Wired

If you're looking for an entirely different user interface to Silkypix, ACR etc why not have a play with the trial version of Bibble Lite, available from the Bibblelabs website?

Instead of the traditional levels and curves approach, Bibble has separate controls for the likes of exposure, contrast, saturation and vibrancy, sharpening, CA and lens distortion reduction. These can be controlled through sliders or switched off entirely. It also has a couple of useful, proprietary, tools such as Perfectly Clear (a sort of auto-levels turbo) and Noise Ninja noise reduction.

OK, this is probably making the professionals and serious amateurs on here inwardly groan but for an hobbyist who doesn't have the time to learn the intricacies of some other applications, but still wants decent output from RAW images, Bibble can give you excellent results really quickly.

I'm a Linux user and am tending to use Bibble Lite for all my colour work and Lightzone for mono when I really want to put in the hard graft. But for colour, I've never equaled with Lightzone the results I can get with just one or two clicks and Bibble. I don't use a conventional image editor much (although have the Gimp for when I do) and can get 99 per cent of my work done in either Bibble or Lightzone.

Try Bibble, you might like it.

Adrian

For me, it's been a tale of liking a few things I never thought I'd get on with and working around some of the others.

Firstly, I never thought how much extra control I'd get by shooting RAW but now would never think about shooting jpegs. Much of this, of course, is down to the conversion software - Bibble Lite and Lightzone in my case - but I feel that, for me, RAW is the only way to go.

Coming from an MZ-5N, I never thought I'd like the size and weight of the K10D. It's certainly a very different proposition but, balanced with a sizable lens like the 50mm f1.2A, it makes for an overall well handling package.

Set-up has taken me a while to settle into. Firstly, I thought I'd like the idea of using the front/back control wheels to adjust EV compensation during AV/TV shooting. This was a huge mistake as the exposure compensation took on a life of it's own resulting in mad bouts of overexposure. I have that firmly locked down now.

What I knew I wouldn't like and still don't is the placement of the exposure memory lock - just that extra cm. too far to the right. Should be closer to the centre like in the MZ-5N.

Apart from that, it's a bit like any relationship. Initial infatuation settling down to comfortable domesticity and learning to live with it's eccentricities.

Adrian

Mongoose

Glad you got UFRAW and DCRAW working. I tried building DCRAW from source a couple of weeks ago but met with catastrophic dependency problems to the extent that, if I hadn't had my system pinned, I'm pretty sure I would have broken something fatally. Haven't even tried building UFRAW and, as you say, the binary packages in Debian stable are woefully out of date.

As an alternative, I've been using Lightzone for just over a month now and find it pretty good apart from a few performance issues. In addition to the editing facilities, it provides a graphical file browser that displays PEF and DNG files from my K10D and a ready compiled binary of DCRAW. Any budding Linux users that fancy trying DCRAW, but don't want to build from source, could use the version that comes with Lightzone. Or just use Lightzone!

On the Windows refund issue, there's been quite a bit of discussion on Slashdot about a chap in Germany who successfully got a refund from Dell for an unwanted WinXP install. See http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/03/25/1944209.shtml

Adrian

Begs the question, though, as to why Pentax are no longer producing lenses that there is clearly still some sort of market for. OK, this thread is about a 200mm macro lens but you can draw parallels to this right up and down the focal length range. Why, for example, is there no fast digital only prime in the 28mm range (apart from the 31mm Ltd that is)?

Just a cursory look on the auction site would suggest that the market for Pentax prime lenses, particularly in an A or AF fitting, is buoyant so why doesn't Pentax bring back a couple of these if only to test whether the market really does exist? I've looked at the road map and I'm, frankly, not particularly inspired; lots of zooms, a couple of fast telephotos a few (increasingly slow) limited lenses. (Rant over.)

Adrian

Dear all

Many thanks for all your replies but I think I've just about sorted it. Let me rephrase that; Dan has just about sorted it! Dan kindly met me at the Essex Wildlife Trust visitor centre at Bedfords Park this afternoon and we tried just about every permutation possible of the two lenses, two mounts and three Pentax bodies we had between us. Basically, my mount appears to be the culprit but it is now functioning properly on my K10D.

Actually, it seemed to get it's act together just before setting off to meet Dan and is now functioning properly about 95% of the time. I've given it a bit of a clean around the inside and now when it misbehaves, and this is exactly as Jonathan said in one of his posts, all it really seems to need is a very slight extra twist on the aperture ring to bring the F stop information back up. I am now a happy camper!

As I said, thanks for all your replies but particularly to Dan for giving up his time to meet up with me and get it working.

Adrian

Jonathan

Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, I am putting the aperture ring on the lens into the AE position after first depressing the locking button. I had another try last night but without luck. The AE position really is a very good fit and, once locked, the aperture ring has just about zero play to it. Also, no matter how I've wiggled the lens in the mount or the mounted lens in the camera, I'm not getting even a sniff of aperture information coming up.

Dan

That's a very kind offer. I'll send you a PM.

Many thanks.

Adrian

Jonathan

Thanks very much for the response. I spent most of Sunday afternoon mounting and remounting the lens and then trying to nudge the mount some. Basically, nothing but I will keep trying.

Thanks for your help though.

Adrian.

Hi all

I recently purchased, via the auction site, a Tamron Adaptall 2 mount in PKA bayonet. The mount is pristine and, coupled with a 28mm f2.5 lens, works perfectly in aperture priority, shutter priority, manual and programme on my MZ-5N. The trouble is, it won't display any aperture information on my K10D which is a bit troublesome because I've absolutely no idea what aperture I'm choosing when I spin the control dial around. (BTW, I am setting and locking the lens to the AE position).

I've had a quick test in various modes and it seems to be providing generally correct exposures it's just that it won't tell me what those exposures are!

Anyone got a K10D to work properly with an Adaptall 2 lens?

Adrian

Getting Lightzone to work seems to be somewhat down to luck. I've had no problems though I appreciate this is scant consolation to those who have. I've been trying out Bibble Lite, though, for a couple of weeks and am finding it really superb. Certainly, it's not free but it gives a range of functions that aren't available in any other RAW converter running under Linux.

Adrian

I tried this because it seems so much more intuitive to control the aperture at the front and the shutter speed at the back. I changed the settings for TV, P and AV before I realised that there was a yewning gap where the option to change manual mode should have been. I ended up changing them all back again and am just trying to get used to it. Maybe in the next firmware upgrade (not holding my breath or anything.)