Hello All

Well, tonight I just returned from a very popular 2 day photographic seminar in Abbotsford, British Columbia. It was the 30th anniversary of this annual event which I have personally attended for the past 6 years.

Every year that I have attended it has been a full house sellout with 600 in attendance and it includes a trade show with many local and international suppliers of photographic services and equipment. There is always the usual photo competition, an opportunity of attending 4 of the 16 various workshops, a slideshow A/V presentation by a major professional photographer including his/her tips and advice, but best of all...a huge door prize draw with very good odds of winning one of dozens of prizes ranging from a dozen rolls of film to complete expensive DSLR kits, and everything in between from software to tripods. In other words, it is a major event in Western Canada and Northwest United States and is well known and attended.

At the trade show part of it, all the major camera brands are always represented with company booths staffed by friendly and knowledgable reps that let you handle and play with any of their latest cameras and/or lenses as long as you can lift them by yourself. (FYI - I did see a beefy steroid popper get a Canon 1Ds MKIII with grip -but no lens- off the table briefly but had to put it back down after a few seconds) But alas, NO PENTAX booth in sight anywhere there this year. I asked one of the APAC executive what happened to Pentax and he said they did not reply to any of APAC's repeated requests for them to attend the show. I was not at all surprised that was the case because I am personally still waiting for a reply to some e-mails that I had sent to Pentax Canada in July. I have since just given up on that vigil.

This year being a special milestone anniversary, the suppliers all donated prizes very generously indeed. There were very significant camera top prizes from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and Sony, but sadly NO PENTAX goods. Not even a Pentax tee shirt or a Pentax ball cap or how about a Pentax pen...a balloon? NOTHING.

.......NOTHING AT ALL!!

Oops, excuse me. I have exagerated there a bit. Each attendee, upon entering the building, received a personal goodie bag that included several discount and special offer coupons, also a few brochures, a classroom map, a couple of magazine samples, AND (wait for it...drum roll please) one plastic Pentax bag...ONE EMPTY PENTAX BAG that someone could certainly use to contain all those nice glossy brochures and catalogues available at the Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Sony booths.

Thank you for the bag Pentax, you certainly made me proud but I have to also be thankful that I continue to love my little Pentax K100D and *istDs well enough that my empty Pentax plastic bag is still empty.

What is the future for this company anyway? Is this the new Hoya influence talking here? Unfortunately, none of their words were spoken aloud there this weekend but in fact, many Hoya/Pentax words were heard. Maybe I should just use my empty Pentax bag to put over my head.

Sincerely venting

Drew Peabody

Hello Ed and welcome to the forum.

I'm guessing that the camera has lost its memory due to the long interval without fresh batteries. Follow your manual's instructions in Chapter 2 "Getting Started". You will have to go through the Initial Setup section where you have to set the time, date, language, etc. as I don't think the camera will work without setting this up first.

It also would not hurt to check to see what version of firmware is installed by turning the camera on while holding down the MENU button at the same time. Hopefully at least Version 1.0 is displayed on the LCD screen. The latest firmware release for the Ds to date is Version 2.01. You can download it and get installation instructions here:
http://www.pentax.ca/digital/digital_slr/istds/firmware_202.php

And of course you will also have a memory card inserted before you can take pictures.

Hope this works for you because I don't like the "clicking noise" symptom you described.

Let us know how you make out.

Cheers

Drew

Another very interesting collection Galloot. I cannot say I would personally care to use this lens for architectural photos very much but it is interesting to see how a small change in composition can make a huge difference to the result. The diagonal shots of the buildings like in the first one of Band Boy and the two diagonal aquaduct shots came out very well indeed even though they were at 13 and 10mm respectively.

What seems to be clear is that the rule of thirds is obviously totally out the window with this lens as distortion is dramatically reduced in shots with long horizons and tall vertical spires composed right through the centre of the picture. I liked your street photography again and also the landscape shots of Inverness from the castle...Superb.

I have never seen this lens at any vendor let alone get to try one out and doubt if I ever will until I buy my own so I'm anxious to see a 'minimum focus to infinity' shot some day.

Cheers

Drew

PS: Thanks again for including the focal lengths on your captions, most helpful.

I doubt you meant this, but it looks a bit ambiguous. You aren't stopping the lens down for more depth of field AFTER you press the AE-L button are you? Nah...didn't think so.

Also seems to me that during the original heated debate about manual exposure errors that non-Pentax manual lenses were more susceptible to incompatibility. Anybody remember this?

I use tripod, mirror lock-up and remote switch for all my macro work using my Pentax M 100mm f4 Macro. A little tedious setting the exposure but someday I'll come across a good deal on at least an A macro.

Regards

Drew

I wonder what happened to poor old debou (the original poster)? I'll bet he is still looking for the green button on his K100D. If you're still out there debou, follow the very clear proceedure John Riley gave you and it will work perfectly. That is exactly how I use my Pentax M 100mm F4 Macro on my K100D and my *ist Ds and it never fails to give great exposures.

