mugundhan_varadanarayanan

February 21, 2012

Anirban,

The newer 40mm can be used in normal DSLRs but bigger lenses that protrude deep into the "mirror" box will affect the mirror in normal DSLR

Also most of the other MILCs are not really compact as soon as you put a lens, so if Pentax can come up with newer lenses fast enough esp telephoto zooms like 18-200mm that can protrude into mirror box, then Pentax can claim they have the compact solution

I was reading cnet handson, they say K-01 looks fast enough in CDAF with some legacy lenses, if true, K-01 might turn out worthwhile

February 20, 2012

Interesting interview

It looks like they wanted to come with a camera optimized for video, so they took out the mirror, then they thought people like to use telephoto lenses during video, so made a bigger body for stability

I think we are going to see new zoom (esp. telephoto) lenses made for K-01 where the bulk of the lens extend into the K-01 body so that body + lens is still compact for video shooting

Basically even though K-01 is K-mount compatible, it is best with newer lenses optimized for K-01 and which cannot be used in other lenses....

So target is new users I guess

February 26, 2011

Pentax/ Tamron 18-250mm is a very good travel lens. The quality for such a long zoom lens is surprisingly pretty good. General price range is $300-$350. I use this lens with K10D and I am very happy with the lens quality, with K100D super, it should be very good

If you can find one, give it a shot, you will be impressed

November 17, 2010

Hi Justin and Dan,

Thanks for the response. Its true that I should know my ideal FL. I know I wud prefer 24mm but my concern is that since that is in wide-angle territory, I am not sure how that lens will lend itself for indoor gatherings/ portraits in terms of perspective distortion as compared to 28mm. thats where I need help. Based on what Dan says, there should not be any distortion at 24mm.

On the otherhand, I like how my 50mm renders, I do not need to move closer and I tend to think it helps in the portraits.

Decisions, decisions !!!!!!!

not that I am going to buy immediately, I need to sell my DA55-300mm first, it gives me time to think about what you guys said

November 17, 2010

Hi all,

I am trying to decide between sigma 24mmf1.8 Versus 28mm f1.8 or 30mm(f1.4)

I have pentax smf-f 50mmf1.7 and tamron 28-75mmf2.8 for my indoor purposes. After seeing the pic quality from the 50mm prime, I want to convert to all prime indoor and keep my tamron 18-250mm for outdoor/ general purposes.

lots of the time I find 50mm prime to be long even though I can backup and take pic. there are some occasions where I missed the pics or move to the tamron 28-75mm. The tamron is very good but I find at f2.8 and iso 800, the shutter speeds are around 1/30 etc, I can see that my pics are not that sharp. Also I fidn that the tamron is very sharp if I step down to f3.2 or lower. I find that with my 50mm prime, I can shoot wide open, it also focusses fast in K10D and I get shutter speeds less than 1/60mm

To cut a long story short, I am debating whether 28mm is good or should I move to 24mm so that I can always switch between 24mm or 50mm. Also 24mm should be useful for general wideangle needs... Pentax FA*24mm is too expensive for me

Please let me know what you guys think

Thanks!

Mugundhan

November 1, 2010

Hi Miserere,

Thanks! Great information

Did you had any chance to ask Ned bunnell about whether they have any plans to release faster primes (faster than f2.4) in the range 24-30mm

Interesting that Ned thinks that now they can compete with Nikon and Canon.

I believe that DSLRs as released by Canon/nikon/ Pentax will cater to the serious photographers while the newbies gravitate towards NX-10/NEx type of cameras. This market is larger than the serious DSLR market, it will be nice if Pentax makes an appearance there

Mugundhan

October 28, 2010

There is one more thing with regard to focus - Check whether the default focussing method is auto-focus point or center focus or focus select. In the auto focus method, the camera chooses the focus point if you point the camera in the general direction of your subject. If you want to be precise, then select center point or focus select mode. In the center point, make sure the subject you want to focus is always in teh center of the frame. In the focus select, you can adjust the focus point. In the automatic focus mode, pay attention to the focus point in the view finder, most of the time this shd be okay but for 100% accuracy you can choose focus point select or center focus

