I’m a little concerned about the focus performance of my Pentax K10D DSLR. Before I get too far into it, let me  establish a little background first…

Two years ago I was looking for an upgrade to my then 2 year old Canon Digital Rebel XT (350D). I really didn’t have much more than the kit lens and a cheap-o EF 50mm f/1.8 II, so I didn’t feel too married to Canon. I did my research and decided the then new Pentax K10D represented a better value for the $1,800 I had to spend than the more expensive Canon 30D. So, I gave my Rebel to my sister-in-law and ordered up a K10D body, Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX and Sigma 10-20mm EX from B&H Photo.

The ergonomics, features, IQ, and interface were all so much better than my old Rebel that there wasn’t much time for  retrospection. I embraced my new rig and started shooting like mad. Six months and 20K snaps later I had added the excellent DA* 50-135mm f/2.8 to my kit. To my surprise, Santa (in the form of my mom and step dad) gave me a $1,000 Wolf Camera gift certificate for Christmas 2007. Suddenly I found myself in a quandary.

You see, I had become somewhat smitten by the full frame Canon 5D we had at the office for the Marketing team I managed. It had always seemed so out of reach to me and now suddenly it was all-too-close. After a few days of agonizing over what to do, I ended up selling off my K10D kit to a co-worker friend and added the proceeds to my gift certificate. 2008 began with a brand new Canon 5D body (the $3,000 body was all I could afford). Fortunately, my old 50 1.8 was collecting dust in the bottom of a drawer so I was able to actually use the 5D while I saved up for some better glass.

It was hard to draw many comparisons between the 5D and K10D. They really are quite different cameras- with the 5D being much more like a 35mm film camera than a high-tech digital. Plus, the clunky old 50mm prime I started out with on the 5D really wasn’t anything like the Sigma EX zoom lenses I had had on my K10D. What I didn’t know was that I would decide to leave my six figure job in April to return to school and finish my undergraduate degree. This move required scaling back across the board and my beloved 5D (and all the L glass I hoped to own) suddenly seemed like an excessive luxury. I decided to sell it, my EF 50 f/1.8 II, and the EF 28 f/2.8 and EF 85 1.8 USM I had acquired on Craigslist and invest the proceeds into my college fund. For the first time in 7 years I was without a DSLR.

In September of last year my former co-worker felt pity for my situation and gave me back my old K10D with the kit lens off his new K20D! Since then I have been shooting like mad with the kit lens and a 20-year-old SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 manual focus lens I picked up off of eBay. In the past couple of months that former co-worker of mine has also shared his DA* 16-50 f/2.8 and DA 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited lenses with me to test on my blog. I wasn’t too impressed by the 16-50 (see review) and my experience thus far with the 35mm macro has been mixed (review here).

While I was at PMA a few weeks ago I played around a bit with all the various cameras on display. Both Pentax and Canon had similar demo set-ups for their top-of-the-range telephoto lenses. While using the DA* 300mm f/4 in the bright tradeshow lighting I tried focusing on a subject standing a few meters away and the SDM motor woooshed close then dunk, da-dunk, “beep-beeped” into focus lock. I then swung the lens up and selected a far away subject- woooosh, dunk, dunk, da-dunk, “beep-beep”. Selecting a subject a few feet away from the second the DA* 300 went dunk, dunk, da-dunk, “beep-beep”. This all seemed quite normal to me. From my experience shooting both the DA* 50-135 f/2.8 and DA* 16-50 f/2.8 SDM equipped lenses.

Then, I moseyed over to the Canon booth where they had a very similar display set up with a 1D Mark III and EF 400mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens. Repeating the short-to-long focus test (this time with a much heavier f/2.8 lens) the Canon went woosh, “beep-beep” to the close subject then woosh, “beep-beep” to the far subject. Selecting a nearby subject to the far one I got bump, “beep-beep”. Surprised I tried several more times, panning the camera around and selecting subjects that were just out of focus. Each time I simply got bump, “beep-beep” as the subject popped into near instant focus. At the time I merely chalked this up to the near 10X cost difference between the two set-ups and continued on my way.

