Anyone know anything about the Novatron line of studio flash systems?
I have a friend of a friend that may be dumping his set off for a "good price". (I think it is the D1000 three light kit).
I don't know enough about these types of lights, but I've read up on several models of Novatron and most state that although you can scale down the output of the lights, at least one must always be at full power or risk damaging the system. (haven't found much more info though)
I'm slightly more familiar with mono blocks which have no such limitations, of course. So I don't know if that is normal. Is that sort of limitation normal for studio strobes, or should I stay away from that brand??

Thanks for any advice,

Still, very nice. Quite jealous...

I have two 300mm lenses and the sharpest image I could get after more than 50 attempts (with various apertures and shutter speeds) was the one below.

I know my old lenses are not great (possibly quite near crap??), so they could be the cause of the poor image. Or could I still be doing something wrong? I have the camera on a tripod, two second timer, RAW. I found the sharpest aperture for at least one lens was f/18 (anything lower was much, much worse!)

I have an SMC Pentax-FA 1:4.7-5.8 100-300mm and a Tamron 28-300mm. Both have similar results.

Any ideas if I should expect better results from these lenses? I am quite ready to put the blame on the lenses as they are old and cheap, from my starving student days... but I would not overlook the possibility that I am still doing something wrong. I am just at a loss of what it could be.
As time goes along I start realize how bad my past photos were and never noticed at the time. So, I am now hoping that I am getting better and realizing the limits of the glass I have... as opposed to finding simply that I still suck.

Found exactly the same thing myself. When I tried to reproduce the issue, the exposure was consistent. I am stymied by the behavior, so for controlled situations, I always forgo the PTTL and go totally manual.

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Hmmm, maybe...
Although I thought I had uninstalled and deleted all the Pentax stuff by the time the Remote Assistant came out. I guess I don't remember for sure.
You might want to give that a try anyway.

Anything you really "need" from the CD? The software on the CD, as I remember, is pretty basic.

Loads of other free software that does a better job (e.g. Free version of SilkyPix, etc...)

Not sure about the rest, but the Remote Assistant can be obtained from the Pentax website. That is the only one that has features not obtainable in other software.

Hmmm, Didn't notice the hot spot, but thought some areas could use some sharpening... perhaps some suffered from over-sharpening?

Well, been sitting at the window for the last hour and a half trying to get photos of the lightning going on out my window. After about 15 minutes of manual shutter clicking, I decided this would be a great time to try out the tethered shooting.
Several good shots taken by the camera... none saved. Either the image wasn't saved when I chose the one I wanted from Buffered Save mode... Or the software crashed downloading the image just prior to an EXCELLENT lightning strike, or the timer modes never took more than one successive frame and I lost the buffer (shot manually and caught one anyway) somehow in playing around with the connections.

But, I now have several hundred near identical shots of the horizon.
Although a few of them have real nice trails of blinking lights form the passing airplanes.


Oh well, time to recharge the batteries, storm is gone. Ergh!
Still, more relaxing than working, and probably more exciting than anything on television. So, I'm not too upset in the end.

Have to agree. I think the detail you have is fine, you just need to work on the lighting.

I notice the room's reflection in the lens. You may want another angle, or have a sheet in the front as well with a hole cut in it just big enough for your lens.

You may need larger light sources (larger sheets of paper) to avoid the hot spots and give more even lighting around the full surface of the camera being photographed.

Personally I like the height more. It gives my last two fingers something to do, and the leverage helps to hold it upright with the larger lens.
Also when it is just hanging by the strap, the small bit of height helps keep the camera from tipping over with the flash mounted on it. Assuming the lens is not too large -- I used to use the 18-200 quite a bit and this works really well since the flash gets in the way much more than the lens when the camera tips forward.

Having the corner button is nice in some cases. I haven't got used to it being available yet, but I have started using it more often when taking photos in portrait.


Plus, we all know what they say about the size of your camera...
Perception is weird...