josphy

http://www.pentaxslr.com/lenses/lens_16_45

 

It has 6 blades.

SR versus no SR.

I doubt that a full frame Pentax DSLR is in the works. Instead, you could look to the Pentax 645 digital that should be coming out in the not-too-distant future. Will take the current line-up of autofocus 645N lenses. Pretty sweet.

 

http://www.pentax.co.jp/english/news/2006/200646.html

 

"This product will be continuously upgraded by incorporating newly developed image sensors, with its final effective megapixels expected to reach a 30-megapixel level".

2GB cards are fine right out of the box. There is a firmware update that will allow the use of 4GB SD cards also. The 2GB cards are getting sooo cheap now, I can't see any reason not to use one -- it fills up pretty quick shooting RAW.

Just FYI, all the 6mp cameras that use the same sensor (such as some of the Nikon models, I think the Minoltas, etc.) have the native ISO as 200. It's definitely not a problem. The sensor is quite a bit larger than a digital compact, so the advice that ISO 200 will probably be cleaner than 50 on your compact is very likely to be correct.

You're asking in the wrong forum. Most people here are MF enthusiasts.

4800 is the highest optical resolution of the Epson 4490. 9600 is software interpolation. That's one factor. The next thing is that most people agree that Epson (and all of the flatbed makers) overstate the true resolution of their scanners -- they just can't resolve that much detail, so is more like probably 1/2 the stated resolution.

 

Finally, 4800dpi is probably as much detail as a 35mm (I assume we're talking about 35mm) slide could have in it anyway. Anything higher than that is just going to be noise or grain. I mean, imagine traditional printing up to those sizes? 20x30, 30x40, etc. It's not going to look razor sharp viewed with your nose touching the print. Viewing digital files them at 100% on your laptop is the same as looking at a print with your nose touching it. If you want a better idea of how it will really look, try viewing it at about 50% and step back a little.

Almost any color film will work fine, in my opinion -- more important is the skill of the Frontier operator. They will tend to look pretty flat unless the technician first scans the negs, then bumps up the contrast and does a little adjustment on the PIC unit before sending them back to the machine for printing.

That article you linked to is outstanding. I just ran across it a few days ago, and I learned so much. I am definitely considering purchasing Photomatix now. If you are a student or know someone who is (even just having a .edu email is sufficient) you can get the program for $29 I think.

You can use a droplet of dishwashing liquid, but I'd recommend just forget about photoflo altogether and instead just do your final rinse of your film in distilled water. You can buy it at the drugstore or grocery store for a few cents for a gallon, and you will not have any drying marks or spots on your film if you use it for your final rinse.

Hey, Herman, you've already gotten lots of good suggestions, but I'll add one more. I have had very good results with Hugin. It is a free graphic user interface for Panorama Tools. It has a pretty difficult learning curve, but can give great results and is totally free.

 

In conjunction with that program and Autopano and Enblend (also both free) I was able to stitch together a set a shots that I took VERY haphazardly without any regard to parallax error, etc. and in fact was with a wide angle using a polarizer which created uneven skies and vignetting. Then the negs were scanned pretty haphazardly too without taking care to match exposure between the shots. Still with a little time, I was able to get a near perfect panorama! A lot has to do with how much time you spend choosing and tweaking your "control points".

Wow with regards to that Wein website, you'd think a company that sells photography related products would have better photos of their wares!

That definitely sounds like a malfunction, and you should definitely look into returning I would guess the lens. After reading your previous post about this, I did have a weird little glitch happen to me with my K100D which is similar. I was shooting some butterflies at the 55mm long end of the zoom, and in continuous shooting mode. Anyway I took a burst of 3 shots, and the last shot in the group the shutter sound didn't quite sound right to me. Anyway that last frame was severely underexposed, almost black.

 

The weird thing is the EXIF data shows the exact same shutter/aperture settings for all three frames. I emailed Pentax about it in case it may be some sort of bug they need to work out and especially since I had read your post about a similar problem.

For the amount of time it takes to blur waterfalls and waves and streams -- a few seconds is plenty -- don't worry about it. You asked about multi-second, -minute and -hour. But if blurred, milky water is your main objective, then you'll be golden. Stick to film for the star trails though.

