Off to the Edinburgh area for a few days on Sunday - fingers crossed for some good (or even better, dramatic ) weather.

Thanks for the inspiration Galoot.

Dan

Hi Alchemist,

Glad you got it sorted, but guessing you sent it to Sigma USA.

Have fun,
Dan

George, I can well see how you could be put off by some double sided tape , hopefully there's none lurking in any of mine.

When I fancied a longer telephoto (300mm), with a large aperture (preferably f/2. I set about keeping an eye out - saw a S/H Pentax one at Ffordes, for (I think) £3000 'as seen'. I ended up going for a Ebay Tamron for £300. I don't use it that much, but I'm happy with it when I do. As I was a Velvia user at the time, the large aperture was a real bonus - these days I'd probably be happy with f/4 (or 4.5 ). Still, it works a treat with my 1.7x AF adaptor.

If there's one lens I want at the moment, it's a longer macro, in the 180mm area. As far as I can see, that only leaves me with the Sigma/Tamron option. Having said that, I do wonder if I really need a longer macro - should I go for the 50-200DA and save myself a bad (worse) back...?

Hope you've found your sanity again.

Dan

Hi Alchemist,

I reckon Matt's right (again ). I've been using this lens on my istD for a year or so with fantastic results (if I say so my self ), so don't let it put you off.

Might be worth seeing if a repairer could have a look, if it just needs an internal clean of contacts etc, the bill might be worth it.

Can you still use it manually - ie. setting the aperture via the ring on the lens, and manually stop-down metering? It's not ideal, but at least you'd be able to use the lens. You'd probably need to select the appropriate setting in the menu to allow the camera to function when the aperture was anything other than 'A'.


George, you always bring a smile to my face - can I start calling you 'Prophet of Doom'? I think there are a lot of happy Sigma users out there, including myself (24mm, 105mm macro and 10-20mm, all solid, sharp lenses, admittedly EX ones too, apart from the 24mm). There are bound to be issues with 3rd party lenses sometimes, which obviously isn't good, but just as there are mediocre sigma lens, there are the less than ideal Pentax ones too. And, as Downswood says, there is a much bigger choice from Sigma than Pentax, especially at the extremes of focal length.

But as ever, each to their own. If you feel purely Pentax is the way to go, that's the way for you to go.

Dan

Hi Liam,

I don't think a 'set up and leave it' set-up would react quickly enough to get your shot - I'd guess the bat would be gone by the time the shutter fired.

You can just prefocus your manual focus lens, set the camera to autofocus, set the drive mode to 'consecutive' (not single shot) and then press the shutter release (using a cable relaese would probably be best, it needs to be kept locked down). When something comes into focus, the shutter will fire. Using the consecutive drive mode means that the next time something comes into focus, it will fire again. But as I say, I don't think it would react quickly enough.

I've had some success with the following method:

Find somewhere with bats (preferably woodland), and look for a clearing where they spend a fair amount of time. It's best to do this at dusk, so you can still see them fairly clearly without a torch. Try to estimate what height they're flying at. Prefocus a 50mm lens (camera needs to be set to manual focus). Use a manual flash, and see what aperture give correct exposure for the distance you've focused on. Using this aperture, select a shutter speed that will give some colour to the sky.

Now comes the fun bit! Bring the camera to your eye, but leave both eyes open. The view will be roughly the same through the camera and the naked eye. This will help enormously as you now try to follow the flying bat (with the camera, don't try running like this. ) Fire at will, check focusing and exposure. Hopefully at least some shots will work.




Not perfect, and cropped down, but great fun.

Good luck!

Dan

John, I was about to say, "yeah, I think you're right about the battery drain, and if you can hold a camera steadier than the next person, you could turn the SR down a bit", but then I thought that if you can hold it steadier, the SR doesn't have to work so hard, so it wouldn't use as much power anyway.

The wide angle lenses wouldn't need so much either, but then that's why you have the focal length detector (or adjuster).

I just can't see why there's a user control over how much SR is applied - surely you'd want it either to work, or not? From the screen-shot, it looks like you can have normal SR, or more, or less.

Dan

One other thing I noticed in the K10D brochure, regarding the shake reduction, was the following:

"The “Shake Reduction” works fast and reliably up to focal lengths of 800mm. Under normal conditions the camera automatically recognises
the focal length. The focal length of older manual lenses must be entered manually. In additional to the focal length, 3 levels of “Shake Reduction” can be selected."

I wonder why '3 levels' of reduction can be selected - why not one level, which does all the reduction you need... :

Dan

Perhaps the delay is because they're having to recall their K10D brochure, just read through it here: http://www.pentax.co.uk/downloads/photo/uk/K10D/catalog_K10D_GB.pdf.

Particularly like the section on Limited Lenses: "These were compromised of high-quality lenses with fixed focal lengths"

and the heading "WE HAVE DEVELOPED A RESISTANCE TO AGAINST THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF BRILLIANT PHOTOS"

If they want a proof writer, I'm more than happy to do it for the sum of 1, no 2 K10D's, with grips, and spare batteries. Ooh, and a few SD cards. And some of those new DA* lenses.

Dan

Oh yeah! Took me ages to find that - from their home page, I went to Digital SLR's, which doesn't show any Pentax links. So then I tried 'New Equipment', then 'Pentax', and that didn't have them. If you're going to have brands on there, at least show things by that brand, in that section. Why have them just under 'Digital Cameras'?

I'm guessing they don't actually have them - did you give them a ring, or just go to football?

Who won?

Dan

Do they? Couldn't see it on the website. Why don't you pop up there and have a look.