K10D - Wish list?

Pete,

When you starting talking sense in your normal posts, we'll be able to recognise your little jests.

But at the moment.........

G

There you go again same old George

Could'nt have expected any difference in your reply. Some of my posts have made sense either you have not read them or it's just a shame your not able to understand NEVER MIND old chum.

All I can say if you can't take it, don't dish it out. The problem with you George is you dont like me and have made that clear. If I am wrong I admit it, if your wrong you don't. Learn to,, like I have..it really will get you more respect.

What no sense of humour either ?? SAD Really

Erm... I think we're getting somewhat off topic here

Gentlemen, can we please stick the theme?

Thank you
Matt

Well said Matt I agree.

I need to point out that people will notice that its George that always starts stoking the fire with his pathetic remarks towards my posts. I have tried many a time to ignore them but sometimes feel I have to reply.

Anyway back to photography. Does anyone know if Tamron or Sigma has produced a USM lens for the pentax. I presume this is the terminology for a quiet motorised lens??

Pete

PS Excuse me folk if this if this does not make any sense as George would put it

Pete,
(You didn't quite let it go )

USM - no. The SSM is a new feature in the K10D and the yet-to-arrive DA* lenses. Sigma reverse engineer the lenses (i.e. they don't ask the manufacturers for details on how the lens talks to the body, but they hack it), so there won't be anything until these DA* lenses arrive and Sigma have disassembled them
Besides, SSM on the K10D requires a firmware update

BTW Pete, I've been meaning to say this - a top notch lens won't suddenly or miraculously improve your photography If you can't get sharp/good results from what you have then I'd say look at your technique... when you are 100% certain (with experience and skill) that it's not your technique, then look for lenses. (This thread has some insightful comments)

FWIW, The 16-50 is a hunking great piece of glass, and expensive. Personally, I love the light, small, and portable 16-45. And I know the 16-50 isn't going to add much to my image quality. I still haven't hit the ceiling of what the K10D can achieve with the lenses I have, so I'm holding off buying more glass

And getting back on track my list stands at:
* 7 or 9 shot bracketing
* 22-bit full RAW + Silkypix
* Captured White Balance should show Kelvin temperature (so you can enter it into the three manual WB slots)
* Single button White Balance capture (like the *ist-D had)

That's really about it! (And all of them are firmware possible!)

Matt

Matt excuse me for asking but what is SSM lens fit and you mentioned them for Penatx with a firmware update.

Can you fill me in

Cheers Pete

USM = Ultrasonic Motor = Canon and Nikon
SSM = Super Sonic Motor. Only in new DA* lenses for K10D. This is Pentax's name for USM (which I think was Canon's)

(All Pentax lenses are focussed by a motor in the body - so the lens can be a lot simpler.)

i.e. No one has seen a SSM/USM lens for Pentax... yet.

Matt

With reference to sharpening I have attemted to salvage this very poor image which I felt failed due to either my own fault with focus, lens or camera shake. I tried the sharpening method below and it has seemed to improve a little a failed image.

It is a shame because it could have been a really decent capture

http://www.lonestardigital.com/usm_fade.htm

FIRST IMAGE UNSHARPENED. THE SECOND IMAGE SHARPENED USING THE ABOVE METHOD

Here is the same image again with a little more sharpening and ajustments using shadow and highlight in PS




Pete

Don't mind the second one (apart from the shadow on the fox's left side), but when I saw the third one I thought "Ugh".

I think it looks completely unnatural. Much too much additional saturation, too, IMHO - looks like someone's tipped a pot of green paint over.

Hi Pete.

I just don't see any reason for bothering with any sharpening on that image of the fox. The image was no good at capture because of camera shake and no amount of time spent on trying to salvage it is worth it - try to reshoot it instead. As purely an example for using a different sharpening technique it still doesn't cut the mustard… any blurred image can be sharpened but it wont become a good image because of it. IMHO (and with 10+ years Photoshop experience) that is not a very good sharpening technique anyhow and you'd be much better checking out Matt's or Ben's technique posted on this very forum.

Regards,
Batty

the thing that might stop me buying a K10D is not the camera at all, which as far as I can tell without owning one appears superb and far ahead of its competitors.

unfortunately the lens is more important to image quality than the body

so what would give me pause is that pentax don't seem to be offering a good range of fast prime lenses at prices competitive with canons.

another wish might be full frame or a convincing argument why its not needed. (such an argument would probably involve a viewfinder with a greater than 1x magnification, and some serious discussion of noise levels on smaller sensors)

SSM autofocus that brings the autofocus up to par with canon USM would/will also be great.

and 22bit per channel (or whatever the full A/D output is) RAW files should be a no brainer. I'm a musician and we wouldnt mess about with 8 or 12 bit capture for audio so why do it for photos?

Well the 22 bit A/D converter is there and a range of very high quality primes are too.

I wonder which lens spec in particular you need to tip the balance?

Isn't the discussion about sharpening going off topic?

Having said that I like the second image. It must be my old ( see another posting) eyes but I can't detect any camera shake in the first image. As mentioned before I must learn more about sharpening.

Howard

I agree with Howard. The original image is ever-so-slightly out of focus. Almost there, but not quite.