Beginner Stumbles w/ Astro Tracer

I've recently started doing a lot of night lapse photography using a Sony ZV-E10, but bought a K-3 with a battery grip and GPS unit. I'm running into a few problems that is leaving me feeling a bit disappointed with the Pentax experience. I'd appreciate any advice.

First, do any of the Pentax cameras have something similar to the Sony Bright Monitor function that boosts the gain of the live view to make framing and focusing even in complete darkness much easier? I've tried using both the viewfinder and live view but with my older eyes I can't see jack. I've messed with aperture, ISO, brightness, and shutter speed to see if I can come up with something comparable.

Second, when I shoot with my Sony I hook it up to an external power bank that let's me run interval shooting all night long. Even with the battery grip I'm only getting maybe 400 exposures before everything is drained. Do any of the Pentax cameras allow for the use of a USB battery bank while shooting? When I hook a battery bank up to the K-3 USB port it just shuts down the camera and starts charging the battery.

Third, does the camera have a setting that detects that I'm using the viewfinder and shut down the LCD? Even with my eye pressed into the eyecup there's enough bleed through light that's killing my night vision.

I'm sure excited to make the most of the Astro Tracer function and love the build and weather sealing of the K-3 but I've got to find a solution to these problems or I'm going to move another direction.

Hello!

I do astro.... and if I am honest... the Astrotracer (as neat as it is), is far to limiting for astro with a DSLR or Mirrorless if you want to do extended shoots. Extended shooting is the prefered option as you want to get as much data (this is waht you are collecting when shooting) as you can while shooting. Hence it is better to use 1, 2, or 3 plus minute exposures.

If you are wanting to do stacks of 200 plus images, I would get an iOPtron Star Tracker Pro, Sky Guider Pro or a Star Watcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro. The little iOPtron Star Tracker Pro is about the same money as the GPS attachment for the K3, and MASSIVELY more capable. I would personally recomend the iOPtron kit, as it is much better built that Sky Watchers stuff.... This comes from personal experice of both.

The reasons for not using astro tracer.....

The astro tracer moves the cameras senor, and it can only move it so far. With anactual Star tracker, the unit will be polar aligned and it will roatate along what is called the Right Ascension axis. This moves the actual camera. This means that you can use much long longer expsoures, thusly capturing far more data. This is essential if you are wanting to capture nebula or galaxies. Only drawback of it is, it is a time consuming. This is because you need to let your sensor cool betweeen shots. So if you do a two minute exposure, then you have a one minute gap to alow the sensor to cool. If you don't do this you will get sensor burn and get lots of hot pixels.

If you are wanting to use larger lenses from say 200mm to 500mm, get the Sky Guider Pro or the Star Adventurer. As these come with a counter balance weight so you can get smoother tracking. For wide fields, using 50-100mm lenses I use a Sky Tracker Pro. Look on my profile and you'll find samples of my astro stuff.

I will now give you a warning.... Astrophotography is addictive... and you will fall down that rabbit hole as I did and end up spending an effing fortune!!

If you have any other questions or want any advice, please free to message me.

Hope this helps,
Ian

As for batteries.....

I'd a get a good Powerstation. I have several and it will give you several options to power your Pentax camera. Your options are - buy one with a plug socket and use a power adaptor to power your camera. This is the prefered option if you want to buy a cheaper end Power Station. This is because the USB power does not use the correct ampage to power via USB. To use said USB power lead, you'll need to get a good quaity Power Station that delivers the correct ampage. I'd look at one with 200 plus watt hours. This will also allow you to use a lens heater to prevent dew forming on you lens.

Sadly with Pentax cameras, and it pains me to say this, they are lacking when it comes to doing this kind of photography. Don't get me wrong I love Pentax dearly and have been using them for over 40 years. I mostly use Canon for doing astro. I do now and again use my K3 or K5 for astro. It just makes it a lot more of a faff to do, as they don't interface with the kit I use. Another lacking part of Pentax....

Just to be sure, have you bought an original K3 or a K3ii or the K3iii (the latest version)? The K3 and K3ii are very similar in most respects, the K3iii is very different. The reason for asking is that I've got a vague memory of having looked into boosting the gain of live view for one of the versions (for another use, not astro) but can't remember the result and am pretty sure it would be different for the K3/K3ii and the K3iii. I'll try to refresh my ageing memory cells once I know which version you have.

Steve

The K-1 had a red lighting theme to protect night vision and little LEDs to illuminate certain functions at night across the camera from memory. Not related to the K-3 sorry but thought that concept was pretty nice. Not sure if the K-3 iii inherited some of these features.

I have the K-3 Mark I.

When I said Pentax is lacking in this field...

This is one of many things it lacks.... I use a K3 Mk1.

What focal length lens are you mainly using?

The K1 also can increase the LCD brightness, I have this set all the time.

Thanks. A few answers to your questions.

The K3 Mk 1 does not have an easy way to boost gain in live view but there is a workaround which I found for another situation and might be useful to you. See link. Hope it helps. The K3iii has many options for determining LCD brightness, but I rarely use live view so haven't worked out what they all do!

The K3 Mk1 does not have 'eye detection' which turns off the LCD when looking through the viewfinder. The K3 iii does have it.

Power supply via USB is not supported by the K3 Mk 1, USB is for downloading files to a computer. Running the K3 Mk 1 from an external power supply requires a proprietary power adapter (AC Adapter Kit K-AC132) which plugs into a dedicated socket. I've got the adapter and it works fine, but was tricky to find. The K3 iii can take power via USB, there is a proprietary adapter but folks wiser than me have found that a non-proprietary USB cable of the right type will do the job.

Good luck.

Steve

No.... not via the on camera USB socket.

But you can power a K3 Mk1 via a USB C to the K1's power socket.

Sorry, I should have made my post more clear.

Here is a link to one.

Only drawback is you need a good power station, not powerbank, to run it.

Thanks, Spad. Good to know that there's a 3rd party option. That's an answer to how to run a K3 for longer than a battery with allow, The Pentax adapter that plugs into a 13 amp socket rather than USB was as rare as hens teeth when I was looking for one.

Steve

I had a genuine Pentax 13a adapter... it failed not long after I bought it. I have a third party one that runs fine!

To be fair the Pentax K-3 was released back in 2013, so a lot has happened technology wise in that time.

PENTAX DA* 16-50mm f/2.8 ED AL (IF) SDM, so far only been running 16mm wide open.

Ok... so wide field. Are you trying to shoot the milky way?

I'd also close it down f4 on this lens. At f2.8 you'll get a large ammount of CA.