mdc

Status: Member
Join Date: 28th January 2011
Last Login: 4th April 2013 - 01:09
Real Name: Michael Cullen
Website: Visit My Website
Occupation: Student
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Topic / Forum	Comment
FS: Pentax Battery Grip D-BG3 Posted in Classified Adverts	I'd just like to point out that this will only work on the K200D; the K100D has no contacts for a battery grip unfortunately :(
Which of these monitors (if any)? Posted in General Digital Photography Discussion	My main screen is a Dell ST2220T touchscreen IPS panel, 'tis absolutely fantastic.
143 David Baileys! What about us ladies? Posted in General Photographic Discussion	I am always surprised by the lack of knowledge on this forum when it comes to even well known photographers.That's because most well-known photographers were crap. If you don't buy into all of that "art" bollocks, there's not much point knowing about them. If you ask me, some of the greatest photographers of all time can be found in the "I Shoot Film" group on Flickr.
High iso with k5-II Posted in Troubleshooter	Now that I know the benefits, I would NEVER shoot anything other than landscapes without flash; even outdoors. If you're shooting at a distance, get yourself some cheap strobes, radio triggers, light stands and softboxes and set them up nearer your subject.
Pentax K-01 Battery Grip Posted in Pentax Mirrorless Cameras	Ahhhh nice, didn't realise they sold stuff on eBay as well as their official site :)
Recommended Pentax repairers in the UK? Posted in Pentax Film SLR Cameras	These guys are incredible: They'll also sell you spare parts individually if you ask nicely :)
Pentax K-01 Battery Grip Posted in Pentax Mirrorless Cameras	Basically the 12 vs 14 bit RAW will primarily affect dynamic range, and you're more likely to be limited by your glass/environment in that regards than the encoding. EDIT: For a third of the price, it seems like a pretty good option for those looking for a backup body :)
Pentax K-01 Battery Grip Posted in Pentax Mirrorless Cameras	Http://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/7336/Pentax-K-01-Black-Yellow-Camera-Body.html Still £399 at SRS, the UK pricing for the K-01 is insane. Even the black one is £349. Apparently there's not much difference between the 12 and 14 bit RAW files; I suppose time will tell though, as I'll be using it in the same role I've been using the K-5 for the past 8 months :P
K30 in bag, which is the best way to place it please? Posted in General Digital Photography Discussion	Depends on the bag, for me. I've got a Tamrac System Pro which holds 2 bodies in "normal" orientation as well as half a dozen lenses, but if I need to go more compact I'll reach for one of my charity shop/car boot sale rescued bags and stick a couple of bodies in, LCD-down/lens-up. That way, I can reach in, grab the camera by the lens, and pull it out in one swift motion. Less wobble in the bag, less stress on the lens hood, and I find grabbing it easier.
Pentax tilt & shift bellows Posted in General Digital Photography Discussion	It's a Spiratone Bellows Master SST, with two genuine Asahi Pentax Extension Tube #2 at either end :) The logo, by the looks of it, is a DIY job, albeit a very good one.
still capture from home video - any good (Free?) downloads Posted in General Digital Photography Discussion	VirtualDub, but stills from a video will most likely be terrible quality regardless of what tool you use; just the nature of the beast I'm afraid. Obviously quality will vary depending on whether it's been recorded at 24, 30 or 60fps, and on the true resolution and size of the sensor (which will most likely be quite low).
Pentax K-01 Battery Grip Posted in Pentax Mirrorless Cameras	EBay, brand new, £200 :) It's $319 in the states now, body-only, so the price was about right. I've got a K5 which I use for pretty much everything these days, but as I'm mostly shooting in tungsten (well, sodium actually) lighting, the AF is abysmal using phase-detect. The K-01 looks like it focusses a bit faster using CDAF than the K5, with focus peaking to boot, so I figured at that price I had to give it a go.
Windows 8 Posted in General Digital Photography Discussion	Quite surprised to see this topic here, although everyone seems to be talking about Windows 8 these days so I suppose it makes sense. Anyway, I figured - being one of the people who actually designed Metro - it might be an idea to clarify some more common misconceptions in this thread lol. The full story with regards to the design of 8/Metro can be found on my blog here: , but in summary: 1) Windows 8 isn't "designed for touch", or "touch-centric", or anything of the sort; it was designed to be interacted with primarily via the keyboard. 2) The new UI design arose, not out of a desire to make things touch friendly, but to remove unnecessary window decor aka "chrome" around content, and present that content in a consistent, well-structured way; typography and layout being the two main considerations. 3) Windows 8 isn't a supposed to be a "smartphone OS"; people who aren't in the know often assume that the Windows Phone 7 interface was ported to Windows 8; instead, WP7 was a test run for the Windows 8 UI. It was a relatively low-risk platform with miniscule market share compared to the other players, but demoing a completely new UI offers good media interest and allowed us to gauge public feedback. 4) The whole "every other OS is okay" stuff is nonsense, as is the "OSes aren't worth using until their first service pack"; it's just what people say when they realise they HAVE to upgrade. Also, if you look at things objectively, you'll notice that EVERY version of Windows has been significantly better than the last, with the exception of the old 9x days; the NT kernel tree was always far better than the 9x kernel tree, although with a pricetag to match at the time. Personally, I ran Windows NT 3.1 as soon as I got a copy, replacing WFW 3.11; then went to 3.51, then NT4, 2000, over to ME for a little while, until they finally merged the codebases with Neptune and then XP. The "service pack 1" fallacy originally stemmed from businesses who used proprietary legacy libraries in their in-house applications which required redistribution (generally in a different format) when upgrading to the next major release; the "SP1 point" gave them enough time to migrate their code, basically justifying 'bums on seats' jobs for the duration. For home users and experts, migrating to the latest version is best done on release, or - where possible - as soon as it goes RTM. Experts will typically install beta releases MONTHS before RTM either in a VM, a dual boot config, or on a second machine. 5) NEVER use OEM-supplied "recovery disks" to install Windows. In doing so, you're also installing every single piece of crap they thought it'd be clever/financially beneficial to slipstream, which is itself the reason why you have "problems". Performance issues, random crashes (when not caused by faulty hardware), and security flaws are all typically caused by the crapware OEMs push onto your systems at install time. Save yourself a hell of a lot of headaches and grab the official MSDN disk images off a torrent site and use your existing product key to install/activate. Make sure you've got a copy of your network drivers on a USB key first, then you can generally get the rest off the manufacturer's website or Windows Update. 6) Installing XP today is literally insanity. Even on older (I'm talking Pentium 200, here) systems, you're better off installing Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, which is based on the NT5.2 (Windows Server 2003) kernel, or Windows Thin PC, which is based on the NT6.1 (Windows 7) kernel. XP is SLOWER than NT6 (Vista/7/8) on all systems quicker than a Pentium 3 1Ghz, and about the same speed but less secure on older hardware. Anyway, that's all I can think of for now :) EDIT: Oh yeah, on a UEFI motherboard like mine, Windows 8 boots from POST to desktop in around 6 seconds.
