boblester

<p>If you have the money, go for it. As has been said many times, the Pentax DA primes are little jewels. A K5 with the DA15,35,70 and 100WR macro is my dream outfit. </p>

<p>Received the 35/2 and the replacement K-x and so far the focus seems more accurate. The noise...I'm figuring that out. I'm pretty pleased with this combination. Thanks for the input. </p>

 

<p>Oops: " any APS-C camera ever' should be " any APS-C camera so far".</p>

<p>Noise reduction on the XTi shot was off and RAW. <br>

When I saw the quite visible noise in some of the K-x shots I went back through my older stuff looking for 1600 ISO shots. I don't see where fairness comes into it. The claim to fame of this camera is supposedly the best low light performance of just about any APS-C camera ever. <br>

Anyway, like you say above, I expect this combination to be very good at low light. I just need to get it dialed in. </p>

 

<p>I've always used the center focus point so I was hoping that not having the LEDs would not be that much of a problem. I hope that it will just take practice and paying attention and some care. I wear glasses and I'm having problems with this viewfinder that I don't remember having with other DSLRs. I got the K-x and a 35/2 hoping that it would be an excellent low-light package. I haven't recieved the lens yet but I am starting to wonder about my choice.</p>

<p>I had it set to -2/3 as it seemed to be overexposing. Set it to no compensation and it cleaned up pretty good. Thanks.</p>

<p>I'm posting a shot from my XTi at 1600. It's pretty clean for being mostly dark. I'll see what a similar shot with the K-x looks like tonight. </p><div></div>

<p>Here's an example of the noise I'm seeing. It's 1600 with NR off. It's about a 50% crop.</p><div></div>

<p>Thanks. I also just use the center point. I'm probably just being careless, looking at the whole scene and not paying attention to where the center of the frame is. It just seems like being just a little off center results in the camera focusing on something behind or in front of the subject. <br>

As much as I've read about the K-x I didn't run across that reasoning behind eliminating the focus confirmation. </p>

<p>I recently got a K-x as I thought that with the observed clean high ISO output it would be a great camera for low light with a fast lens like the 35/2. My particular copy is going back because of some other problems but a new one is on it's way. The ISO 1600 images I'm getting out of this thing have more visible noise than the Rebel XTi I used to have. I have tired it with NR off and NR set to medium. Do I have something set wrong?<br>

And I have to ask: Does anyone know why Pentax decided to leave the focus confirmation points off this camera? I didn't think it would be a problem but I am missing focus quite a bit more than I would like to. Especially in low light. A real problem for a camera that is being praised for it's low light abilities. At least for me. Suggestions on using this "feature" would also be appreciated.</p>

 

<p>They do. Go to <a href="http://www.lensmateonline.com/store/dlux4lx3.html">lensmate.com</a>. They now have an adaptor for the lx3/D-Lux4. And take a look at the cool little hot shoe cover and and cable release adaptor further down the page.</p>

<p>Thank you for the images suggested photographers. These are different enough. </p>

<p>Because the chances that Canon is going to address the wide angle prime gap in their crop body lens line up for

less than $2000, I got interested in a wide angle zoom and picked up a 12-24 Tokina. I've been lookng for so

me "different" wide angle examples but only find close flowers in the foreground with a dr

amatic landscape in the background or distorted people/pets/architecture shots. What do you do with yo

ur wide angles? Any tips? Any sites you can recommend? Tha

<p>I've been intereseted in Olympus for some time now but I still don't get the very high prices of their better lenses and the lack of high ISO performance. What I thought was maybe a downside in this review is that the reviewer dings the camera for having a true base ISO of 200: "Base sensitivity is almost certainly ISO 200 - shooting at ISO 100 loses you almost a stop of dynamic range" and, "Noise is slightly higher than the class average, and if you regularly shoot at anything above ISO 400 for large prints then the E-30 should probably not be your first choice". <br>

I read that to mean that ISOs other than 200 and 400 are problematic. Is this true? If I want fair low-light performance on occaision should I be looking at something else?</p>

