I agree that the moon is probably not a candidate for pixel shift, due to it being a moving subject.

I was surprised when I tried moon shots last summer .... With 300mm plus 2x TC at F9.5, I found it needed at least 1/125th sec for sharpness. That was on a tripod with remote control and mirror up release also, so as stable as I could achieve.

I wonder, can we shoot at any exposure time with PS? Or is there an optimum range of time values to bear in mind?

You have a beautiful family ! I really like the look of the old F series, there's a sort of solid seriousness to them.

Yes, the colours are clean and natural in the night shots, and there's an impressive visible dynamic range in that first one. A good first workout!

Richard, they said they will bring Video mode Sensor SR back via firmware, so they would surely build it in to future models from now on ...? .... Well, the high end models at least, where they presumably now are accepting that the user is knowledgeable enough to be able to cope with it!

Algernon referred earlier to the lack of a remote control option .... That would rule it out for me, but am I right to imagine that there would be a cable release type device that is compatible as an alternative?

John, just saw your post, maybe they were tossing up which way to pitch the KP ....I see the scene modes as a guide to the expected target end user.

Ah, thanks for correcting that! I should have checked more thoroughly. But, there you go, that proves the point then that it IS a flagship category camera. Scene modes has long been my own defining feature for the 'high end' category, in terms of the sort of user the designers expect to attract to the model. So we appear to now have two aps-c' flagship' camera types, both aimed at the more experienced and knowledgable enthusiast.

Nah, sorry John, I think it has 'Scene Modes' on the dial. That brings it back out of the 'flagship' category, don't you think ?

These days I think model and range classifications are less about the actual feature list (with so much more 'high end' stuff loaded into each new release), and more about the designers own perceived target end user .

Thanks for your reply Simon. The Cactus RF60 has a threaded socket on the side of it's case, the same size as a standard light stand thread .... Very handy as it doesn't tie up an umbrella hotshoe attachment if you don't need it. The screw option is very secure and with height adjust and the flash head swivel it's easy ti direct the light anywhere.

Thanks also Maria, as so often with this sort or thing there's a lot of experimenting, but I've said it here before, It's the practice and playing with the gear that I enjoy.... If the results are good and people like the outcome then that's a bonus !

I find it hard to resist when a nice bunch of flowers appears on the table, and even more so when I want to see how the D FA28-105 copes with close-ups. I've been very happy with it so far for portraits, so it was good to see it performing well for this type of situation also ....

The lighting is from 2 flashes .... one in a softbox off to the left of the image frame, lighting the petals, and a second flash in a 'powersnoot' very close in to the stamen. I found when I tried at first with just the softbox that whilst it was nice and soft, the stamen just blended in and were dull in front of the whiteness. They needed bringing out sperately and lit from a different angle to give some more '3D' sense. Also the colours were revealed better this way.

Here are a couple of the set-up, so you can see how I placed things ....
The ambient light is dim tungsten (it is nightime).








You can see how close in I went with the flashes .... I was literally having to poke through them with the lens ! Even though the 'powersnoot' flash is bare and hard, because it is so very very close and therefore large in relation to the stamen, it still produces soft light.

Pentax K7 - D FA28-105mm - F16, ISO100, 1/180th - Pentax AF-FGZII, Cactus RF60, Cactus V6.
Manual camera exposure and Manual Flash exposures.















Thanks for your viewings, and views ... Oh, just for interests sake, the two 'set up shots' are examples of the K7s performance at ISO1600, underexsposed and 'pushed' around 1 stop ...

With the K1 Daron, I should think the options are considerably widened. If you can comfortably shoot at ISO 1600 or 3200 then a single bounced flash, and even F5.6-F8 will suffice , even in dimmer conditions .....the extra freedoms unleashed by including an F2.8 zoom into that mix must be truly liberating!

But it may not even be a necessity now with the K1 . The extra out of focus background caused by the larger sensor, especially at longer focal lengths, presumably means that even F4 or F5.6 is sufficient .....?

No doubt true .... You wouldn't see any reviewers suddenly jerking the camera around at the moment of capturing a still image, so why do it with video? We all try and hold our cameras as steady as possible for photographs, even with SR activated, and we should all try and do that also for video.