Fast forward a few weeks to yesterday and my niece’s 3rd birthday party. I found myself two-fisting my K10D with 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited and my sister-in-law’s Canon Rebel XT with kit lens (my old camera) while capturing both indoor and outdoor birthday party action. I was immediately aware at how much faster the 4 year old Rebel was locking focus than my K10D was. It was almost exactly like the performance difference I had experienced at PMA.

While the kids were busy taking turns in the kayak (and out of decent photo range for any of my lenses) I took a moment to do a little non-scientific focus testing. I manually set both cameras to infinity focus, selected the center focus point, 35mm focal length (on the Canon) and (in bright sunlight) focused on my hand at around 18″ away, then on the far side of the lake (infinity), then back to a post about 6′ away with the 35mm Macro on the K10D and the 18-55mm kit lens on the Rebel XT. In all cases the Canon nailed the focus point with zero hunting… zip, “beep-beep”, ziiip, “beep-beep”, ziip, “beep-beep”. The Pentax however, struggled a bit. The focus test went weeeee, tick, tick, tick-tick, “beep-beep” for the close subject, then weeeeee, tick, tick-tick, “beep-beep” for the far subject. Then, the camera completely missed the post 6′ away and went weeeeeeeeeeee all the way to it’s closest focus distance than weeeeeeeee, tick, tick, tick-tick, “beep-beep” on the post. (To be fair, this is a macro lens).

Thinking that the Pentax 35mm Macro might have been to blame (which it was), I pulled out my Pentax 18-55 Mark I kit lens and repeated this test again. The results were nearly identical with the exception that the Pentax kit lens did not overshoot the post and merely ticked around a couple of times before locking focus. Also, the lighter less damped focus action on the kit lens did make it seem a tad snappier when focusing between the close subject and the far subject. Incidentally, this time to reach the correct focus distance was basically identical for both the Pentax and the Canon kit lenses. The exception being all the tick, tick, ticking the Pentax lenses did before locking focus. (In case you were wondering I also repeated a similar test inside under poorer lighting with the two kit lenses and got nearly identical results as outside).

Discussing this with my co-worker friend, he relayed the results of a similar test he decided to try with his K20D as follows:

I just did back to back comparisons of the K20d + FA 50/1.4 and my Rebel + EFII 50/1.8. In indirect sunlight, using the center focus point I swapped focus between the front hedge at about 10M away and my left hand outstretched.
The Canon will ziiiiip, stop, confirmation beep.
The Pentax ziiiiips from 10M to my hand quickly just like the Canon but then it quickly zips one (or two!) more times before focus confirmation… Almost like it has momentum from the first movement.
I’ve been fully aware of this (and failure to focus–maddening) but had assumed that after twenty years of screw-driven, TTL autofocus technology this was the best the world could do. Seems it’s the best Pentax can do.
IMHO this is the worst aspect of my K20d.

Keep in mind that his test was done with a state-of-the-art $1,000 K20D + FA 50mm f/1.4 vs a $300 6 year old Canon 300D + 50mm f/1.8 II eBay find.

In hindsight I realize now how many shots I have missed over the years with my Pentax due to its slow autofocus performance. The most frustrating part is that the vast majority of shots I’m missing are while the camera is tick, tick, ticking its way towards focus lock, not because it has mis-focused. Once it gets there it is generally just as accurate as any other camera I have used. I hope Pentax is listening and improves the performance of their next generation of DSLRs. In my opinion, this is much more important than live view, more megapixels, movie recording, higher frame rates, and/or higher ISO performance. Pentax’s DSLRs are some of the best values on the market. Bring the AF speed up to par with the competition would end a lot of arguments in Pentax’s favor.

What do you think?

