Dear All,

Finally took the plunge to buy a dye-sublimation printer for immediate output of 6x4 photos (from the *istD via Photoshop CS). I plumped for the HiTi Photoshuttle, and what a cute little printer it is

Print costs are very low at 34pence per print, and produces passport approved outputs as well. The HiTi printers also include a "Magic Print" overlay that can put a bitmap as a watermark onto the covering of the print - either for fun, or your copyright and website markers

I ordered over the internet, and phoned the company too - exceedingly helpful company.

The print speed is great - 45 seconds for each print (total time of just over one minute including spooling from my 2.4GHz machine). Quality is lovely at 310dpi - you'd never guess it wasn't a "real" photo.

I just have to get my colour management setup properly, but the results so far are very pleasing indeed.

Links:
www.hi-ti.com
www.hitishop.co.uk

Enjoy!
Matt

Hi Ava!

Your understanding is correct (With a slight tweak on the P mode...)

The P-mode picks its own shutter speed and aperture combination, but you can also change the shutter and aperture as an override by using the thumb and finger wheels. (This is my preferred mode for day-to-day shooting.) Half touch shutter to get an exposure, and it I prefer larger depth of field, I adjust the aperture with the thumb wheel. It's a really nice way of having automatic but with some control. (By the way, if you have adjusted the Tv/Av combination in this way, pressing the green button will bring it back to normal ) The default is Normal, but depending on your subject matter, you can choose a different one

Which Tv/Av combination the P mode will choose is down to the "Program Line" that can be set in the Custom Function. It is a choice of four: "Normal" (pretty obvious), "Hi Speed" (picks faster shutter speeds and is useful for kids and sport), "Depth" (picks smaller apertures as preferred to gain larger depth of field), and "MTF" (which stands for Maximum Transfer Function and will pick the aperture the lense is sharpest at - usually one or two f-stops down from open wide).

The Ev compensation will not operate in the Green mode To use it, hold down the +/- button and adjust the finger wheel to give overexposure (+ figures) and underexposure (- figures). To quickly reset back to normal, hold the +/- button and press the green button - goes back to 0.0

Hope that helps

Matt

Jose B,
Yes, underexposing is annoying (and I agree with the focus assist - grrr. However, when you use the AF360 that has a proper AF assist!).
However, there are a few differences between the *istD (and all DSLRs) and the Minoltas you specify (and indeed all consumer digicams):

* The *istD has to meter with a separate system, as in film. The consumer cams do a live CCD read and evaluate the levels directly from the sensor that will capture the image. The *istD meters, then to take the photo operates a mechanical shutter to expose the CCD. The CCDs are fundamentally different (not just used in a different way).

* The consumer cams have built in lenses and are optimised for their own lens. The *istD can use any old lens, and good ones too! For what it's worth, I experienced no end of exposure problems with "compatible" lenses, and have much less of a problem with genuine Pentax glass. What seems to happen, if you've read the whole thread, is the preflash fires and the image is read as if it's brighter and consequently underexposes. Maybe lens-flare has a bearing (ie. bad flare control in a given lens produces a preflash reading that is over, and thus a photo that is under.)

Added to the second point is that, again, the metering is a different circuit to the CCD. If there are colour issues (e.g. lens is cool/warm etc), or even infrared issues - again there could be problems.

I know, for sure, that if you use the *istD in a studio flash environment you don't have these problems... but then you normally manually meter anyway.

Hope that clarifies things!
Matt

Hi all!

Although I have been one of the main "investigators" of the underexposure and flash issues of the *istD, overall the exposure has been excellent for me

Yes, the images are flatter than consumer digicams. My Canon S30 produces super saturated, full dynamic range images that initially look great, but can be a pain to tweak in PS (blown out highlights especially). The *istD produces lovely images, but like any 'pro' DSLR, there is more control. The consumer cameras are designed for people who probably haven't heard of PS Note that you can adjust the Contrast, Saturation, and Sharpness in the menu of the *istD - which may take you somewhere nearer the consumer output.

