Wallace Koopmans Artlog

After a week with the new Pentax K-3 DSLR there is one thing that really stands out for me and that is the amount of detail it is able to capture.  There are other things that I think are  genuine improvements over my previous cameras but when zooming into an image on the back of the camera or looking at it on the computer its striking what it renders.

Downsizing images for the web does not convey this well so I’ve created several zoom-able images shot in the last week to demonstrate as best I can my point.  Just click on the thumbnails below to see the zoomable version.  I suggest toggling full screen by clicking on the button at the lower right of the player to maximize the effect.  The zoom is not limited to 100% pixel for pixel view but goes beyond that.

Pentax K-3 ISO 200 f13,   1/200sec

Pentax K-3 ISO 100 f18, 15sec

Here is an image that can be seen as a full size JPEG without zooming, it’s around 11 Mbytes

Pentax K-3 ISO 100 f16, 2.5sec

These images were shot using a very fine lens as well the SMC Pentax- DFA Macro 1:2.8 100mm WR.

The Pentax K-3 is showing itself to be an incredible photographic tool and I find myself looking forward to every opportunity to test its abilities with the ultimate goal being able to create the images I want.

The Nikon Zoom 300’s form was inspired when one of the designers dropped a bar of soap in the shower at Disneyland. I can’t prove that of course but everything points to it. It’s the shape and size of a bar of soap, the lens looks like it has Mickey Mouse ears and its slippery like a bar of soap. In addition I think they showered with the designer of the Canon Prima Mini who picked up the soap after it was dropped. Released in 1994 it is a relatively compact camera considering it’s 35-70 zoom lens rather than a fixed focal length. I can’t find any technical specifications for the lens but you can see that it has coatings that aren’t found on cheaper Nikons and it provides good results in the center of the frame with some coma distortion in the corners. There are a few over rides such as infinity focus and forced flash off which are in my opinion minimums when using this type of camera. The viewfinder though is a tiny little tunnel with a little light at the end of it, not a lot of fun to compose with. The final feature I will mention is that it has a lanyard on the side so it’s more ‘Soap on a Rope’ than Lux.

The multi exposure system of the new Pentax K-3 is much improved over previous iterations. Rather than being buried in the Menu system under the record menu it now finds itself in the more prominent drive menu available at the press of a button. It’s alongside interval composite and other drive modes like high continuous, mirror up and self timer. The number of images that can be combined has also increased from 9 to 2000 and there is an additional method of compositing called bright.

It’s the interval composite mode that is new and so useful for things such as blurring moving water when you can’t set a long enough exposure. With the camera on a tripod you can set it to take a picture every 5 seconds for 10 images and average the exposure. This will generate a single image that appears like it was taken with a single long exposure.  Here you can compare a single exposure against the 10  on the bottom.

If you’re wondering why wouldn’t you just take a longer exposure the answer is that you can’t always get long enough shutter speeds especially when there is plenty of light and you don’t have a neutral density filter.  The interval can be set From 2 seconds to 24 hours.

Additionally with composite interval you can specify a time for the camera to begin taking the images and with multi exposure you can choose single shot, continuous, self timer with mirror up and remote control.

It all amounts to great flexibility when doing multiple exposures and it remains to be seen what photographers will be able to do with this.  Here are a few samples from my playing around.

As a side note the above image is a crop from this 24 Mpixel picture, the amount of detail is astounding.

Previous use of this technique and explination can be seen here Multiple Exposures for atmosphere and Multiple Exposure again, again, again

I tried out my first roll of Cine Still film on a whirlwind weekend in Gatineau Quebec. The film is Kodak Vision 3 Tungsten film that has been prepared and loaded for use in 35mm still cameras. Unfortunately through several issues many of the frames are quite under exposed. Im not trying to make excuses but it is something to learn from. I used my Pentax Super Program which doesn’t meter that accurately in such low light and turned out to have the issue of the self timer not working. The thin underexposed frames resulted in extremely grainy pictures with little detail in the mid tones. When there was sufficient light though the results were very good with lots of detail from dark to bright and reasonably fine grain especially for ISO800 film. As it is Tungsten film designed for use under light with a colour temperature of around 3200degrees I used an 85B filter to correct for daylight, however it was also easy to correct for the colour balance during scanning making the filter possibly unnecessary. As I initially said it was a whirlwind tour with only a brief amount of time mostly at night in very low light and rain, but hopefully I can take what I’ve learned about this film and make some improvements with my next roll.