Pentax K-01 Battery Grip Posted in Pentax Mirrorless Cameras	Just ordered myself a ridiculously cheap K-01, and given the fact that even the K-5 is too small for me, I have a feeling it's going to feel miniscule when I'm using it. With that in mind, I decided to see if anyone had made a battery grip for the K-01, and they haven't. Soooo, out came SketchUp. The idea is to make it out of some form of plastic sheeting (most likely Acrylic or PVC, as ABS is ridiculously expensive), glued and screwed together then painted/vinyl dyed matte black. I plan on having it accept two D-LI90s which slide in from the side, and re-locate the K-01s battery door to the grip itself, as that seems to be the most sensible way of sealing it, which still offering quick changeout. I'm just waiting for the K-01 to arrive so I can finalize the dimensions, then I'll start posting up some WIP photos :)
Pentax lenses price increasing by 15-90%? Posted in General Photographic Discussion	You may wish to reconsider your forum signature.
Pentax lenses price increasing by 15-90%? Posted in General Photographic Discussion	APS-C is actually a very usable format which first saw the light of day in film cameras. It didn't succeed in replacing 35mm partly because they never brought out any really good APS-C bodies, and partly because people already had 135-format kit, and didn't want to change. Now, APS-C digital cameras are immensely capable, and people won't want to switch to 135 because they already have APS-C kit. And because any marginal improvement in quality won't justify the cost, and the increased size, weight, etc.. Wrong. It didn't succeed because it was inherently lower quality than 35mm film, due to a reduced frame size, coupled with the lack of affordable wide-angle lenses due to crop factor. The same issues which currently plague APS-C bodies. Also, there's one benefit to 35mm over APS which you're failing to recognize, and that's the shallower DOF at the same apertures afforded by the larger format. Stopping down to increase depth of field is easily doable; but on a smaller sensor achieving a shallow depth of field requires purchasing faster lenses, and even an f1.0 lens won't necessarily give you what you want; hence why the Q has to "cheat" and use focus stacking.
Pentax lenses price increasing by 15-90%? Posted in General Photographic Discussion	Why, when Pentax have never made a 135-format digital camera, and have introduced a large number of APS-C lenses, do we have people complaining that there isn't a 135-format body? It just doesn't make any kind of sense.Maybe because they made 35mm SLR cameras for over 50 years, along with the lenses to go with them? APS-C is - and always has been - a stopgap solution provided by the camera companies until full-frame sensors can be produced at a price point that's affordable to most consumers. Cost-wise, we're at that point now, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be translating into the retail prices of equipment. The likelihood is that Pentax, who have far less to lose than the big two, will be more willing to take the risk of launching the first affordable full frame body. The abundance of cheap full-frame glass on the used market should help convert large amounts of previous Canon and Nikon APS-C users as well.
FS: Pentax A series 35mm f2.8 Posted in Classified Adverts	Anyone looking to buy lenses at the moment should be favouring those with full-frame coverage over DA lenses, that's all I'm saying :)
FS Pentax smc 15/3.5 (rather rare) Posted in Classified Adverts	If I didn't need the money for rent... :P
WTB: Tokina 19-35 Posted in Classified Adverts	Scratch that, just bought one :D
AE-L, AF and Recomposition with P-TTL Flash Posted in Flash Photography	I shoot in manual mode almost exclusively, but use P-TTL to control flash power. This usually gives good results but I'm curious as to the actual behavior of the camera with regards to recomposition and P-TTL. Basically, if you lock focus on someone's face to provide a good midtone base for P-TTL, and then recompose, is the image processor clever enough to realise that you've recomposed? Because obviously when it fires the metering preflash, whatever was previously under your - for example - center AF point will have moved; if that's now a black or white texture, it could theoretically heavily over/underexpose the shot. Also, how does this relate to the oft-touted "link AE to AF point" setting?
WTB: Tokina 19-35 Posted in Classified Adverts	Anyone got one lying around they don't need anymore? :-P
Today, the postman made me a happy bunny! Posted in General Photographic Discussion	In real life it's not MUCH bigger than the 18-55 WR to be honest; and my FA 28-200 makes it look like a DA35! The K5 also came with a fresh 18-55 WR but as I've already got 3 of them it's staying in its box for the time being. Managed to get the whole kit for £600 brand new, so was pretty chuffed :)
Today, the postman made me a happy bunny! Posted in General Photographic Discussion	Just in time for easter, as well.