October 28, 2010

Recently I bought tamron 18-250mm for my K10D and I noticed an interesting that upto 65mm or so, aperture is f/4.5... So you dont really lose much with respect to aperture. Quality is not that bad. Of course sigma definitely stands out

For a small tradeoff of IQ (you dont lose too much except for F/2.8 @ 17mm), you get a good range, atleast that is my reasoning

As i said the sigma is a very good lens. I tried an used copy briefly ended up returning the lens as it had mechanical defect and bought tamron 18-250mm. Sigma is real sharp. Tamron is good too, the colors are very nice. Somehow I felt sigma had the slight additional punch

October 25, 2010

Justin,

Quick question regarding disenging AF from the shutter release button? Are you suggesting to use AF button exclusively with AF-C mode? I tried to use shuitter release half press button for AF -C with K10D, I had poor results. I gave up on AF-C with K10D. I need to try what you are suggesting... If you can give more explanation, that will be awesome

Thanks,

Mugundhan

October 8, 2010

Justin,

Very convincing arguments, I stand corrected :)

One thing I dont understand is Pentax lenses have all appreciated 50-100% over the past 2 years. Does this mean they were sold at a loss for all these years and Hoya came in and decided that they cannot afford it?

Mugundhan

October 8, 2010

Hinman,

I guess Hoya/Pentax thinks "Pentax" brand name is very special compared to their Tokina equivalents or may be Tokina marketing exectives are just smarter posting competitive prices that can lure hardcore Nikon/ Canon lens fans

On an unrelated note, the Pentax lens prices are too high in the past 2 years, Ned bunnell claims they are reading forums but for some reason, this does not translate to reasonable prices while similar speced lens is available for lower cost through Tokina brand. For a budget priced photographer, Pentax system is no more a value... In Nikon, the body is priced higher with availabality of reasonably priced lenses in both Nikon and third party mounts while Pentax bodies are very good value but equivalent lenses cost one arm and leg

Shake reduction and Weather sealed bodies are the only distinguishing factors and I wonder for how long

September 21, 2010

Quick update:

The seller refunded me the whole amount minus the shipping charges. Thanks for all the advices :)

Regards,

Mugundhan

September 20, 2010

Hi Andrew,

I believe this thread is faster than a pentax related stuff because I believe people like compact size cameras with APS-C sensor with a simple interface to take pictures. Pentax makes good camera with standouts like shake reduction, weather sealing, compact body, limited lens etc but not compelling enought to generate "oohs" and "wow" from people who are not hardcore photographers. Pentax should make effort to attract that crowd as they are the ones in the future who buy K-5's...

September 14, 2010

Hi Andrew,

My wife picked up the lens from the post office saturday morning (Labor day weekend, I used it Saturday evening and I noticed the problem Sunday morning when I was zooming it. I emailed him immediately. It happened without even a sound, it just started rotating. That is the reason why when the seller says "user error" I am bewildered. Zoom lens is to be used by zooming, there are not many ways to zoom a lens. I took off the lens but was able to mail it back to him the following friday

Like Orlando said, that is my fear, the problem happens intermittently, even if the guy sends it now, the zoom ring will come off any time...I asked that guy as to how many photos he has taken with it. I gave him my number and told him not to ship it back to me until we understand what is the problem/ solution. I want amicable resolution. Money loss is something we can accept as part of life but accepting a lens with known defect is bit hard. I had the lens just for a day and I noticed the problem. Again like Justin said earlier, when we buy used we need to accept the problems but when the seller was able to "reverse engineer" the problem and say user error, then I am bit cautious

Mugundhan

September 13, 2010

Hi Justin, Jared and Michael,

Thanks for the responses

My major peeve is all I did is turn the zoom ring and it started rotating without zoom action and now the seller is saying it is user error... How many ways are there to zoom a lens?

Other than that I agree with you guys saying that when you buy used one, you accept the risk... I will try and see whether I can get some partial refund

Thanks,

Mugundhan

September 13, 2010

Thank you Justin,

What you are saying is reasonable and I guess when the seller sends it back, I need to be extremely delicate

I typed an email saying " I cannot accept the lens blah blah" but for some reason held back my emotional response and thought can get other opinion... Now that some time has passed to cool off, what you are saying makes sense...

