mountainvisions

May 18, 2012

Thanks for the comments Andrew and Camus, it was pretty cool to experience for so long. My wife is still telling the stories of my over the top behavior. Granted, it was not even 1/1000th of the double rainbow youtube video, she still makes it seem like it was.

May 18, 2012

Yury,

Not sure you need a specific lens for the Spectre of the Broken, just be there and hope it fully evolves. The 18-55 would work just fine.

I used my Limiteds, because they is what I had with me.

May 18, 2012

The biggest complaint I have with the K-01, other than it's not a mirrorless K-5, is that it's not a mirrorless K-5.

Included in that is the lack of sealing.

If Pentax could bring sealing and professional controls to a true entry level camera, it would have the upper hand (in value) again. Nikon and Canon were reluctant to seal sub $6000 cameras, they finally did, though not to the level of the Pentax models. Putting K-5 level sealing in a K-30 would definitely be a good move.

Remember also, Pentax is the only brand with weatherproof kit lenses. I think people might forget this little thing. I'm actually planning to finally buy a weather sealed kit lens this year. While it's not going to quite fill my quality needs, it will give me piece of mind when using my camera in challenging conditions and not wanting to mess with lens changes or wiping my gear thoroughly following being used in the rain.

I still think, because Pentax doesn't cater to the professional market, that it has the upper hand in a lot of regards. Nikon and Canon CANNOT put upper end features in mid and lower tier cameras, or they would not make a profit. Pentax isn't trying to keep it's pro model prices overly inflated, so it can make a scaled down K-5, and probably make more of a profit from that camera than the K-5 without killing K-5 sales. I bet both cameras also share components, making scaling much easier to achieve.

May 5, 2012

John,

I think parts of England have similar but not quite the same conditions as the Northeastern US quite a bit (well, Scotland more so than Wales). Of course we are less temperate but it's usually fairly wet, often cloudy and foggy, and good conditions for this to form. Honestly, I am surprised I never came across this in New Hampshire, looking back at many images, the conditions are often pretty close to ideal there. Unfortunately, the clouds are usually in between myself and the sun.

Thanks for the tip on the book, I'll have to see if I can track that down on Amazon.

May 5, 2012

Matt,

All the other instances I have seen this, it was very fleeting. Here one minute, gone the next. If you weren't standing still looking for it, it would have been easy to miss. But now that I've seen it, and I know the conditions to look for, I have seen it 2 more times in some detail. Though never as persistent as the above image.

May 5, 2012

Bob,

I definitely spend more time than most hiking in the dark, either to start or end the day. My preference is to sleep in and hike out in the dark...unless, of course, I am hiking in the Eastern HPW, then I am on the trail by 6am at the latest, usually 5am. Earlier if a sunrise is in the cards.

I saw one recently on Noonmark. I looked at the conditions and expected it to appear, the other people on the summit thought I was loony. I eventually appeared, but they didn't seem as impressed by it. But to be fair, it was pretty faint and fleeting.

May 3, 2012

They are different but both part of the Brocken Spectre.Otherwise, it would just be a shadow on the clouds. The halo rings really make it special.

I can really only imagine what is going through some poor mountaineers head as he is hypoxic and cresting a ridge to see God appear in front of him. My partners and I joke around a lot about seeing/meeting God during a tough trail/climbing day, so I imagine someone has been convinced the Brocken Spectre was in fact God coming to them in a moment of mental uncertainty.

May 3, 2012

The glory is the rings (rainbows) around the shadow. At least that is my understanding based on several things I have read. I could certainly be wrong.

May 2, 2012

“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn't waste either.” -Galen Rowell

I was actually a little surprised no one commented on the Brocken Spectre image in the K-5 review, certainly not your usual review image of cats, dogs, flowers; and of course, the all telling brick walls. Nothing, and I mean nothing, screams thorough camera review like a cat and a brick wall!