As a final note on order for the film to be developed with standard C41 Processing Cine Still Film removes the anti-halation rem-jet backing from the film prior to packaging. The absence of this backing results in an interesting halo effect around light sources.

Despite how much I enjoy shooting film and using older cameras there is a part of me that enjoys new technology as well.  My primary DSLR up until now has been the 2009 Pentax K-7 but I’ve also been waiting for what I felt was enough of a technological advance to spur an upgrade.  The release of the Pentax K-3 appeared to be the progress I had been waiting for so I pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced.  Today I received the camera and have had a brief time shooting with it.  One of the immediately apparent differences with the new camera over the K-7/K-5,K5II models is the method of making changes to the autofocus selections.  Previously it was a 3 position switch (Manual,continuous AF,AF Single) this has been replaced with a 2 position switch between AF and Manual and the addition of a button.  I can not stress enough what an improvement this is.  While pressing the button and turning the front control dial you can select the type of autofocus you want to use and the rear wheel changes the parameters such as the number of focus points, from 27 to zone to spot also when set to select the indicator of focus points on the rear LCD enlarges and the menu buttons can be used to move the point around.  There are more parameters to describe and it is simpler in operation than my feeble attempt to describe it conveys, but it works well and is very intuitive.

There is also a marked improvement in the focus speed and accuracy over my previous camera but I may leave that to others to quantify it as most people will want to compare it to the Pentax K-5II DSLR.

One thing I never saw mentioned and is new to me is that when zooming in playback it lets you know when you are at 100% zoom a nice touch when checking your images.

Another surprise is how much quieter the shutter is and that is despite the K-7 already being incredibly quite.  I will have more to say after I’ve had more time with the camera so for now here are some of the first images I’ve taken with the Pentax K-3.

Pentax K-3 200 ISO 1/80 f3.5 (SMC  Pentax-DA 1:2.8 35mm macro Limited)

100% crop from above image.

Pentax K-3 400 ISO 1/50 f6.3 (SMC Pentax DA 18-55 AL WR)

100% crop from above image

Pentax K-3 1600 ISO 1/200 f5.6 (SMC  Pentax-DA 1:2.8 35mm macro Limited)

100 % crop from image above Lightroom Noise reduction Luimnance +24, Color +20

Pentax K-3 800 ISO 1/50 f7.1 (SMC  Pentax-DA 1:2.8 35mm macro Limited)

100 % crop from image above Lightroom Noise reduction Luimnance +24, Color +15

Pentax K-3 200 ISO 1/125 f7.1 (SMC A 70-210)

100% crop of above image.

Again my initial impression is a very positive one with all around performace improvements over the K-7 especially with higher ISO’s.  In fact here is a shot at 12800  ISO with a little noise reduction in Lightroom, a full stop higher than the K-7 goes let alone performs at.

Just like spring has its blossoms Autumn has its leaves.  I  love the fall colours and can’t seem to get enough of them, the following is a selection from this year.  More pictures can be seen here Autumn Pictures 2012 , Autumn Pictures 2011, Autumn Sun And more images and info about the night pictures at Duncan Turners Blog

One of the smallest rangefinders you can find, the Olympus XA is a great little carry anywhere camera. The only drawback is the tiny little focus control and it’s semi hidden nature makes focusing somewhat fussy. You can set the aperture and focus in such a way that it works as zone focusing. At f5.6 and focused at xyz everything from x feet to infinity is rendered clearly enough for most uses.

The K-01 is an excellent camera for using manual focus lenses especially because of its focus peaking feature. On a recent outing with a friend I took a selection of M42 lenses, primarily using the Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 2.4 35mm with a little bit from the SMC Takumar 1.4 50mm and the Takumar 3.5 200mm aka the Bokehmon I would describe focus peaking as looking like the image is severely over sharpened within the plane of focus with a white halo around areas of high contrast. It is best seen when actually focusing as it sweeps across the image. I also used these lenses with my Pentax Z1p and Portra 400 film and I will update this post with a link to those as well.

I’ve been working on a photographic series using my Pentax Z1p SLR more than any other camera so of course there are more images from it too.  Past posts and information can be found here (Z1p Images Ektar100) , Z1p and Images , Oct 2013