Stormy Skies

Between 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.

DA 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...

Myth Busting: FA 43mm Limited

I 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 respectable and trustworthy photographers, stating that the FA 43mm Limited is “soft” wide open, that the FA 50mm f/1.4 is a way better performer and that one needs to stop the lens down to f/5.6 or even f/8 to reach the sweet spot.

Well, I finally decided to bite the bullet and bought it (for the futile reason stated above). As soon as I reviewed the very first image I took with this lens, I had the feeling that this might be THE lens! The image was just so rich and sharp and the colors so thick and smooth. And the build, the size, the lens hood, the weight… everything is so perfect.

I decided to run some controlled tests against the FA 50mm f/1.4 and the DA 40mm f/2.8 and found that the FA 43mm is indeed sharper at f/1.9 than the excellent DA 40mm at f/2.8 and as sharp as the FA 50mm f/1.4 at f/2.0 (corner sharpness is better with FA 50mm, though).

Obviously, I didn’t have enough time to make a final judgment but I think that this might be the most amazing of the 3 FA limited.

Black and White with D200

D200 + Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 at 200mm f/2.8 1/800 ISO 1600 Raw processed with ACR 3.7

By popular demand: Pentax DA 70mm Limited compared to FA 77mm

Back 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.

• The DA 70 is way smaller and lighter than the FA 77. It totally deserves the pancake appellation.
• The DA 70 is a tiny bit sharper wide open than the FA 77 at f/2.5.
• There is some purple fringing with the FA 77, none with the DA 70.
• AF is very fast and quiet with the DA 70, fast (but noisy) with the FA 77.
• The FOV difference between 70mm and 77mm is more important that I was expecting.
• Stopped at f/2.4, the FA 77 seems to expose about 1/3 stop faster than the DA 70 set to the same aperture and the DOF is narrower, which makes me think that the DA 70 is closer to f/2.8 than the claimed f/2.4 wide open.
• As for bokeh, I will let you judge. The topic is just too suggestive and too controversial.

Pictures were taken with K100D (raw), processed with Adobe ACR. No other adjustments then resizing for the web.

K10D Adobe ACR 3.7 Calibration

I 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 Calibrator script and a GretagMacBeth Color Checker).

Brazos Bend State Park

I 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

Cows Limited

K10D with FA 77mm Limited and DA 21mm Limited. There lenses are fantastic!

Testing K10D and K100D Shake Reduction

Quick 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 ISO 400 f/8 and around 1/5s. Yes, it's over 5 stops below the minimum recommend shutter speed!

I took exactly and only 3 images with SR OFF followed by exactly and only 3 images with SR ON. I didn't discard any image.

In short: SR works great and has been improved in the K10D over that in the K100D, as claimed by Pentax.

(click on the image to see it full size)

My Olympus E-1 Gallery

I 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 Gallery