All Forum Comments
Comment by jules posted on A question for the landscape photographers or anyone using Flters at 31/01/2015 - 06:32
Hard grads do not cause as noticeable line on APSC as they do on FF So you will find a lot of people will tell you that you can get away with them, I chickened out and bought soft ones anyway!
If you do intend to use them on the wide lens buy 100mm filters "Z" size not "P" or you will get masses of vignetting at the 10-18mm part of your zoom or in other words most of it!
Buy decent but don't go daft, they get scratched and in my experience the filter holders last about a year before you have to replace the guides, I've had Lee, Cokin and Hi Tech and they all wear pretty much the same, so feel free to cheap out there if you want, it really does not have to be made out of aircraft aluminium to be any good!
For a one stop I just use a screw in soft ND Grad as there is never going to be a line and the difference between the top and the bottom is not that much, it's useful for keeping the clouds within the DR of the sensor, Two stop ND is probably the most useful and better being a square one 150x100mm, that way you do not always have to have the top of the frame really dark, which gives you black dark clouds that Nigel (McGregNi) does not like!
Three stop is obviously more of a change than the two so use with caution you can make a sunny day look like a storm of biblical proportions if you are not careful! The square filters have the advantage here as you have 50mm of room to place the darkest part of your filter where you want, and like the screw ins you can turn them to match your horizons too. I bought a ten stop ND from SRB Griturn which works as it should and cost me about twenty quid, I'm tempted to buy a four stop as well as sometimes if you are photographing in trees there is a lot of movement in the time it takes to get a decent (blurry) water exposure from a ten stop. You could always buy a fader but don't cheap out on that if you do, most of the cheapo ones will end up with a large dark "X" in the frame rather than a smooth fade, caveat emptor!
And lastly, don't try to over do it, because you've got em, in the bag, doesn't mean you need them in every shot! It gets old very quickly, a lot of folks sicken themselves very quickly of using them and thats where Johns eBay bargains appear, They lie around a few months and get sold on, be disciplined and you'll get the best use out of them.
Comment by jules posted on A question for the landscape photographers or anyone using Flters at 30/01/2015 - 15:50
On the OK button just below the OK script is that the same symbol as the one on the K3 for managing two card slots?
Would be nice if it is...
K3 on the left & K5 on the right

Glyn
Comment by jules posted on New Pentax dslr announced at 27/01/2015 - 19:16

On the OK button just below the OK script is that the same symbol as the one on the K3 for managing two card slots?
Would be nice if it is...
Comment by jules posted on New Pentax dslr announced at 27/01/2015 - 10:48
In Japanese but you can kind of see whats where...
http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/japan/news/cpplus2015/index.html
Could be my pesky Firefox playing up of course...
Comment by jules posted on Some interesting holes in the Ricoh/Pentax CP+ schedule? at 21/01/2015 - 21:44
It'll all happen then, then, whatever it is...
Comment by jules posted on Some interesting holes in the Ricoh/Pentax CP+ schedule? at 21/01/2015 - 17:17
http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/japan/news/cpplus2015/index.html
Comment by jules posted on Some interesting holes in the Ricoh/Pentax CP+ schedule? at 21/01/2015 - 15:03
Comment by jules posted on Nice overview of the Ricoh action Cam... at 20/01/2015 - 15:10
Not unique but interesting all the same.
Comment by jules posted on Ricoh finds another niche? at 19/01/2015 - 14:10
The genuine grip does have thin rubber seals around where the battery trays close against the grip itself.
Comment by jules posted on K3 battery grip at 16/01/2015 - 08:47


My favourite landscape focal length is 28mm, either my Pentax 28mm f3.5 or my Vivitar 28mm f2.8
My Sigma 10-20 tends to get less landscape use but that it just my choice
Just out of interest where is your landscape weekend : Just vaguely - I'm not after a post code
I only have a CPL which I use for landscapes. It works for milky waterfalls too, but won't give full on fluffy cotton wool ones, which is just as well as I personally don't like that effect.
I did have an ND grad but I found myself never suing it so I gave it to my now ex-daughter-in-law together with the Cokin holder.
Since you aren't really into landscapes I wouldn't invest a lot of money in filters you may never use again, if at all. Do take a longer lens than the 10-20 too. You won't get sweeping landscapes with it, just squashed up ones with things looking way too small.
If you really get into it, it's worth spending on the basic kit but decent quality, I'm a bit ham fisted I'll admit but having scratched a big stopper inadvertantly I was reluctant to spend a hundred quid on another 6"x4" bit of glass, the resin ones fair worse, they are easily scratched and it's a sod to clone it out! Whilst I wouldnt leave the 10-20 at home, I have found in my photography I rarely use my Pentax 12-24, and end up using the 17-70 by far the most followed by my 60-250. Even mountains like Blencathra and Skiddaw fall to little pinpricks of hillocks in the background with an ultrawide. It's great for emphasising desolate moorland or say a long sweeping beach but why in the end I gave up on my siggy 8-16, brilliant optically though it was, for 90% of landscapes, it's just too wide. The problem with a wide zoom is that they are just that...Wide. The tendency is to crank the zoom to 10mm and shoot, thinking your going to get a sweeping vista which you do, and it can work in say somewhere like Torres del Paine but not so well on Sca fell or Harrison stickle. When you shoot landscapes a lot of beginners automatically reach for the ultrawide but seldom use it right and come away disappointed, or with tons of 2x1 crops! If you remeber to think about not just what you've got going on in the foreground, which is vast with ultrawides but also what is happening in the background, you'll do fine with whatever lens you are using...