Since I sit on my photos till I have some poorly composed, error filled text to go with them, other than K-5 review readers, no one else got to see my spitting image of God in his earthly form. You'd probably be surprised how many images from 2008-2011 are languishing in digital purgatory under the blanket of half completed trip reports. I guess on the bright side, I have some images that can't -yet- be stolen ;-).

As a Flickr commenter pointed out, this Brocken Spectre is somewhat special because of extra glory rings that can be seen towards the outer edges. I wonder if using a polarizer helped bring these out?

Someone with an optics/astrophysics background can give a much more text book explanation of how this little wonder forms, but as per my caption on Flickr:

The Spectre of the Brocken, as it is known, isn’t particularly rare. If you spend enough time in the mountains, you will encounter it (I've seen 3 this year, and photographed 2). It requires four things to come into alignment: 1) the sun needs to be close to the horizon; 2) the clouds need to be about the same height as the mountains; 3) the sun and the clouds need to have an azimuth of 180 degrees; 4) you need to be there to create your haloed image of God in his earthly form! Though be assured, even if you aren't there, something creates this scene. It could be a tree or a fire tower, or a moose! As the sun moved in and out of cloud cover, and the Spectre appeared and disappeared, I worked a few different scenes from ground level to panoramas, but I was always looking for the next appearance of the Spectre of the Brocken. Image Data: Pentax K-5, FA 43mm f/1.9 Limited. For more on the overzealous misadventures and photographic rewards of this September day: <a href="http://mountainvisions.blogspot.com/2012/05/i-am-image-of-god-how-spectre-of.html" rel="nofollow">I am the image of God: How the Spectre of the Brocken found me in the Adirondacks</a>

Photo Data: Pentax K-5, DA 21mm.

April 25, 2012

Michael,

Nice work.

I laughed at the proper sports equipment statement. But then again, that 55-300 isn't really the best lens for a lot of things, though it is a nice lens for what it is. The K-x on the other hand could probably give the Nikon F-5's that were used for a few Olympic games a run for it's money. Goes to show us all how as technology grows we think we need more, when the reality is we have a lot more and less idea what to do with it.

April 25, 2012

I use 32GB in my smartphone. Combined with the internal memory (16GB) I am rocking 48GB. Between that and Zumodrive and Teamviewer (essentially free GoToMyPC), I have more storage than I know what to do with. But I still get nervous about big cards. Fortunately, most of the stuff on my phone is cloud synced, and the media stuff is mostly also cloud synced. The only stuff I would lose is my photos, which I tend to back up on occassion, and aren't all that important since my phone still hasn't become a camera of choice for me, more a camera of convenience.

Currently, my biggest SD card for photography is 16GB, and it is my main card for outdoors stuff where I don't want to open the SD card slot too often or risk losing a card. For indoor stuff, commercial shoots, events, etc, I tend to use my 8GB cards. All my 4GB cards are dead, so I gravitated towards 8GB because they were actually cheaper. Also, I have my SD card door taped shut on my K-7 when I set off on wilderness adventures. I've had the sliding door open many times when removing from my TLZ case. I miss the locked door on the K10D!

And if you re-read that last paragraph, CARDS DO DIE! Fortunately, all by 1 card was fully recovered, and that last card only lost about 25% of the contents. So while there is a valid argument for bigger cards (less wear and tear on the camera, less chance of losing them, etc) there is also some risk of losing an entire 32GB of images, especially for casual shooters who are in no rush to dump the cards. It's possible you might lose several events.

But if you are shooting video, then I think 32GB is a no brainer. Of course, buy class 10 cards (ones with a good reputation for actually being minimum class 10) for future proofing.

April 14, 2012

Believe it or not, my solution is equally cheap but slightly more elegant than Robin's.

I was amazed how proud Galen Rowell was at his homemade camera packing, never lost a lens to damage in travel. It kinda pushed me to use whatever works, even if it looked kinda ghetto. On occasion I have used my (clean) wool socks as lens cases when I have needed to.