Cool, nice review. I like the noise comparisons. This is something I've been meaning to do myself, but never got around to it. I'm not the type of person to obsess over stuff like that, but just casually shooting snapshots and whatnot, I noticed that ISO 1600 and even 3200 looks pretty darn useable.

Kordan! I think I know what you're talking about now because I had it happen to me too. I was shooting some butterflies in the continuous shooting mode and fired off a group of 3 shots. I noticed the 3rd shot sounded a little weird. When I looked, the first two were exposed properly, but the last shot was practically black. The weird thing is that the EXIF data shows the same exposure as the first two.

 

Bizarre!

 

I'm going to send an email to Pentax tomorrow probably.

http://www.tawbaware.com/imgstack.htm

Yeah let us know! And check that exposure compensation too (+/- button near the shutter button).

By the way, for the way you were shooting, just FYI, it's really simpler to use the shutter priority mode -- like if there is a certain shutter speed you don't want to drop below, then just set it in shutter priority and let the camera set the aperture (and if you are in Auto ISO mode, the ISO too).

Kordan -- welcome to the K100D club! I'm thinking maybe put the camera on "P" mode and see what happens. It seems like there must be some "user error" here. But yes, if you are in aperture priority mode, then it should be adjusting to equivalent exposures as you change the aperture.

 

I have my flash on manual mode too and as long as the flash isn't popped up, it should have nothing to do with the exposure.

 

Do you perhaps have negative exposure compensation dialed in? Like if you hold down the little +/- button on the top near the shutter release and then rotate the dial left or right it will give plus/minus exposure compensation. Maybe you accidently have that set and it's underexposing every shot?

 

By the way, do NOT be afraid to hand hold at fairly slow shutter speeds with this baby -- if you are used to 1/60th with your K1000, then don't be afraid of like 1/15th or 1/8th or a second. Maybe even slower. The shake reduction really works!

 

Keep us posted and don't get discouraged. It could possibly be a camera malfunction, but there is almost always some kind of explanation.

Lucinda, I'd say "alluded to" is not the same as "asked for" their money back, so I would just send them a condolence card along with the gift certficate for the amount to be used for a future event (even if it's not the exact same event, maybe someone else in the family will be getting married soon or something like that). Then just wait and see how it plays out. If they then specifically ask for the money back, you could say okay if that's what they prefer you will send them the money instead.

Perceptol would be the best developer to use. You'll lose a little speed with Perceptol anyway, so 50 will be perfect.

On the 50mm, if it is an A lens, it should work fine. Just set the aperture to A and it should work in any mode even with multi-segment metering.

 

For lenses that don't have an A position or if you want to use the aperture ring, go into the custom settings and change "using aperture ring" to "permitted". Check out pages 186-187 in the manual.

>Just to be clear, though, are you saying that the shots you chose to >post here are the BEST of each burst? Is that true for both the SR and >non-SR shots?

 

Del, yes that's eactly right. I shot a burst of 3 or 4 shots at each shutter speed with both SR and non-SR. Then I posted the best shot out of each group for both SR and non-SR.

 

The other little note I added was that with the SR shots, the shots were pretty consistent within each burst. There would be one shot that would be marginally sharper than the other 2 or 3, so I used that one, but the difference was not as great. So you could say that the SR gave pretty consistent results. In the case of the non-SR, out of each group there would be one shot that was just obviously much better (even if only marginally acceptable as you got towards the slowest shutter speeds) than the other two. So basically it was just a matter of luck that you got a semi-useable shot and the others in the group were basically mush.

 

Hope that makes sense!

Peter, it's an Allen string quartet. Towards the end of a ditty I wrote in college, "Variants on a Theme of Schoenberg". Probably heavily Bartok influenced though.

 

But yeah, I think this is a monster camera for anyone into available light shooting. I haven't really done a thorough testing of the high ISOs, but noise looks pretty reasonable. I only have the kit lens right now which is slow (to me anyway) 3.5-5.6, so I can't wait to pick up at least a 50mm/1.8 or 1.4. Imagine getting consistently sharp results at 1/8 or 1/6second w/ a fast prime and ISO 800, 1600 or even 3200.