All Forum Comments
Comment by Mongoose posted on Pentax User on PDF at 08/03/2010 - 16:41
Dangermouse wrote:
I've never understood that old nonsense about "a bad workman always blames his tools". If the tools are rubbish then it doesn't matter how skilled you are, the results will be bad. Starting with decent kit gives you a far better chance of a good result.
That saying has nothing to do with skills allowing you to get good results from bad kit. It simply means that one who is not skilled and does not wish to admit it will tend to blame his equipment, even when the said newbie is holding a K-7 with DA* glass attached (or a shiney new Leon Paul fencing sword, a Steyr air pistol, or insert expensive sports/art equipment here).I've never understood that old nonsense about "a bad workman always blames his tools". If the tools are rubbish then it doesn't matter how skilled you are, the results will be bad. Starting with decent kit gives you a far better chance of a good result.
It's just a warning to those who believe they can buy their way to success at any activity.
Comment by Mongoose posted on Tamron 18-200 at 08/03/2010 - 13:36
I get a lot of journal articles as PDFs in my day job. I may skim them on screen to see if they are worth pulling apart in detail, but those I really want to read I always print out.
Comment by Mongoose posted on Pentax User on PDF at 05/03/2010 - 12:44
Shaky wrote:
In terms of global market share I recall a figure of around 3-4% in volume terms for 2008, which would translate into a lower number in value terms.
However, it may be that in 2008 in Japan - possibly measured to the end of March to coincide with the Japanese financial year - the K10 and K20 were both current models, in which case they might together have captured say 1.5% of the market, without showing up individually.
This stuff really needs to be systematically analysed, which is not a trivial task given several different publically available sources for the various regions, but the numbers mentioned are well within the ballpark.
What I find interesting about the discussion here, however, is another manifestation of cognitive dissonance. God knows I have and others have discussed these numbers at length, and they should come as no surprise to anybody. However, even somebody like Mongoose - who I consider to be relative Pentax realist - resorts to suspecting fault with the numbers.
What happens psychologically is this; people have in their mind a view of Pentax as being a prestige brand. They then receive dissonant information, namely that their market share is barely perceptible, and a psychological process causes the new information that is incompatible with pre-existing beliefs to be rationalised away; there is a mistake in the survey, the information is coming from a doomster, it is a trade press conspiracy, etc.
Fascinating stuff behavioural psychology, in my view.
A quick spot of arithmatic shows that the "pie chart" section of that figure only adds up to 93%, and in fact all of the brands except Canon are mearly the sum of the cameras shown in the main bar chart. Canon get an extra % in the pie chart for reasons which remain unclear.Anvh wrote:
Where? Japan? The World?Shaky wrote:
As for the K20, alas it was evidently unable to muster a share of the market greater than 1%.
yes I thought that too but the whole market share of Pentax is 1.6% and the market share of the K200D is also 1.6%As for the K20, alas it was evidently unable to muster a share of the market greater than 1%.
In terms of global market share I recall a figure of around 3-4% in volume terms for 2008, which would translate into a lower number in value terms.
However, it may be that in 2008 in Japan - possibly measured to the end of March to coincide with the Japanese financial year - the K10 and K20 were both current models, in which case they might together have captured say 1.5% of the market, without showing up individually.
This stuff really needs to be systematically analysed, which is not a trivial task given several different publically available sources for the various regions, but the numbers mentioned are well within the ballpark.
What I find interesting about the discussion here, however, is another manifestation of cognitive dissonance. God knows I have and others have discussed these numbers at length, and they should come as no surprise to anybody. However, even somebody like Mongoose - who I consider to be relative Pentax realist - resorts to suspecting fault with the numbers.
What happens psychologically is this; people have in their mind a view of Pentax as being a prestige brand. They then receive dissonant information, namely that their market share is barely perceptible, and a psychological process causes the new information that is incompatible with pre-existing beliefs to be rationalised away; there is a mistake in the survey, the information is coming from a doomster, it is a trade press conspiracy, etc.
Fascinating stuff behavioural psychology, in my view.
That missing 7% probably accounts for the Nikon D1s, Canon 1Ds, Canon 5Ds, Pentax K20s and any missing Oly and Sony models, which presumably all got less than 1% each.
I doubt the numbers for individual cameras are far off, but I don't think many worthwhile conclusions can be drawn from such an ineptly constructed figure.
Now if I start talking as a biased Pentax user instead of as a scientist, naturally we would have to assume some sort of conspiracy in which the K20 has been omitted because it actually sold more than everything else combined and the Canikon Collective need to hush that up to maintain their strangle hold on the poor uninformed fools who take fantastic photos never realising how much better their lives would be if they "simply held a Pentax".....