I want to buy the sigma lens used mainly because it avoids the bad copy (I want to buy the Pentax one new so that I can get the warranty coverage for the SDM problems but it is way more expensive ....) I hope this lens is now usable. Optically this lens is a nice copy though

Mugundhan

September 13, 2010

I bought sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4.5 used from Pentax forums site. The seller delivered it promptly and I was testing the lens. I was operating the zoom and took pics wide-open/ stopped at both 17mm and 70mm. I wud've taken abt 75 pix. Then when I was zooming the lens, the zoom ring started rotating without moving the zoom. I sent it back to the seller. Now the seller sends this email back:

"Mugundhan,

I reverse engineered the "failure" and it was no mechanical failure. In fact, what had happened was that the zoom ring was forced off of the pin that moves the barrel in and out.

Fortunately, there was not any significant damage and was repaired within an hour. However, the movements of the of the two rings are slightly rougher than before. This does not affect proper usage.

Optically, it's unaffected.

I'm going to send it back to you. Unless you have a good reason as to why the zoom ring was forced off its track, it's going back to you. This sort of damage is litterally impossible to achieve by the post office. No amount of dropping would torque the zoom ring. As I stated before, it was in great condition when I sent it to you, so something happened between when I sent it out and when I got it back.

As far as I see it, there was no problem on my side, so the lens is going back to you. If you'd like it professionally serviced and repaired, that's your prerogative. I sent you a working lens, and you sent it back citing a mechanical failure that was shown to be user error.

Brendan."

There are not many ways to operate a zoom ring and the seller believes it is an user error. I believe that the zoom thing would have failed anyway and I happened to be the operator. Now whose responsibility is this? I dont want the lens now after seeing the problem. Am I being unreasonable? I just want different perspectives and if I am wrong, I am willing to take it back

I paid through paypal

Thanks

Mugundhan

August 4, 2010

Hi Somanna,

Thanks for the suggestion, I did the same thing you mentioned, in the preview I saw the pix, but I guess instead of clicking update, I clicked submit

August 1, 2010

Hi,

I am travelling in India to my native village, Thuvariman. Here are some pictures of my son and some friends/ relatives. Most of the pics are indoor, so I used ISO1600 on some of them.

Please share your thoughts...

June 28, 2010

Hi Andrew,

Yes, I had the hood and I did not realize the shadow until you guys pointed out, I was so enamoured of my flashless photos, I guess :)

This is the weather resistant kit lens and I am very surprised to see how nice and sharp the lens is considering that I got the DA55-300 and this lens for total $350 from craigslist!

As Justin said, high ISO's are defintely usable as long as exposure is nailed, otherwise it is a real problem.

Kit lens is real good even when wide open and these kind of images are not helping me in moving to K7 or Kx :)

June 27, 2010

Hi,

Yesterday night, I had a chance to take pictures of a prominent economist who lectures in Harvard. He visited Fremont, CA and I had the k10D with the kit lens. Inexplicably, I left my tamron 28-75mm in my camera bag in the car but the lighting in the restaurant was decent for the kit lens to handle both with and without flash

All the pictures are in the web page: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/55871877@N00/sets/72157624366301526/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/55871877@N00/sets/72157624366301526/</a>

Some pix I like are (obviously without flash) @ ISO around 1250/ 1000:

Please let me know what you think

One thing: With the tamron lens, I could have gone for wider apertures for limited DOF

Any other feedback appreciated

Thanks,

Mugundhan

October 27, 2009

As Orlando surmised, the flash is taking several seconds to recharge as it acted at full power. There is a custom mode where you can set the camera not to fire until the flash is recharged. If you dont enable it, then K10D fires even if the flash is not ready and this creates a dark image. Check your camera settings whether you had the camera not to fire until flash is recharged...

August 21, 2009

Are all these lenses auto-focus or manual focus?

The pix are very nice, great performance from old design

August 20, 2009

Thanks Andrew, I was just lazy to carry my external flash (AF280T),

after you mentioned now I notice the harsh shadows, should be more careful

It is just an informal gathering by our friends, so I was not sure whether me bringing an external flash will "intimidate" them, but you are right: I should use external flash and learn to bounce often,

August 20, 2009

Trying again

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