PS- I excluded Nikon from this comparison because I have very limited experience with their modern DSLRs. However, I did borrow a friend’s D300 + 50mm f/1.8 to take some studio shots of my K10D for my DA* 16-50 f/2.8 review. The camera was set up to use all 50-something focus points in AI mode. Being unfamiliar with Nikon’s focus confirmation implementation I didn’t realize until after I was done shooting that when all those grey boxes popped up in the viewfinder that the camera had locked focus. In hindsight I now realize that it was happening so fast that I was unaware that the camera was focusing. To get my shots BTW, I ended up switching over to manual focus ;-)

UPDATE: First of all I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that Pentax’s autofocus system is any less accurate than anyone else’s. It is clearly quite effective. Also, I fully understand that Pentax has to pick and choose where they spend their limited development funds and I am happy they put it where they have (weather sealing, in-body shake reduction, user oriented controls, etc). In fact, that is why I chose Pentax over the others in the first place. My main reason for publishing this article was to attempt to draw the same comparisons so many Pentax users have over the past few years in a more objective manner so that those who haven’t experienced the differences themselves could be more fully informed. Too many consumers buy products today based on too narrow a point of view and then blame the product when it doesn’t meet their expectations.

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 800, f/1.7, 1/25 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Another shot from the Centrifuge Bar at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas while I was enjoying a beer and winding down from 3 days at the PMA show. In this shot I simply opened the aperture all the way up and with the camera on my lap played around with the manual focus (using the distance markings of the focus ring on my manual 50mm f/1.7 lens while estimating the distance) and let my Pentax K10D do the rest. It took 3 or 4 tries to get the framing right but using this technique saved me from getting down on my knees in the bar- something I try to avoid these days. This picture is essentially straight out of the camera with nothing more than my Lightroom default import processing of the RAW file. White balance was set to auto and has not been adjusted. Doesn’t get much easier than this!

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 800, f/1.7, 1/50 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Speak to me…as in little green men from outer space ;-) This image makes me think of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Taken in the bar at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas. The Centrifuge bar (as it is known) is designed around a central cylinderical tower covered in tiny color changing LED or fiber optic lights. I was sitting about 12-15′ away from the bar when I took this relaxing from 3 days of walking the show floor at PMA. I simply manually set the focus on my 50mm lens (at f/1.7) to around 3′ and let the camera do the rest. Shooting bokeh is really one of the easiest things to do once you understand the technique. The hard part becomes making an actual composition out of the bokeh. In this case the arrangeent of the lights themselves was all I needed. Tomorrow I’ll have another example shot in the same place.

The BlackRapid R-Strap RS-4 camera strap was only product I came across at PMA that I decided to buy and try for myself because I thought it was such a clever solution for an age-old problem. BlackRapid has obviously gotten a lot of press for this product because I am seeing a high percentage of Google hits on my site from my single mention of it last week. So, I decided to forgo the usual studio photography routine and go ahead and publish my user review to help all of those of you obviously trying to figure out if this thing is worth all the hype.

Pros:

• Quick access to camera as advertised.
• New design camera mount is fairly easy to use and solid.
• Decent construction quality of shoulder pad.

Cons:

• Camera incessantly gravitates to an in-the-way position.
• Difficult adjustment mechanism.
• Camera dangles and spins at your side.
• Chintzy connection clip.*
• S.W.A.T. team riot gear styling.
• Shoulder pad does not stay put.
• Connection clip may contact LCD screen potentially causing damage.
• Camera can not be set flat without removing mount.
• Sharp edges on camera mount can damage surfaces, other objects, etc.
• $50 price tag.

Conclusion:

I’m guessing by this point you can tell that I’m not a huge fan of the R-Strap. The most disappointing thing is that I had such high hopes for this product. In fact, I made a special trip back to BlackRapid’s booth and forked over $40 (PMA show special- $8 off their MSRP) just so I could start using it right away even though they promised to mail me a review unit after the show. Eager to get rid of my 12 year old Nikon branded neoprene shoulder strap, I stepped around the corner and quickly tore into the package. Immediately, I encountered difficulty with the connector clip. Then, I struggled to get the length of the strap adjusted to suit my preference. After spending a good 6-8 minutes squatting behind a trash can I was finally ready to put the R-Strap to use.