So my big revelation, I pack my lenses in bottle/can coozies. Sometimes the thin neoprene type, sometimes the thick closed cell foam. You can get these for 50 cents or so at dollar stores, or at the end of the summer at higher end establishments (like walmart ;-)

Because the Limiteds are so small, and I'm an active photographer, I often need to put my Limiteds in a thin neoprene bottle coozie and then the smallest LowePro case. This keeps them from rattling around. This is of course when they are strapped on the outside of my Lowepro 65AW TLZ. If I'm going really light, I can usually fit a second lens in the bottom of the TLZ case and eschew the strap on cases.

The advantage of the neoprene sleeves is that you can pretty much toss them in any bag. Of course, I'm not a big fan of the unpadded bag. But I will stuff my gear into a mini messenger bag on occassion when going light and under the radar. I have lined the messenger bag with a cut up iPad sleeve and with some neoprene sleeves for the lenses, my gear is pretty well protected as long as I don't toss it around.

April 12, 2012

That's fair enough... but what I'm seeing is that since this announcement, the general thrust of threads seems to be to pick holes and find issues with Pentax and the various bits that comprise the system rather than find and write about reasons to be positive about it - not really what you want your users to be doing.

</blockquote>

Agreed, but to be fair, a lot of us were/are shooting Pentax because it was the poor mans Leica and a value brand all in one. And yet, we didn't feel like for our specific needs we were sacrificing much. Now it's still the poor mans Leica, but the value brand is gone. Yet, many things aren't fixed. For me, a higher mechanical shutter sync is a must, as well as a 1.4X TC and a 28-30mm prime lens. But these are things we all overlooked for the value aspect of the brand.

This crying about prices is a lot like why I feel a full frame DSLR would have not done much for Pentax. Say they released a $2000 bargain FF body. It wouldn't attract Canikon shooters in droves, and it would get a lot of complaints for being more than the $1000-1500 we are used to for professional level camera bodies. And, no, just because it is the full frame everyone claims to have wanted, wouldn't have changed peoples minds. $2000 would have been too much.

And I agree with Jemal. I think we also have been pretty happy with the supposed benefits (that I believe should still exist) of a smaller system in terms of lens cost. Don't forget, Pentax lenses are cropped sensor glass, not full frame glass. So our prices, even if all things are equal in terms of build and IQ, should be lower. Or go ahead and release a full frame camera with new lenses.

April 11, 2012

Johan,

The only lens I see people complaining about is the 16-50. There are naturally haters of any lens (the DA 21mm is one of those lenses that has a merry band of haters, but a few of us find is pretty awesome).

So, all we are complaining about is that for $1400, we'd expect a Mark 2 version of the 16-50.

April 10, 2012

I have a feeling Pentax just said we can't subsidize the US market anymore. Look at the USD value vs international currencies...it isn't pretty.

No doubt some of it might have had to do with Hoya keeping glass prices down, but I think the rest of the world was paying these prices for some time. The US market isn't much bigger (is it bigger) than other countries with Pentax gear, so I am doubtful even if they lose some market share in the US it is going to matter much.

I could see if the US was like 50% of Pentax total sales and they subsidized us for the market share but I think Europe has a higher market share of Pentax users, as does Asia.

April 9, 2012

Congrats! It is an amazing camera.

April 9, 2012

As long as everyone is posting shots with the K-5, I'll join in. I actually don't own a K-5, this one was on loan when I took these shots. As per my review, you know my opinion on the K-5, everything the K-7 should have been (aside from the sensor stains, which were present on my unit) and by far the best camera Pentax has produced...IMO, factoring in both IQ and technology, the first leaps and bounds camera since the K10D. Obviously the K-7 had many of the K-5 features, but once you use a K-5, you realize how imperfect the K-7 was despite being a great camera.

Pentax K-5 and DA* 50-135mm.

April 6, 2012

Holy shit! And the DA 16-50 was one of the few lenses I sort of wanted. Though I have been waiting for the successor.

The other being a DA 60-250 (don't really need it, kinda need the 16-50 since the 28-70 2.8 I have is a little long at the short end for me).

