tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-341464782024-03-13T16:37:41.377-06:00Digital SLR and Lens Reviewmskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-34722916737999743492009-11-22T19:30:00.008-07:002009-11-22T19:44:50.277-07:00Panasonic 45-200mm mini review
My 45-200mm arrived last night and today I was able to take some quick snapshots around the house. So far so good! With the GF1 (didn't yet had time to try with E-P1), the AF is very fast and virtually silent. The lens is not too big nor too heavy and balances nicely on the GF1.
The mega O.I.S is very impressive and I can get reasonably sharp images at 200mm and 1/30s! From an IQ mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-30211378889269249312009-11-12T19:38:00.016-07:002009-11-12T20:00:03.483-07:00E-P1 with Micro Nikkor 55mm f/2.8
It has been a while since I posted something here. Well, lots of things going on and not enough time. I will try to do some m4/3 reviews (E-P1 and GF1) soon. In the meantime, here is a post about using the Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 micro with the E-P1.
So I decided to give my micro Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 a try. This lens is a leftover from my Nikon days and the only thing I needed was to find a cheap mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-26494858934933750852008-08-05T18:03:00.009-06:002008-08-05T18:16:20.032-06:00Fuji S100FS: Super Macro modeA snail enjoying the moisture brought by tropical storm Edward... this little guy is about 1/2 inch from head to toe (!)
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-5543370474378263042008-06-25T21:40:00.006-06:002008-06-25T21:45:47.215-06:00Fuji S100FS: Dynamic RangeSeems to me that DR is pretty good with this camera. I didn't do any direct comparison but it might be as good as my DSLR (Pentax K10D).
Image shot in raw, converted with ACR and post processed in Photoshop. Exif embedded in image.
PS: I didn't use the S100FS' extended DR feature, as it's a jpeg thing...
The Galleria - Houston, TX (as usual, click on the image to get a bigger version).
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-50393158039564068782008-06-12T20:47:00.003-06:002008-06-12T21:03:09.446-06:00Fuji FinePix S100FSI got myself a Fuji S100FS. As a long time DSLR guy, who likes to use prime lenses and doesn’t really enjoy electronic viewfinders, I’d never thought I would buy such a camera (a 14x zoom? Come on!). But after reading all the good reviews and feedback from users, I decided to give it a try… To keep it short, I like pretty much everything about this camera: the speed (startup time, AF and write mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-34595792966480390912008-01-24T15:18:00.000-07:002008-02-01T12:53:26.636-07:00Pictures are back...I reached my bandwidth limit and I had to remove temporarily all the pictures. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Images are back now.mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-21955575440610315532007-12-07T18:59:00.000-07:002008-01-04T21:42:38.040-07:00Pentax K10D… a year later
About this Review
Since I don’t think that the world
needs yet another K10D review or that I can (nor want to) compete with the cohorts
of highly talented and meticulous professional reviewers, I decided to focus on
what makes the K10D unique and innovative and not waste your time going after the
minute details of each and every options.
All my comments
about Image Quality are based on mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-23248511539084808392007-11-27T23:47:00.000-07:002007-12-07T19:05:23.260-07:00Black and White using Adobe Camera RawI found that Adobe ACR does a decent job at converting to B&W (HSL/Grayscale and Tone Curve). Also, it is quite convenient because your settings are automatically saved in the sidecar files.
Here are some images using this technique. K10D in raw format converted with ACR. Exif embedded in images. And yes, that was a cloudy day.
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-76876619660824550102007-10-30T22:11:00.000-06:002007-12-07T19:05:11.919-07:00It has been a while...It has been a while since my last post. I am kind of busy.
I will resume posting as soon as I can decide what my next camera will be... the Canon 5D is very tempting with the recent price drop, yet I don't feel like carrying around a 2 lb. over-sized camera. I also need a small P&S and I am thinking about buying the Canon G9...
Stay tuned!mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-69747732780200397552007-07-18T03:47:00.001-06:002007-09-30T22:51:24.953-06:00The perfect take-anywhere camera? Not!I bought a LX2 last week and took it for a test drive in San Antonio,
TX. I liked the camera very much: size, controls, build quality,
lens, 16:9 aspect ratio, responsiveness and of course the ability to
shoot raw.
Mega O.I.S is very helpful if not as effective as what I am used to
with my Pentax K10D or K100D.
1/2s hand held! Not too bad ;-)
Unfortunately, the image quality mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-85110619141156354652007-06-24T23:30:00.000-06:002007-09-30T22:50:47.193-06:00Stormy SkiesBetween Washington and Somerville, Texas. Stormy skies and rain showers but it was a nice day, overall. And I am glad that the Pentax K10D is weatherproof.
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-18734239081987755832007-05-07T15:32:00.000-06:002007-07-19T22:27:49.858-06:00DA 10-17mm Fisheye: Another great lens!I am having a blast with this fun lens. It's way more versatile that I was expecting. Indeed, a fish eye ZOOM makes lots of sense. Yes, it shows some CA and Purple Fringing, but nothing that can't be fixed in post processing.
Pentax K10D with Pentax DA 10-17mm Fish-eye. Raw processed with Adobe ACR.
Very good at close-up too...