Comment by Mongoose posted on Pentax K-5? at 05/03/2010 - 12:11
pnjmcc wrote:
All of a sudden he stops and looks directly at me, the red focus confirmation square appears, the camera beeps and I "Click"
I can't add anything to what Dr Mhuni and Tim have already said, but thought I should point something outAll of a sudden he stops and looks directly at me, the red focus confirmation square appears, the camera beeps and I "Click"
The red square isn't focus confirmation, it just tells you what focus point you are using. Focus confirmation is provided by the green hexagon. Looks like you were in focus this time, but the red square isn't reliable for that purpose.
Comment by Mongoose posted on Trying to snap your own kids ! at 05/03/2010 - 11:25
Dangermouse wrote:
Sad to say, it isn't just the photos. Judging by adverts I've seen for "Bridal Fairs" (apparently the groom is just another accessory and doesn't get any decision-making powers?) there's a huge amount of money to be made in selling people horrifically gaudy stuff that they don't need but are determined to have because their friends didn't have it. In such an atmosphere is it any wonder that they'll thrust money at the first person who wanders past holding a camera-shaped object?
I was at a wedding fair last weekend where a nice man tried to convince myself and the future Mrs Mongoose that we wanted to employ him and his Scalextric set for £500. We declined.Sad to say, it isn't just the photos. Judging by adverts I've seen for "Bridal Fairs" (apparently the groom is just another accessory and doesn't get any decision-making powers?) there's a huge amount of money to be made in selling people horrifically gaudy stuff that they don't need but are determined to have because their friends didn't have it. In such an atmosphere is it any wonder that they'll thrust money at the first person who wanders past holding a camera-shaped object?
Tell you what though, some of the portfollios I've looked at make me feel a whole lot better about the shots I took for my Uncle a couple of years ago. The best of the wedding photographers are fantastic and far better than anything I could do, but a lot of the cheap and even some of the mid range ones leave a lot to be desired. Inconsistant exposures, screwy white ballance, just plain unimaginative composition...... and these are the ones they choose to advertise themselves with!
Comment by Mongoose posted on Professional wedding photographer......FAIL at 05/03/2010 - 10:42
at a guess, the buffer has limited bandwidth for data transfer, so if the CPU is using some reading the previous frame for NR/CA/Distortion correction then there is less available for dumping a new frame to the buffer, slowing the whole thing down.
They made a big thing about how the K10D had 800MB/s DDR SDRAM for its buffer. If K10D, which had no CA/D correction to do and a top speed of ~3FPS at 10MPix, needed RAM that fast, K7 surely needs more.
They made a big thing about how the K10D had 800MB/s DDR SDRAM for its buffer. If K10D, which had no CA/D correction to do and a top speed of ~3FPS at 10MPix, needed RAM that fast, K7 surely needs more.
Comment by Mongoose posted on K7 FPS and in-camera noise reduction at 05/03/2010 - 10:34
IIRC the *istD originally shipped without this feature, it was a firmware hack to make it possible in the first place.
Since it's a low priority capability (as demonstrated by the continuing annoyance of inacurate metering with non-A lenses) it's probably just never occured to anyone to change it from the way it was in the firmware update to the *istD.
Since it's a low priority capability (as demonstrated by the continuing annoyance of inacurate metering with non-A lenses) it's probably just never occured to anyone to change it from the way it was in the firmware update to the *istD.
Comment by Mongoose posted on Think I bought a dud at 04/03/2010 - 17:19
So in 2008 Pentax sold absolutely nothing in Japan that wasn't a K200D?
Something seems fishey to me.....
Something seems fishey to me.....
Comment by Mongoose posted on Pentax K-5? at 04/03/2010 - 17:04
I picked up an F70-210 a few years ago, basically bought it by accident with something else I wanted.
I compared it to my 50-200 and as someone above said I couldn't detect a lot of difference. The 70-210 is perhaps a hair sharper, while the 50-200 gives brighter colours and more contrast but there isn't much in it at all. I kept the 50-200 because it's smaller and lighter.
The 70-210 then passed to my Dad, who decided the other way around, he prefered the rendition of the 70-210 and didn't mind that it was a little heavier and larger.
We did effectively get the 70-210 for almost nothing though, I don't think I'd bother to buy one to replace a 50-200.
I compared it to my 50-200 and as someone above said I couldn't detect a lot of difference. The 70-210 is perhaps a hair sharper, while the 50-200 gives brighter colours and more contrast but there isn't much in it at all. I kept the 50-200 because it's smaller and lighter.
The 70-210 then passed to my Dad, who decided the other way around, he prefered the rendition of the 70-210 and didn't mind that it was a little heavier and larger.
We did effectively get the 70-210 for almost nothing though, I don't think I'd bother to buy one to replace a 50-200.
Comment by Mongoose posted on old versus new at 04/03/2010 - 16:53
You can even make the PU interactive
that's just crazy talk!