Hmm, I guess I don't need it.

April 6, 2012

Maybe, maybe not. If the system gets over priced, people won't see value in expanding and the prices will fall for used gear as people sell off.

Personally I don't care, a lot of people "invest" in camera equipment, but like housing, cameras are generally not a guaranteed investment.

we've been talking for years about this massive selloff looming, and I haven't seen it. Rest assured, if it comes, I'm buying in.

April 4, 2012

I guess I am still amazed how many people feel like a 24x36mm camera is the missing link to photographic enlightenment. I guess each person has different wants and needs, but I figure if you are still shooting Pentax at this point, FF wasn't really that important to you. I know if it was the magic pill for me, I'd have switched a few years ago. Or even now is a great time to move to a used Canon 5D.

April 4, 2012

FA Limiteds and DA lenses. I do not believe FA lenses have this feature but firmware updates did enable it on FA Limiteds.

It really is a great feature, sadly it doesn't actually apply to the RAW image. It does it to the JPEG full size preview and also to the RAW data, but it doesn't actually correct the RAW. I think for the slow down of the camera, as Andrew noted, it should correct the RAW image for any RAW editor to display correctly.

I do realize there are alternative ways to correct distortion, but the in camera method is actually amazingly good.

March 28, 2012

The K-5 produces beautiful low ISO images, and it retains the ability into the mid ISOs. I note this because the K-01 uses the same sensor, but Pentax has traditionally improved the IQ (RAW and JPEG) when using the same sensor in successive generations. So my guess, the K-01 would be a little better.

As far as the magnification. I agree with Mis, the it's a useless feature on moving objects, though it works wonderfully on static scenes. I use it quite a bit on the K-7 and K-5.

February 22, 2012

Am I the only moron (and I say that as kindly as I can) that feels like Pentax/Ricoh wasting a ton of a money on R&D and an entirely new lens roadmap is a recipe for us all the be shooting Nikon or Canon sooner than later?

Remember a company called Minolta? They made really nice cameras but they kept making poor business decisions and then they didn't exist.

If Pentax is going to go full frame, they need to have the greatest execution ever and they need to do it at a price point that they can sell. Or they can try the Leica boutique style business model and see if that works. But either way, they either need to do it cheaply or make the cameras so classy that they can skip the volume sales.

February 19, 2012

It's been a while since I started one of these.

I was down in New York for my sisters birthday last weekend, and it coincided with the Conflict Zone exhibition. Some of the worlds best combat/war zone photographers works were on display in beautiful large format prints.

.

The 9/11 exhibit and memorial at the NYC Firefighters museum.

.

And my sister, testing out what -hopefully- will eventually be her own helmet. She is taking the firefighters written exam for the FDNY next month. If she scores well enough, she takes the physical portion over the summer.

There are very few women on the FDNY as firefighters (medics don't count, different test, different skills) and she has to take the same test as the men (rightfully so). The test changed a lot in the last 15 years from when my friends were training for it. No more useless pullups and such, it's all functional testing.

<ul>

<li>The Stair Climb (75lb vest)</li>

<li>Hose Advance (50lb vest for entire test)</li>

<li>Equipment Carry</li>

<li>Forcible Entry</li>

<li>Ladder Raise/Extension</li>

<li>Search Rescue </li>

<li>Dummy Drag</li>

<li>Ceiling Breach and Pull</li>

</ul>

Pretty bad ass for a 120lb chick...thank god for big brothers that never let her win! Now if she just spells her name right on that written exam.

February 10, 2012

If you are going long, why piece meal it together with TCs. 560mm is definitely long, personally i'd prefer a 400mm as fast as they can make it (maybe 4.5) without going insane in price, but like Andrew said, more often than not you probably would be putting a TC on it anyway.

But I do wonder why we are going from 300mm all the way to 560 without a middle lens. Then again, as has been noted, why complain about a really long lens, it's been about 6 years since the K10D release, and back then the issue was we didn't have long lenses.

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Posts posted by mountainvisions