As for the sidetrack that this thread has taken, drifting away from the original posters question and over to the K10D, I was always under the impression it was the K10D that gave serious errors in exposure with manual lenses and not the K100D and this had been debated here exhaustively when the K10d was new. I have done a test with both the *ist Ds and the K100D and both cameras are very similar with a small variation at either end of the aperture scale. Never-the-less they are, for the most part, still within a half stop or so, of accuracy. I used the above mentioned macro lens aimed at a blank white screen on my monitor, ISO at 200 , camera set on Manual Focus, and Manual Mode, and using the AE-L button which set the following shutter speeds.
Pentax M 100mm F4 on K100D and on *ist Ds
f32= 1 sec, f22=.7, f16=.3, f11=1/8, f8=1/15, f5.6=1/45, f4=1/125
f32= .7 sec, f22=.7, f16=.3, f11=1/8, f8=1/15, f5.6=1/45, f=1/90

Interestingly I performed the same test using a Pentax M 135mm f3.5 lens and consistently got very similar but slightly different results.
Pentax M 135mm F3.5 on K100D and on *ist Ds
f32= 1 sec, f22=.5, f16=1/4 f11=1/8, f8=1/20, f5.6=1/45, f4=1/125
f32= .7 sec, f22=.5, f16=1/4, f11=1/10, f8=1/20, f5.6=1/45, f=1/125

It is also interesting to note, I found that when using the DOF preview button method instead of the AE-L button the camera quite often (but not always) picked the previous aperture settings shutter speed but correctly showed a full stop exposure compensation reading in the viewfinder that had to be corrected with the thumbwheel. I never had noticed that before but it happens frequently on both cameras.

You will also notice the caveate in your manual (p. 188?) regarding using M lenses that "exposure error may occur".

Hope this is of value to the K100D people.

Drew

Donut was almost on the right track in his advice to peter.wood for easier manual focussing but the red dot is not for confirming focus. It is the green hexagon that indicates focus confirmation (yes, even on manual focus lenses) not the red dot. The red dot indicates where the multi focus point was chosen and like mattmatic suggests, it is more reliable to use the centre focus only option and then re-compose if using this method.

By the way. The larger the lens aperture the easier it is to manually focus because A: the viewfinder is brighter and B: the depth of field is very small indeed at f1.7 or f1.4. You should have no trouble manually focussing your f1.7 with a bit of practice and using Donut's suggestion. You are on a limited budget and have a Pentax K10d, a Pentax f1.7 50mm at your disposal for use in... a studio! What was the question again peter.wood ?

Drew

Thanks for that Galoot, I truly appreciate it. I now see that camera angle and composition are most important to reduce extreme distortion (if desired). Your inclusion of the focal lengths have convinced me that this lens is extremely versatile. Thanks for the extra work for me (and I am sure others). And thanks to you I have bumped the 10-17mm much higher up on my "Must-Have" list.

Cheers Galoot

Drew

I too am very interested in this lens and I am just waiting until it works its way to the top of my list of "must-haves". (I'm big on lists you know )

Many people dismiss this lens because of the distortion at the extreme wide end but it appears to diminish to non-existent as you approach the 17mm end. Correct me if my reasoning is flawed, but I think that would seem to be a bonus, the best of both extreme WA types in one lens. From what I see here this lens gives many creative opportunities that you would not otherwise have with any other lens. Also worth mentioning is that many say the distortion is controllable with careful composition, lens correction software, and/or cropping. Hope to hear other's opinions on that.

You have posted many excellent pictures there Galoot and thanks for making them available with your link. I love the street photography and the market shots. You give a wide variety of possiblities but if you could have the focal lengths mentioned with your photos that would be MOST helpful too. Looking forward to seeing more of "Freddie" here, that's for sure.

Regards

Drew

Very well said Peter and notice what gibberish it turns into without capitals, punctuation, and paragraphs. Fortunately all the spaces are still there and the spelling is still correct but unfortunately, I don't know instant messagingeese well nuf 2shrtn ur wds to further make my point.

Isn't this the same go-round we had here a while back with a newby that didn't care enough to make readable posts and was more bent on quantity over quality? He did quickly change though.

Everyone here truly welcomes newcomers and you will find it is an extremely helpful bunch, but just a friendly word of advice benckie, Instant Messaging is not spoken here.


Drew

You people are twisting the whole point of my post and all because of my poorly worded comment of the "growing list of K10D problems". I have already requested a retraction of those few words and offered my apologies for sending this topic sideways. My post was only meant to point out that the OP was reporting a legitimate observed problem with his K10D and I felt he was being unfairly jumped on. Just because you personally have never experienced the OP's problem (or any K10D problem for that matter) does not mean it is not real or that he is not smart enough to figure out that his house is crooked and his camera is perfect.

I have made MY personal list of K10D problems from reading many months of discussions here and from elsewhere (and I'm sure there will be comments on that too) and valid points have been made concerning my “list”. However, everything on my list has happened to several people and it could be possible most are just problems with individual units, but I have no intention of participating in a bladder voiding competition with anyone that believes Pentax is infallible. I still stick with my opinion that a small group of prolific posters here simply protest too much if someone finds any fault (whether real of not) with the latest Pentax brand they own and that is what I meant when mentioning the *ist D - when it was itself the latest and the greatest. Like our esteemed friend Don once said, "It's only a tool" and may I add... not a religion. When one in our group finds a problem we should be all ears, not disparage him.

I do not wish to ignore posts that are directed to my possibly flawed opinions but we can see indeed how quickly things progress to the ad nauseum stage and this is the last I have to say about it in this subject/topic.

Anyone have anything else to add about the leaning viewfinder problem?

Drew