<p>Didn't really finish my thought. I love the selective depth of field of fast primes. The 50/1.4 was my favorite lens on a film body. And the one thing I don't like about the 17-55 is the size. So, by all means, get a prime. You might also consider the 35/2. Good luck.</p>

<p>If you do a search you'll find endless conversation about how the 50/1.4 is very soft until 2.0 and the 1.8 is soft until 2.5. There are focus issues at 1.4 becuase of the razor thin depth of field that can be overcome with technique but auto focus wide open is hit and miss. There's a thread below this one about whether the 50/1.4 is overrated. Read it and see what you are missing. That said, the 50/1.8 is a great, cheap lens. I have one, but the 17-55 stays on my camera.</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses. I always shoot raw and convert using DPP. Normally to correct white balance I can just eyedropper any white in a picture and get the correct colors. My XSi has proved to be difficult with some exposures, more so than my XT. Most of the time it nails the exposure (I upgraded from my XT mostly for the spot meter) but every once in a while I get an image that just leaves me scratching my head. Fearing that it's the camera has led me down some paths that has taught me a good deal more about exposing certain situations, but in this case it just wasn't making sense. I'll pull out my gray card and try that and check the red channel.<br>

But that leads to another question.....I thought custom white balance done correctly was better than using a gray card. Is it not.</p>

<p>It's not uploading....</p><div></div>

<p>Making a mess of this but here's an example:</p>

<p>I'm trying to take a picture of a bouquet with red rose it it. You know the color, deep red that can seem almost black. No matter what I do my XSi is rendering the color of the rose more of a megenta or pinkish color, nowhere near as dark as the real color. I've tried all sorts of exposure compensations (metering off the green in the bouquet and -2/3 stops) and custom white balance and I still get the magenta color. I thought it was the camera but I took a shot with a p/s and got the same tone. Is there a trick to this I'm not getting? Is it the camera? </p>

<p>Len,<br>

My appologies. I read your post wrong and thought you already had the 18-200. What Tommy said....if you can afford it, get the 17-55 IS. On the other hand, I've heard that the 18-200 is an awful lot of fun to use. Good luck. </p>

<p>If you are "quite pleased" with what you have then you haven't reached a limitation that the 17-55 would help you overcome. There are many reasons to get the 17-55 over the 18-200 IS or the kit lens. "Just because" isn't really one of them unless you have the money and you just want to try it out. If you think the image quality of the 17-55 will be a vast improvement over your current lenses, it really won't knock your socks off. My kit lens is actually sharper at 55 than my 17-55. And about selling your kit lens, putting an ad in the classifieds is a better way to do it than putting it in the forum.</p>

<p>I'd get the 18-55 IS and save a bunch of money. Even indoors at night this lens is very capable. I've always found IS much more valuable than the two extra stops. But that's me. <br>

Another suggestion is to get the 55-250 IS instead of the 70-300. It's half the cost, smaller, and it isn't that much shorter. The IS on this lens is great. </p>

<p>I don't think the 50mm is necessary with the 17-55 IS and you won't be hindered without 55mm to 70mm. The 17-55 focuses much better in low light than my 50mm but I have an XSi and this might not be a prolem with a 40D or 50D. And the price of the 17-55 is as low as it has ever been right now. Don't forget a filter to keep out the dust. But, really, for the price of the 50/1.8, why not just get it?</p>

I had the 350D and the 17-55 for a couple of years and did not find it unbalanced at all. Others do. I had to sell it to get my

car fixed and now have the 18-55 IS. I sometimes miss it and if I ever have a lot of discretionary income again, I might get

another. But only if I can get past that nagging little voice that asks if the 17-55 is $800 better than the kit lens. And I don't

think "The obvious combo is the 450D + 17-85...". I found the 17-85 IS to have unacceptable distortion at the wide end for

the cost. Others don't.

But I recently tried a Nikon D90 with a 16-85 VR on it and I liked that combination very, very much.

Thanks for the responses.