Cool

Nice to know there are still companies that go the extra mile.

Matt

Barry,

The AF240Z is not TTL at all. Check out this excellent site for all Pentax type information: http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/index.html
and especially:
http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/flashes/non-TTL/index.html

And here's the description of "A" and "P" modes:
http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/extras/hot-shoe/index.html

Essentially, "A" is where you must manually set the aperture on the lense to the one specified on the flashgun, whereas "P" allows you to set the camera to program mode too, and the flashgun and body will negotiate the f-stop. I'm not sure it will work correctly on the LX.

Enjoy!

Matt
www.pbase.com/mattmatic

Hi Enya!

The flash in small cameras does not have enough power to reach a stage, for example. They are designed for taking photos of people standing in front of you (mostly).

I do not have a 330GS, but the principles are the same: use a higher ASA setting (if you have one). My digital camera has 800ASA which is fine for museums and shows. Turn off the flash - it will not help. In addition, you may try different "white balance" settings. Auto usually works fine, but indoors you may need to select one of the indoor settings to get the colour right (depending on whether they are "strip lights", or bulb lights - they have different colours).

I would suggest you try the settings you have on the 330GS at home - in the kitchen, or the lounge, and see what results you get. Just try it out first, then when you need to take proper photos you will know what to do!

I hope that helps,
Matt

Enya,

Yes, ISO 400 would be best for indoor shots without flash. However, you probably will still need to hold the camera VERY steady - otherwise it will be blurry.

You are right, the best quality will be at 100 with flash - but only if the subject is close enough. For instance, if you try to take a photograph of your whole street at night with a flash, almost nothing will be correctly exposed. Try it - anything further than about 2 or 3m away will be dark or black. However, try on 400 without flash (holding the camera very steady, preferably or on a tripod/minipod) and you should get a good photo. Try it

Have a look here: http://www.pbase.com/mattmatic/night to see some digital images at night (taken with tripod). Also http://www.pbase.com/mattmatic/noisereduction to see some indoor photos at 400 (flash was prohibited, and I know would not have worked anyway).

Be aware, that you still need to hold the camera steady. Bracing your elbows on your chest will help.

You may want to take a look at www.webphotoschool.com for some photography tips (the ones about white balance and indoor no flash photography are for those who've paid a subscription). There may be something of interest and use in there.

Hope that helps!
Matt

Thanks for the link Shannon.

A few weeks ago I managed to recover a friend's IBM MicroDrive (he uses it in a Canon G2) that had really gone awol. My search yielded the following programs:

www.imagerecall.com - good for CompactFlash, but not Microdrive. (Pretty good price too)

http://www.dtidata.com/products_bundle_05.asp (Digital Photo Recovery at $49) works with the Microdrive.

Hope that helps someone out.
Matt
(www.pbase.com/mattmatic)

Enya,

For your information: I have a Canon S30 digital camera that also has no external flash. However, I also have other Pentax SLRs and the AF360FGZ flash gun. This flash has a built in slave feature that works very well indeed.

Before that I tried other "generic" flash guns using a little slave "cube" (a little cube that you fit the flash gun to that has a little magic eye). However, the Canon digital cameras actually fire the flash twice - once to get the white balance, and the second for the real shot. This proved a disaster with normal flash guns since they would fire all their energy on the preflash. The AF360FGZ does not do that and works well with the preflash. But then, you might find the price of that flash rather high!!

My best advice is to find a friend who has a standard flash gun and one of these little cubes and try your Pentax out. If the Optio does not use a preflash then you can use almost any automatic flash gun. There's even a neat little folding one with built in slave sensor sold through the Pentax User - the "Xtraflash". Check here: http://www.magezinepublishing.com/trolleyed/8/index.htm

Hope that helps!

Matt

Some more links for y'all:

A few images in a gallery:
http://www.robertstech.com/temp.htm

Usability report on pre-production:
http://www.digitalfotonetz.de/istD/istD_ExperienceReport/body_istd_experiencerep...



Matt

Ooops,

In my haste, I forgot the link:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0309/03092201pentaxistdsamps.asp

There's also Phil Askey's comments on the main page:

Hi all!

DPReview have got the production samples gallery for the *istD running!
I think I could live with it !

Enjoy!
Matt

John,

It's normally not a problem when writing a JPG image file - they're only 1 to 3Mb. However, when writing RAW image files, things go up drastically.

The S30 takes quite a while for a RAW, but the *istD - I think someone mentioned in the order of 26 seconds per frame. It is really when you do a bulk transfer that card speed becomes apparent.

BTW, if you want to test the relative performance of CF cards, plug them into a PCMCIA adapter and into a notebook PC. Then try and copy a file (in the order of 10Mb) - it'll give a better idea of what the card can do. Alternatively, if you have a firewire card reader - that'll do. Don't use USB 1 card readers since USB is bottlenecked anyway.

I have a Fuji card, and a DaneElec - the DaneElec is quite a bit slower (can't remember how much) when doing a RAW file on the S30.

One day, I might get around to testing it out for real.

Matt