So yes, slight underexposure is a good thing in many ways, since CCDs will blow out the highlights. I have found that my workflow is much easier than with the Z1/Fuji Provia/Nikon Coolscan/PS. Generally, I do add a little levels adjustment, curves (to increase contrast or bring out shadows), sometimes a colour-balance adjustment, and some unsharp masking to round it off.

Also, bear in mind that the *istD has two colour spaces - Adobe RGB and sRGB. The default sRGB is intended primarily for screen display, while the Adobe RGB has a different range intended for printing (especially CMYK). If you shoot in Adobe RGB the image will look even flatter on screen, but prints out beautifully. Colour management is another large and great subject you may want to get your head around

All that said, I think there are some firmware issues in exposure control. However, I am confident that the Pentax engineers will hear our voices, investigate, and fix the issues - then all will be even better

In the meantime, it's a good opportunity to brush up some Photoshop skills...

Matt

Malcolm,

AFAIK, Pentax.co.jp has firmware updates when ready. There's nothing for the *istD (I keep checking )

I'm not sure whether Pentax view this forum - one can only hope so. However, I've done what I can to make this bug (and others) known by the Pentax firmware team Let's wait and see what happens...

Matt

Malcolm,

I did some tests on my *istD... and found out some interesting things:

If you apply exposure correction, it turns off the Auto Sensitivity in P mode

Consequently, I guess the Green mode issue is a bug in the firmware - presumably the firmware checks the exposure compensation before deciding whether to implement Auto Sensitivity.

It's a shame the *istD doesn't allow exposure adjustment with Auto Sensitivity. Now, I wonder whether it will do the same when doing an auto-bracket-exposure.... (I'll let you know)

(Here's waiting for the next firmware )

Matt

Sequin,

Well, first thing - you get what you pay for
Having said that, you are best off getting a dedicated flash, and probably best getting a Pentax - the flash will put the ME Super to the right shutter speed automatically. Which gun you need also depends on your usage - the AF160 is a tiny pocket flash useful for just carrying around. There are lots of others

Here are some suggestions:

• :arrow: To find out what each Pentax flash gun does: http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/flashes/index.html
  :arrow: Second hand: http://www.mxv.co.uk - very helpful company. They have several flashes (35mm Manual Focus / Pentax) - AF200, AF260, AF160, AF280
  :arrow: More second hand: http://www.ffordes.com
  :arrow: http://www.jessops.com also do their own range of dedicated flash guns (Centon)
  :arrow: There are also Cobra flash guns that are dedicated to the Pentax

Phew! Hope that helps
Matt

Treve,

The *istD offer P-TTL (preflash TTL) with multisegment
Even better, it offers wireless flash to the AF360FGZ so you can slave multiple flashes, provide contrast-control flash all in P-TTL mode. Cool

The dust issue hasn't really been an issue. I just bough a whacking great bulb type blower. One quick puff and it's dust free However, I haven't been in a rough environment yet (and don't intend to either!).

Don't think I'd mess around putting extra stuff in the camera itself.

Matt

Treve,

As far as I know, for any camera to do TTL flash it has to meter the reflected light off the film. What mechanism they use is another matter... according to Bojidar Dimitrov, the Z1p:
Have a look here for general flash technology: http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/technology/hot-shoe/index.html

And here: http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/bodies/Z-PZ/zpz1p.html for the "bad" news about the Z1p

(It explains why my *istD is soooo much better at flash exposure than my Z1 )

Matt.

Hi all!

I've just upgraded my *istD to firmware 1.10, as released today on the Pentax US website.

Initial tests look wonderful. Took some AF360 shots of a boring Dell box we had (no offense to Dell ) with four of my lenses. All look great, with minor variations in exposure. The Tokina 28-70/f2.8 that I was having flash problems now looks wonderful

Now, Pentax didn't mention any bug-fixes in the firmware release (only extra features - better DPOF and EXIF support, Adobe RGB change, and better support for M lenses). It would be nice to know if they have actually done something regarding these issues, especially if it was in response to these threads.

However, time will tell - I've got a burst of photographic enthusiasm again and I'm going snapping

Matt