Within the first 5 minutes I was already starting to think I had made a mistake. My camera just wouldn’t stay put. It kept gravitating to the bottom of the strap which put it on my right hip with the lens sticking straight out into my arm and oncoming traffic. I tried turning and shifting my camera sideways and around to the small of my back like the BlackRapid people had shown me to do standing in their booth. But as soon as I started walking it would quickly slide back around front where I’d smack my lens against my arm or some poor soul walking by. I knocked the lens hood off my little kit lens 3 times in the first 10 minutes of use. I can’t imagine how bad it would have been had I been sporting a longer lens.

Thinking that maybe I hadn’t gotten used to this new-and-improved way of carrying my camera, I was determined to give it the ol’ college try and muddled through the rest of the day and half through the following day. Yes, the R-Strap did make it quite quick and efficient for me to get my camera to my eye and snap a picture. And, I love the fact that the strap doesn’t get all tangled up across the eyepiece like a traditional strap always seems to do. However, I just couldn’t get used to my camera dangling, twirling and knocking into everything while I was walking the show and the streets and casinos of Las Vegas.

BlackRapid seems to market their product to people on the go. From my experience the R-Strap is really only suitable for photographers in a static position that need quick access to their camera (like sports photographers standing on a sideline with three cameras around their neck). I can see how it might work better attached to the tripod collar on a larger telephoto lens- though the laws of gravity seem to suggest that it’s always going to seek the lowest point and not stay behind your back as BlackRapid suggests. As it is- combined with the geeky styling, camera dings and high price tag- I can not recommend the R-Strap. And I’m really bummed about that. Be that as it may, lot’s of people seem to swear by it so make your own choice.

Now for the details and photos:

Review:

The key to the strap’s design is the sliding camera hook (top). Note how the adjustment buckle is positioned at the left with the tag (loose) end of the strap feeding back through the pad assembly. This makes loosening the strap a piece of cake (pull down on the buckle while tugging on the bottom of the strap). However, if like me you get it too loose, you have to remove the strap and feed it backwards through the pad in 1/2″ increments until you get the fit right. I never did figure out the purpose of the extra buckle on the right. I tried feeding the tag end of the strap through it but it was too tight of a fit. Instead, it just dug into my back most of the time.

Adjustment mechanism detail. It’s basically like a backpack strap turned upside down. Why it is turned upside down I’m not sure.

Connector clip and FastenR camera mount. The connector clip on this version is basically a suitcase strap spring clip with a DIY aquarium tubing “lock” mechanism. The importance of this seems obvious but the implementation made it nearly impossible to open the clip wide enough to get the ring on the mount through. *To be fair, BlackRapid showed me a new carabiner style clip with a screw down lock mechanism that seems much more appropriate to this application. They said it would be shipping on the new RS-4 straps “soon.”

The camera mount screws into the tripod mount on the bottom of your camera. There is a rubber washer that provides tension as you tighten the mount to the camera body. This is a very clever way to lock the mount securely to the camera and is a significant improvement over the previous version. An extra rubber washer was included in the package- suggesting that this one will eventually get lost or fail.

Once installed the camera hangs neatly from the mount via the clip. Orientation of the mount is not important since the clip spins freely.

One potential alarming thing I noticed was that the clip would contact my LCD screen on my camera when I was using the R-Strap without my battery grip. The potential for scratching not withstanding, hit it the wrong way once and you could break the LCD screen. BlackRapid does make a point of including a disclaimer card saying they are not responsible for damage to your camera caused though the use of their product. You know what that means….