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-84009067442079268662007-03-13T00:39:00.000-06:002007-05-18T21:51:25.940-06:00Myth Busting: FA 43mm LimitedI was reluctant to buy the FA 43mm f/1.9 Limited mainly because I already own the DA 40mm f/2.8 Limited and the FA 50mm f/1.4. Both are excellent lenses and I couldn't justify adding the 43 Limited for the futile goal of completing my collection of Pentax Limited lenses. Another reason why I didn’t immediately bought this lens (beside its sporadic availability) is the numerous reviews, from mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-36344196240706638992007-03-09T16:19:00.000-07:002007-03-09T16:23:19.217-07:00Black and White with D200D200 + Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 at 200mm f/2.8 1/800 ISO 1600
Raw processed with ACR 3.7
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-4624073838715296222007-02-25T21:34:00.000-07:002007-02-25T23:04:24.383-07:00By popular demand: Pentax DA 70mm Limited compared to FA 77mmBack in October 2006, I had the opportunity to try the newly introduced DA 70mm f/2.4 Limited "Pancake" lens along with the legendary FA 77mm f/1.8 Limited. I posted some sample images from both lenses in the Pentax SLR forum at DPreview.
The images were lost when I switched to another ISP. Upon request, I decided to repost them with the (edited) comments I wrote about these two fine lenses.
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-62692658136614227402007-02-24T10:29:00.000-07:002007-02-24T10:54:12.036-07:00K10D Adobe ACR 3.7 CalibrationI calibrated ACR 3.7 to my K10D using the ACR Calibrator script (you need to edit the script so then it works with ACR 3.7).
Here are the values:
Shadow Tint-3
Red Hue-14
Red Saturation+22
Green Hue-6
Green Saturation+6
Blue Hue+13
Blue Saturation-5
I wouldn't recommend to use these values "as is" but as starting point if you can't do your own calibration (you need the mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-82588740208783285122007-02-20T22:28:00.000-07:002007-02-20T22:40:56.193-07:00Brazos Bend State ParkI took my K10D (with FA 31, FA 77 and DA 21) and D200 (with AF-D 80-200mm f/2.8) to Brazos Bend State Park (TX).
K10D - DA 21mm f/3.2 Limited
K10D - DA 21mm f/3.2 Limited
Nikon D200 - Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D
Nikon D200 - Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D
Nikon D200 - Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D
Nikon D200 - Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-4642126051867325832007-02-20T22:07:00.000-07:002007-12-07T19:07:27.268-07:00Cows LimitedK10D with FA 77mm Limited and DA 21mm Limited. There lenses are fantastic!
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-91055324190854096432007-02-14T21:23:00.001-07:002007-12-07T19:07:59.023-07:00Testing K10D and K100D Shake ReductionQuick and dirty test to evaluate how SR performs with the K10D and K100D. Lots of people are asking me about SR performance and I wanted to provide a bit more than just my suggestive evaluation.
I used the Pentax DA 50-200mm for this test. For reference, I also added 3 shots from Nikon D200 with Nikkor AF-D 80-200mm f/2.8 (obviously, no SR).
All shots were hand held (duh!) and taken at 200mm ISOmskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-9051143565740527112007-02-14T21:10:00.000-07:002007-02-14T21:48:30.393-07:00My Olympus E-1 GalleryI really enjoyed using this fantastic camera. If only Olympus had released a couple of fast wide, normal and portrait prime lenses... Well, Pentax did it so farewell to the Oly E-1.
Olympus E-1 Gallerymskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-21910807341058045072007-02-13T23:14:00.000-07:002007-12-07T19:06:08.043-07:00Pictures are back online!That wasn't too bad. Good thing I backup everything ;-)mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-34152706990709146752007-02-13T22:00:00.000-07:002007-12-07T19:07:27.270-07:00K10D + jpeg + FA 50mm f/1.4 wide open = ...I never shoot jpeg, but I was curious to see how "bad" the jpeg mode was with the K10D. (I am being sarcastic, K10D jpeg is great).
To make things worse, I used the FA 50mm f/1.4 wide open.
You tell me ;-)
K10D 1/250 f/1.4 ISO 100 - FA 50mm f/1.4
Full image:
1:1 Crop (center)
1:1 Crop (edge)
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-81802206538655551732007-02-13T21:57:00.000-07:002007-12-07T19:06:19.828-07:00Pictures are gone...Sorry for that!
I recently relocated to Texas from Colorado and I had to switch to another ISP. This is why all the pictures are gone :-(
I will try to fix that as soon as I can.mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-57040583718734001692006-12-03T00:16:00.000-07:002007-02-13T22:34:11.558-07:00K10D and SR: it's insane!Couldn't believe my eyes: 1.3 seconds hand held! And yes, I do drink coffee ;-)
Full image
1:1 Crop
mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34146478.post-16095746099231003562006-09-28T11:33:00.000-06:002007-02-13T22:30:29.824-07:00Pentax DA 21mm Pancake Limited: First ShotsAnother great lens, another sunny day in Northern Colorado ;-)
This is my first weekend with this lens. Well, lots of good things to say about this little gem: sharpness is insane (with K100D), colors are great and build quality... well, it's a Limited!
Vignetting, CA and distortion are very well contained. Minimum focusing distance makes it great for close-ups.
I was first concerned by the mskadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05565993750060611669noreply@blogger.com2