K10D Inside Building.

Sorry, just raising my voice a little... thought he might not have heard the question the first few times

The only reason I tried different settings was because I couldn't get anything like an image. Not because I was confused.

I thought I made myself clear, guess not. How about next to nothing recorded, almost black images.

Took lot's of shots with and without flash on KM7D with no problems.

By the way I don't keep many shots of Fire Dept incidents or events. I do my thing, make discs and they go to the FD for their records, then I dump most of them. I only kept a couple of favorites my wife liked of this shoot.
So for me to keep garbage is out of the question. I took about 400 images at this event, not including the K10.

Thanks, RG.

So we seem to be talking about gross under-exposure.

Putting my thinking cap on here as I type....if there was a flash attached that did not fire that could explain the almost black images.....a faulty lens that was delivering f22 or similar instead of the correct aperture maybe....perhaps a lens not seated properly....a flash pointed at a ceiling that was too far away and too dark to give proper reflection of the light....triggering a flash with pre-flash does it as well as when the shutter opens the flash has already gone off....

I'll see if I can think of anything else - anyone else have any relevant ideas?

Setting, say, ISO 1600 in one mode, and forgetting that it won't be that in another?

Setting ISO 1600 when in User mode, and forgetting that it won't remember it at next switch on unless you save it explicitly?

Leaving the flash compensation at -2.

I've done all three of these, several times.

Not as plausible as your list, though, John, if there weren't any usable shots at all.

ChrisA. John.

1. No flash on K10, as I stated I forgot it.

2. Apart from just trying other settings I shot in P mode 90% of the
time.

3. Did try User mode.

4. Hard to make a mistake with a readout on top of camera
indicating ISO. Plus I was back and forth changing it all the time
between 800 & 1600. I am certain I didn't screw up there.

By George, I am now inclined to believe John is correct with the lens not seated properly. Didn't even think of it before but when I first used this lens the camera it didn't make that little in focus beep. I called Pentax and asked them about it. The rep said it could be because I wasn't using a Pentax Lens.

I will admit I find the Sigma lenses to be a very tight fit on the K10 and if one is not listening for that small click, it may not be fully seated.
The next time I put the lens on, the beep worked and I forgot all about it until John just mentioned it.

Come to think of it I don't remember the beep working that night, however it was pretty noisy in there.

I will go into the building one evening and try again under the same conditions with this lens, making sure it is seated properly.

Hoping it was some kind of finger trouble, and not the camera.

You guys have certainly eased my mind, thanks for all the help.

RG.

The 'P' (Programmed exposure) setting, is programmable. How is yours set on the K10D (high speed, DOF, ? ? ?) ? In my opinion, you should have been using aperture priority and a reasonably fast lens. What lens were you using.

Anyway, why turn a sophisticated and highly capable DSLR into a point & shoot by using P mode?

Because it's sophisticated and highly capable?

Mannesty

I don't remember what my P setting was. I screwed around with the camera trying to get an image, until giving up

Sigma 17-35 2.8-4

Why not, if that's what one feels like doing. I am not a snob photographer that looks down their nose at point & shoot operators. I will try anything.

I take lots of shots with the Fire Dept. In many instances I don't have time to fiddle fart around with the camera, my god I even use full auto sometimes, don't get second chances in this business.

In the shoot the other night nothing worked, like I stated I believe John is correct, my lens was not seated correctly. My mistake and I should have checked.

Today's camera's have lots of tools, why not use them all, including the dreaded programed features.

I would make a big money bet there is not anyone out there that looked at a dozen normal size images (Most people don't blow their images up to poster size) taken at the same spot, of the same subject from a dozen different digital camera's with similar settings/lenses and could pick out which camera took which shot.

There is one excellent pro photographer that I read about that only uses Olympus point and shoots. His work is incredible.

RG.

When I did a wedding on Sunday I let the camera sort out the fill-in flash, which it did just as well as I ever did.

It's the end result that counts.

Even the dreaded exposure modes have a logic. If the portrait mode, for example, selected low sharpness, low saturation, low ISO, large aperture it would be doing what we might do ourselves.

Having said that, it's easy for me to say because I understand what is going on. A beginner might well benefit from trying to learn a little photography. Or does the beginner no longer need to know?

:

I think the skill lies substantially in knowing when to let the camera work things out.

I'm merely trying to help pinpoint the source of your problem. My point was, and perhaps I didn't express it well enough, is that the programmed exposure used by the 'P' mode is selectable in custom settings and perhaps you chose (or rather the camera was set to) an inappropriate setting for the job in hand.

Without any concrete evidence of the 'failed' images, we are all just stabbing in the dark but trying to help nevertheless.

I have no prejudice against point and shoot cameras, I use one (Fuji F810), a lot. I just wonder, with the sophistication of the K10D, why anybody would choose to use it essentially as a P&S camera unless they were a complete novice (which obviously you are not) and just wanted to bang off a few test pics to get started.

Mannesty.

Thanks for trying to help.

Many moons ago when a visiting a local beach with my family, I asked some lone older gentleman what he was doing digging a hole in the sand. His response was "Son, just about anything I want to do"

To answer your question as to why anyone would want to use Auto Mode (P&S) on a DSLR.

"Because we can"

RG.

You're welcome.

Enough said, I think.

I think there's a missing word here - 'exclusively'. Using it 'exclusively' in P&S mode would be a waste of its abilities. It has a host of options that you can choose to use - or not. I choose to use it in fully auto mode sometimes, but not arbitrarily.

I've found, for instance, that the camera often makes a much better job of exposure (even of the thing I want) in matrix metering mode, than I can using spot mode, when there is a high dynamic range in the scene. Because of course then I tend to ruin everything but the subject, thus rendering the background too distracting.

This is the reverse of what I used to find back in my film days with the ME Super, where I could usually do a much better job than the camera. (I did 'spot' metering by zooming in, noting the exposure, and then reframing, of course).

So I'm a big fan of 'auto' in the right context.

I use 'P' mode sometimes on my K10D and I also did on my Z1p - I found that with the program mode set to DOF it very often matched the results I'd have picked had I been using aperture priority, which is the mode I use most often.

I don't see how the 'P' mode could be the problem in this case because whatever the program line was set for it still wouldn't have picked settings that produced a grossly underexposed result. The only reasons I can see for that happening were if the camera were in manual mode and the user hadn't noticed, or if the camera was expecting the flash to fire and it didn't. Either that or the cameras broken or the user didn't take the lens cap off...

I've used my K10D & *istDS in lots of difficult indoor lighting conditions and never had a problem - shooting raw means you can leave sorting out the white balance 'til later anyway (especially if like me you're more interested in the results looking nice than being 100% accurate). The auto white-balance on the K10D does seem more effective than that on the *istDS though.