Any converted Pentax users here? Should I switch?

[eric_arnold]

<p>dan, i misread your comments. you did say you were using a K7 and plan to purchase a K-X. my bad.</p>

<p>but this is a bit confusing:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The over exposing problem is a severe problem, but I took it to the shop and they reset the settings and so far it seems to be better...On the other hand, I agree 100% that my pics are under exposed</p>

</blockquote>

<p>so your pics are both overexposed and underexposed? maybe an external light meter might help here.</p>

<p> </p>

[timothy_gray]

<p>Dan,<br>

It seems other have put your mind at ease, which is good to hear. </p>

<p>I also shoot with a K-7, and am a recent convert to Pentax (formerly a Canon guy for 15 years). In my experience, the multi-segment metering mode is fairly accurate, except for low-light and backlit situations. In these two instances, I have found the meter to regularly overexpose by as much as 1-stop. My workaround is to switch to spot metering mode, and use the AE lock to set the exposure. YMMV.</p>

<p>Keep in mind this is not a Pentax-specific issue, but one which affects most if not all built-in meters.</p>

<p>I'd stick with Pentax if I were in a similar situation. I've found it to be a very capable tool for my work.</p>

[mccosh]

<p>For those of you that are not used to using Smugmug (where his link to his photos are held) <a href="http://missionphotography.smugmug.com/Weddings/Kristin/11963398_T9KwM#847554552_D9xVg">Link to Photos</a> If you hold your mouse pointer over the photo on the right a flyout menu from the right will apear. The bottom icon Photo Info will show you Information on the camera setting, unfortunitly it looks like Pentax dosn't record the lens that was in use or the focusing mode. You are also able to view the photos at original size here.</p>

[william-porter]

<p>Pentax does indeed record the lens in use, the focusing mode, and a boatload of other info. But it's all done in codes that some programs can't properly understand. Lightroom for example correctly recognizes most of my lenses in its lens database, but not all of them, and sometimes it will just tell me something like "Sigma or Tamron 17-70 zoom lens". And in any case, must of the EXIF info can be stripped out on upload or at a variety of other points. I believe Facebook routinely strips this info out.</p>

[mccosh]

<p>Fair call. On further checking Smugmug doesn’t display this information either for my Nikon gear. I should have checked before rushing into my previous post. There does seem to be a few issues here which applies to all brands off camera's.<br>

<br>

1) A lot of Dan's shots are taking with the lens wide open F2.8 in aperture priority mode. I appreciate Dan you are trying to shoot with the existing light. However some of your shots have quite a high shutter speed where as if you were to set up your camera with Shutter priority mode and set the shutter at the slowest speed that will give you sharp hand held images you will then have the fastest aperture possible for the light situation on each photo.<br>

<br>

2) I also note that a lot of your photos are taking with a high ISO some at 1600 which when viewed at 1:1 makes for a lot of noise which gives the impression of a soft image. I appreciate lowering the ISO will affect point 1. <br>

<br>

Maybe sometimes there just isn't enough light to produce clean crisp sharp images with hand held shots. Either use a tripod or a fill in flash would help. Knowing what focusing mode would help also does the software that comes with Pentax display the focus point used for each photo. If it does looking through these might help. First thing I would do is set your camera up on a tripod and take test shots at different Apertures / Shutter speeds keep the camera on the lowest possible ISO setting and then check your results and make sure there isn't any issues with either your camera or lens. if you have more than one lens do this test for each one.<br>

<br>

Hope this helps.<br>

John</p>

[thebs]

<p>Josh -- Pentax records extensive information. The lens compatibility on newer Pentax bodies are unmatched by anyone, and records a massive amount of information, even on older lenses (and prompts for focal and other things for SR when using completely manual, non-A, lenses). Countless details come through. Just check out my Flickr shots (user: thebs).<br>

Otherwise, I agree with you on #1 and #2. I don't like to shoot in f/2.8 with my f/2.8 DA*/D-FA lenses, maybe f/3.2-3.5 with the DA* 200 or D-FA 100 Macro WR. I'll stop down the shutter before bumping the ISO, but I try to take care of lighting. I use 5500K CFB and/or a pair of AF-360FGZ flashes when shooting stationary.</p>

[john_tran14]

<p>In your examples, you zoom to %200 percent. Of course they must be blurred</p>

[ivan_j._eberle1]

<p>I didn't read completely through this long thread, but it does occur to me that any bride worth her salt is going to Google you before hiring you to shoot her wedding-- and is likely find this thread. (Or perhaps, the other photographer who is competitively bidding against you will point it out.)<br>

Sorry, but even if it's just a matter or perception or technique, it seems you've painted yourself into a corner where you now really do need to not only swap systems, but crow about the sharpness improvement as much as you've kvetched about your substandard results.</p>