Pentax or Sony?

Pray enlighten us all! Sounds interesting...

Best wishes, Kris.

Whats shift lens?

Matt

Well, I'm a new found Nikon 'fan boy', but the fact that I still post frequently on here and look at it most days says something! All I will say is that Nikon and Canon are popular for a reason, and it isn't just rampant brand blindness all the time.

But anyway, I moved to Nikon gear for a specific reason that I couldn't achieve to my satisfaction with Pentax, namely I needed a high FPS camera with low noise.

If I hadn't needed that, I wouldn't have changed. If Pentax release something akin to the D300 in the futre, then I'll be back to Pentax gear in a heartbeat! Meantime, I'm seriously looking at a Pentax k-m for carrying whilst out mountain biking.

I'm sure you'll be very very pleased with your K200d, and it's a lovely capable camera. This lot on here are also a mostly helpful bunch!

I'm with Womble. Come on Beakynet whats this "TOOL" that makes all lenses into shift lenses? CHEERS Vic
PS Does it make them into SHIFT & TILT or just shift?.

Hi,

Didnt mean to offend, its just ive been on a few forums and just got a constant "go with canon or nikon , the others are ****"

Just annoyed me!

Matt

Well, I am surprissed that no one has guessed

It's PaintShop Pro X

I wasn't offended!

I know what you mean though, sometimes people don't look beyond the obvious and quite often speak from uninformed positions!!

I look forward to seeing your pics with it.

I have complained of something similar in the past, and it is in relation with the origional topic 'Pentax or Sony'. It's not about the camera make as already pointed out, it's about its availibility! Jessops are pushing Sony as they have an agreement and make more money then from selling Pentax. This is perhaps why many highstreet retailers don't stock Pentax, they don't make the margins form them, especially the lenses!

I have spoken to Nikon and Canon users and none of them have poopooed my Pentax, after all we are all attempting to take decent pictures! On the other hand, I have heard it in a shop where the assistant probably thinks that a 3.2MP camera phone is a serious piece of kit

Paint shop pro and the like will sort out converging verticals (at the expense of variable image degradation) OK but won't give you the depth of field that the Scheimpflug principle and a view camera will.

I can't remember who asked (the OP perhaps which is a bit of a slapped wrist for going off topic) but a tilt-shift lens is one which allows the lens to be either tilted relative to the film plane and/or the centre of the image shifted relative to the film plane. Tilts allow one to play around with the depth of field (either getting a lot more DOF or being very selective) and shifts allow things like not having converging verticals when photographing a building (as one does not need to tip the camera up) or photographing into a mirror without being in the reflection. They are very popular with architectural photographers who don't want to use a view camera, and landscape photographers who want everything from the tips of their toes to the furthest mountain in focus. The Pentax version, however, is only a 28mm shift which in film days was fine, but isn't really wide enough on the current crop of digital sensors.

HTH. Kris.

There is no software make-do for 'tilt' and pentax does not make a tilt lens anymore along with other serious ommisions in it's lens range, an ddoes not seem inclined or interested in a comprehensive coverage of the once important lens types.

Also, Sony offers it's basic 10meg DSLR at only £250, at least £50 cheaper than pentax km and better designed. Important when considering that these cameras are getting to be disposable in real terms.

Whether Sony is inferior in image quality to pentax/others is academic unless one is making large prints,.....if only putting images onto the web then you don't even need a DSLR as even a compact will suffice.

The software solution to tilt problems is the Transform tool in Photoshop. This works extremely well, provided it is used moderately, as always.

Tilt and Shift lenses for 35mm cameras have all but disappeared but the Pentax 28mm Shift does turn up on eBay from time to time. The price expectation can be quite high!

".......The software solution to tilt problems is the Transform tool in Photoshop..."

Well 'Photoslop' must have got MUCH cleverer is all I can say!!!

........Are you sure you don't mean 'shift problems'? So how does 'Photoslop' actually increase depth of field then? I know software is getting good but I did'nt think it could actaully make up what is not there!

I don't think anybody mentioned Photoshop increasing DOF.

I would assume that the photographer would use a small aperture with an ultra-wide lens and do one of two things.

The first could be to keep the camera back vertical and parrallel to the subject (and I'm talking about architecture here) and only use the top half of the frame. This ensures no falling over effects.

The second could be to include all the subject to fill the frame and use the Transform tool in Photoshop to make "corrections" later. This works pretty well, but of course there is a limit.

"Correcting" images in this way is of course a misnomer as the correct perspective is indeed a building looking as if it is falling over backwards if we point the camera upwards. When we look at such a scene our brains accept it and automatically "correct" it. In a photograph we will accept receding lines in railway tracks, but not in buildings.

I'm not sure that we usually try to "correct" receding railway tracks, but it might be interesting to try....

Yes that's of course fine for perpective corrections/controls, but there is only one way to do the work of a tilt lens and that's well, to use a tilt lens (or technical camera) The tilt lens facility is nothing to do with 'Shift'/perspective control, it's the ability to angle the plane of focus to coincide with the elements of the subject that you requirte to have optimum focus/sharpness.

Since Pentax (and some others) turned it's face to the wall about a real lens range and went for the big flashy zooms and 'bottlecap' lenses instead, there is no way out for this requirement other than the Hartblei 35mm Rotator in M42 which is also discontinued.

If you want tilt/shift DoF simulation in software, then Alien Skin's Bokeh looks interesting
(Check the video at around 2min 10sec)
Matt