If I don't have something special planned, like a shot where I know I will need multiple lenses, or a certain lens; I exercise this as well.

I have a small bowl with folded up notes. Those notes contain all my lenses.
So if I am just going out, and decide to take my camera with me, I will pick a note.
Whatever that note tells me, I bring.
(After I pick the note, I put it aside, until there is only two notes left in the bowl, then I refill it. You see, I do not want to know what I will get, because I then will plan around it )
Doing it this way, I am forced to learn my lenses a bit better, and I get a rotation.

It is always fun when I am heading into the city, and end up with a 200mm prime.

1. MEncoder

2. AviDemux

3. VirtualDub


All of those are free, and can do the task very well.
MEncoder is the quickest, AviDemux is probably the easiest, and VirtualDub is the most customizable.

I do think for this task WMM will be a bit slow, and QuickTime really struggles if you have a large amount of files.

@Algi
I also enjoy getting to know my lenses rather intimately.

To really test the focus with the k-5 and all my lenses, is something I have not managed yet. Probably because of lack of knowledge on how to do it correctly.
My goal is to learn how to focus all my lenses in every situation, and find a better and quicker way to manually focus at f1.4.

I like your analogy about watches though, but in another direction.
Most people that buy high end watches, doesn't know jack shit about them, other than it might be a luxury brand.
I am not so sure if they really want to know that their £10.000 watch actually use a quartz movement worth £5.

Funny.
I just tried, and had no problem using trap focus with an Olympus Zuiko on a K-5

I have three focus screens.
One split prism, one microprism and the original plain one that came with the camera.
For low light the split prism is virtually useless, the microprism is a bit better, but I get the best results by using the plain one.
For daylight stuff where you have any straight lines the split screen is great. You can focus quicker with a manual lens using it, than you can with af on a lens with a little bit of throw length
For portraits I find the microprism to be the one to go to. Using the split prism puts more strain on my eyes then needed for that stuff.


@Algernon
How can you possibly get misfocus with LV and zooming?
Isn't LV just an EVF in the sense of WYSIWYG?

Complete EXIF for both would be nice.

To me at least, it looks like camera shake on the second image.
You also have a bit of CA to get ride of here.

The first one I am not so sure about. I suspect you tried a too small dof, and just focused wrong.
Remember the 1/3 front, 2/3 back, when it comes to what is in focus for af.
Also, if you plan to play with a so small dof it might help to use the af button instead of half-pressed-shutter-button to focus.


Overall I believe the blurriness comes more from misfocus and motion, than anything else.

Unlucky crop.
The top right corner shows what I expect to either be the corner of a room, or the edge of a backdrop.
The reflection in the eyes shows the photographer.
For my taste, to much retouching have also been done.

I don't really find that the photo does her justice.
Personally, if it was my daughter, I would have slapped the photographer, and asked him to redo it

For the current price it is hard to beat a K30.

And don't forget that you can use your old lenses on Pentax as well, with a little bit of work on them (2 min).

As an example I can show you my light-weight mountain-setup for daytime.



Also add a ND4 and a GorillaPod.

Bjørn, you can pick up the very basics of stacking from this video.

More advanced astro requires a tracker, but the basics are the same.
The only real difference is that with a tracker you can by-pass the rule of 600.

If your goal is to only use the card on the K5 you have to think about it a bit.

By design the K5's SD slot is caped at 21 MB/s.
In reality, it will be a little lower.

So then it really becomes a question of what you are after. Going above effective 20 MB/s will grante you nothing on the camera-part. It will only make it quicker to move the images onto your PC, and of course increase the price of the card.

I would advice people to instead of looking to much into the brands, look at SD card tests. For the K5 you don't need the biggest and best card on the market. Those might not even be compatible to boot

Oki, scratch that note.

I should stop posting stuff so late, just ends up getting confused.
Probably my own keen interest in the GH3 for video that got me a bit carried away.

Looking closer back on some of my notes, it seems that the K-5II still have the same limitations as the make one had when it comes to video.

If anything that means whatever you did read on the link I gave should be valid.

@elfer, thanks for correcting me on that one.

This is so true.
Simply because the previews, and most of the first look stuff just ends up testing what the 'press releases' already stated, ignoring all the rest.
Shame really, as it doesn't paint the whole picture.