p>Thank you, Andrew. I was pulling my hair out!</p> <p>So the most common negative I read about the K3 is the poor jpeg quality out of the camera. I'm not seeing it. Perhaps my standards are too low? I don't know, but these images are straight from the camera. The only post processing I did was a little dust spotting and resizing to 600 pixels on the long side in SilkyPix. These were shot as jpegs. The only issue I see is that I need to do more dust spotting.</p> <p> </p> <table > <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_Ir-6URurvR_SzXFouTiYdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VIZeHm-oCOw/VhL6qiFYMLI/AAAAAAAAGNM/mhTmPXiyOL4/s640-Ic42/spine%252520view%252520makers%252520mark.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426" /></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td >From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/john.jwphoto/Knives?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">Knives</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table > <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6sb6qblo3cHnb0pgr7B2C9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0g6_3XXovlA/VhL6YKZlgCI/AAAAAAAAGNE/b57ntTU01cY/s640-Ic42/right%252520side%252520view.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426" /></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td >From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/john.jwphoto/Knives?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">Knives</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <table > <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pZYLAaufDvuU1dZCnn4e_9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-AG6JlcjL3nI/VhL6Lrc_JeI/AAAAAAAAGM0/dNzbqEb6qXk/s640-Ic42/left%252520side%252520with%252520sheath.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426" /></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td >From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/john.jwphoto/Knives?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">Knives</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

<p>I look forward to seeing your shots, Bethe, and getting your feedback on how you like shooting the K3. I find that my quibbles are going away as I get used to the feel of the camera. No, it's still too angular and not nearly as comfortable to hold as my K20 but as I shoot it more I'm sure I'll adjust and come to like it.</p> <p>I ran into a rather unexpected problem. I bought a 64gig SD card and did a product shoot on my knives. Then I went to transfer the photos and the computer doesn't recognize the card, telling me the card needs to be formatted. My first instinct was that the card is bad, but the camera recognizes it with no problem. Digging around on the net leads me to believe that my OS can't handle cards this size (I guess the formatting uses a different FAT format). This seems to be a known problem, just one that I hadn't heard about before. So I have a 32gig card on the way. The downside is I reformatted the SD card and lost the entire shoot.</p> <p>I did re-shoot my knives, but it's been so long since I posted to PN I can't for the life of me remember how to do it. I'm hosting my photos on Picasa and when I try to insert the link PN doesn't recognize it. I spent time searching the PN archives for help and couldn't find anything. If anyone would be so kind as to tell me how to post images I would greatly appreciate it.</p>

<p>Wayne, it's lot like compact pistols, isn't it? They market them based on size but you need a magazine with a finger extension to shoot the darn thing- negating the small size of the frame.</p> <p>I can't ever remember shooting the K20d without the battery grip, and I'm positive I'll never shoot the K3 without one if it's an option to have it on. It really doesn't make sense to shave millimeters on a camera the size of a DSLR anyway. Make a Pentax version of the Fuji X series and go tout that for size. If Pentax is going to build the Little Tank That Could with magnesium alloy frames, then the smaller the body the heavier it will feel in the hand, anyway. </p> <p>Once upon a time, many moons ago, I had a Nikon N65. It felt like a plastic toy- in fact I think it was so light I knew when it had a roll of film in it by the way it felt. (I'm kidding... a little). That's how you make a travel camera, imo. Either you want a weathertight camera that can drive nails or else you want a featherweight. Two different uses entirely. Mixing the two ideas only makes a camera that is less than perfect for either use.</p>