Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, ISO 320,  f/1.7, 1/100 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Well, the two weeks of spring in Alabama are over and now it’s pretty much summer. Time to start greasing up!

This image was shot with my Pentax K10D and old manual focus 50mm f/1.7 lens. The RAW image was uploaded to Adobe Lightroom for processing. First off I had to correct the white balance as my K10D has never been able to make heads nor tails of our comact flurescent lighting in the bathroom. One click of the WB eyedropper tool on the white portion of the bottle in focus did the trick. Next, I dialed in a tad of positive exposure compensation (+0.17) and then tweaked the Tone Curve by bumping up the Highlights and Lights and down the Darks and Shadows. The resulting S-curved tone curve created the high contrast image seen here. Lastly, I added in a bit of vignetting to further darken the edges of the image and add depth to the shot. To me, the super saturated colors and high contrast feels like a summer beach scene…all from a quick snapshot taken in my bathroom.

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, ISO 320,  f/1.4, 1/60 sec, +.3 EV, IS on

This photo was taken while waiting in line at Moe’s in Auburn, AL. It was shot from the hip without being composed in the viewfinder. The composition turned out OK but I had to apply a fair amount of post processing in Lightroom to get to this point. Here’s the original unmodified as-shot image:

As you can see, it was a bit underexposed and the white balance was a little out of whack due to the mixed lighting conditions. After playing around with various white balance settings I settled on “Auto” as the best choice. Next all I really did to fix the exposure was jack the Exposure up to +1.42. While I was at it I also dropped the Blacks level to 0 and dialed in more contrast to darken things back up a bit without loosing shadow detail. Finally, I added in a touch of saturation to bring back up the color that was lost when I cranked the exposure.

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, ISO 100,  f/1.4, 1/125 sec, +/-0 EV, IS on

Shot this through the iron gate of a closed nightclub in downtown Auburn while I was on my way to lunch. I really like the way the skylights illuminate the dance floor in the background. The space heaters hanging from the ceiling seem almost alien. I opened the 50 f/1.4 all the way up, focused on the nearest table and let the lens do the rest (including the green halos).

Post processing in Lightroom required a little tweaking of the white balance (I used the eyedropper tool on the top of the table to get the best feel). I also backed all the way off of the black slider and then darkened the shadows back up by increasing the contrast. This revealed more shadow detail but still gives plenty of richness to the shot. I could have acheived the same effect with the Tone Curve tool but this worked well so I left it at that. Finally, I upped the Recovery a little to recover a little highlight detail in the rafters and bumped the Vibrance up a touch to make the image pop in a browser a bit more.

Pentax K10D, SMC Asahi Takumar 135mm f/2.5 (manual focus), ISO 100,  f/2.5, 1/250 sec, +2/3 EV, IS on

Playing around with my “new” Asahi Takumar 135mm f/2.5 I picked up from KEH for $60. This is a very cool little lens. It’s fully manual but I’m finding that if I shoot it wide open I can use Aperture Priority mode and still have simple control over exposure compensation. I’m planning on playing around a bit with stop-down metering in manual mode using my K10D’s Green Button.

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, ISO 125,  f/1.4, 1/60 sec, +2/3 EV, IS on

Been playing around a bit with a Pentax FA 50 f/1.4 lens I’m borrowing. This shot was taken almost directly into the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows on the front of our house. So far I am finding the FA 50 to be a bit soft for my taste wide open (as you can see here) but the autofocus and extra 2/3 stop advantage over my old A series 50mm f/1.7 are nice. There does seen to be a fair amount of purple fringing in a lot of my shots but I have yet to really test the lens with anything more than some plinking around. I don’t think I’m going to do my usual full-on User Review for the FA 50. I’ll probably just do some anecdotal comparison to my old 50 f/1.7 for those people who either have an older manual focus lens and are thinking of upgrading or for those people who are considering their first fast fifty.

BTW, this image was imported into Lightroom using my standard import settings for my K10D. I then selected “daylight” for the white balance and nudged the blacks slider up to 16 to dial in a bit more contrast. Lastly, I cropped it square and rotated it slightly clockwise to adjust for level on the left side of the frame.

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-FA 35mm f/2, ISO 640,  f/4, 1/50 sec, +2.0 EV, IS on

This is my 1999 Porsche Boxster sitting in the garage. I opened the door to grab a beer out of the fridge and thought “man that looks nice.” I grabbed my K10D with my new FA 35mm f/2 lens and snapped this shot. Despite the darkness of the garage and the black color of the car, I still had to dial in +2.0 EV to get any detail in the car to show up. The light coming through the garage door windows was just that bright! In Lightroom I simply converted the image to grayscale, cropped and exported this JPEG file.

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-DA 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1600 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Heavily processed in Lightroom. Started with the Direct Positive creative preset then poked and prodded for a few minutes until I got what I wanted. The detail however, is all from the lens. I’ve got the review worked out in my head but just have to find the time to put it all together.

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 125, f/1.7, 1/100 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

This time shot with my old manual 50mm and heavily cropped to get the macro effect. Processing was limited to some WB and saturation/vibrance tweaking and the addition of some vignetting. This crop is basically a 100% magnifcation of the original 10MP image. Note the slight purple fringing around the droplet from shooting wide open? That’s how you know this image is real ;-)

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-DA 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/1000 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Continuing to test the 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited this weekend. Shots like this are clearly where this lens shines. This image was cropped slightly in Lightroom before I applied the Direct Positive creative preset. I then tweaked the white balance to give it more of a warm and sunny feel. Finally, since the background was a bit flat, I added in the vignetting to “frame” the subject.

One thing I’m learning about this lens is that if you go walking around with this lens you’re going to end up with a wet knee:

]]> http://www.booleansplit.com/?feed=rss2&p=681 0 http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=676 http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=676#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:27:57 +0000 Robert http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=676

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-DA 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/50 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Couple of things to report here. First, the image above was shot with a Pentax DA 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited lens that I am testing. The studio shots have been taken and now I just have to spend a few days living with it to see how it works for me. In case you were curious, whenever I get a loaner lens to test I put it on my camera and take it with me everywhere I go for several days. By forcing myself to use it for all of the various photos I take I can get a really good sense of how it performs within a couple hundred frames shot over just a few days.

Initial out-of-the-box impressions are that this is a very nicely put together lens that is absolutely the sharpest lens I’ve ever used. I really like the field of view the 35mm focal length gives on my K10D (52.5mm equiv). As a macro lens you can (read: have to) get crazy close to subjects. It’s actually quite a bit like using my DIY super macro set-up without all the fumbling around. Look for my typical in-depth user review in a few days.

Second, this image was processed using a brand-new copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3 that the folks at Adobe sent over. I’ve been using Lightroom 1.4 all this time and I’m excited to explore the features of this new-and-improved version. I’ll be reporting on my impressions of LR 2.3 later. I can say that the upgrade was completely seamless and I haven’t missed a beat.

The image above was shot in RAW with my Pentax K10D in Aperture Priority mode. White balance was set to Auto as was the ISO. In Lightroom I imported the image using my default develop settings. I then cropped it and applied the Direct Positive preset. Finally, I tweaked the White Balance to bring out the blue hue of the evening light and dialed up the Vibrance a touch to get it to pop a bit more. The sharpness is mostly due to the lens.