Another drawback to this design is that once you screw the mount into your camera you can no longer set your camera level on a flat surface. I made the mistake of doing this on my dining table and the sharp corners of the mount left a nasty gouge in the finish. I guess that’s part of the risk I assumed in using this product. :-/

The strap worn in its intended manner. I say “intended” because a number of times I put it on backwards. I’m not sure what I would put in the pocket. Designers always think we need more pockets on our stuff. More pockets just equals more places to loose things. In this case it also means more material and labor cost. Since the camera is not attached to the two fixed ends of the strap like on a traditional shoulder strap, every time you pick the camera up to shoot, the shoulder pad has a tendency to shift one way or the other due to the effect of gravity. Mine kept working its way over my shoulder and down my back where it was impossible to reach to pull it back up. This lead to me having to remove the strap regularly and replacing it backwards by mistake. The “cool mesh” backing material on the pad is likely to blame here and a non-skid material would make more sense.

Here you can see how the camera starts off in the middle of my back then after a few steps has worked its way to the back of my hip and then a few steps later around to its preferred location at the front of my hip. No matter how I positioned the camera this is what would happen within a dozen steps- banging into my arm on the way around.

Now, with the camera hanging as it is in the third frame above, it is in the ideal position for easily grabbing the grip…

…and quickly raising the camera to your eye for a shot. Notice how the clip has slid along the strap rather than the strap sliding around your body. Also notice how the strap is coming off the bottom of the camera where it is out of the way rather than off the top. This is what held so much promise for me.

However, after walking a few more steps the camera would flip itself around so that the flat back was against my body and the lens was pointing out. This made it somewhat awkward to grab hold of…

…and really creates a problem when your arm swings by. Also, having your camera hanging off your hip (lens out) is the worst position for walking in any kind of crowd. Clink, bump, clank, “excuse me, is this your lens hood sir?”

So, is the R-Strap any better than a standard shoulder strap? That depends. If the shoulder strap is worn like this, it seems like an even bet either way (though at $48+ shipping not a bet I’d be willing to take). Here the camera is always slipping off the shoulder, is dangling with the lens pointing out in the way of your arm and is quite difficult to reposition after a shot.

However (given a long enough strap- unlike my stock Pentax one), worn across the chest like the R-Strap a standard shoulder strap starts to make a lot more sense.

You can easily tuck the camera to the back of your hip where it will stay within easy reach but out of the way while you walk.

When the going gets tough, you can just swing the camera around the the small of your back where it is completely out of the way. Simply tug the strap to slide it back around to the front for a shot. I have litteraly logged hundreds (possibly thousands!) of miles in all kinds of sitautions with this set-up. My only gripe about this whole system is the grippyness required for the strap to stay where you put it also means it will constantly be pulling your clothing around with it. Maybe BlackRapid will continue to improve ther product and make a version that lives up to its promise and potential. I’ll be keeping an eye out for that.

Update:

Apparently the clip I couldn’t figure out on the right in the first picture of the review section is a stop block that you can set to prevent the camera from sliding further backwards than you wish for it to. (For the record, the instructions that came with the strap make no mention of this clip or its function.) I tried it and it basically only prevented me from sliding the camera around to my back where I wanted it. Had I placed it in a way that would keep my camera out of the way it would have prevented me from sliding it around front to take a picture. I also tried positioning it so that it kept the camera hanging in front of my body but the weight of my camera just pulled the whole rig back around to my side again.

Please let me know if there is anything else I’m missing here.

Sitting in the Southwest Airlines C gate departure lounge at Las Vegas international Airport yesterday this is pretty much what I was seeing through my glazed-over post-PMA eyes. This image is pretty much SOOC (straight of out of the camera). I did apply my standard Lightroom import processing but didn’t have to do much else. For the shot I just opened up the aperture, focused on the backrest of the seat across the aisle from me, recomposed and shot. The large aperture took care of blurring out the background and created the nice bokeh balls from all the lights. The sun had set behind me about 20 minutes before so I got a nice blue hour band through the east facing windows in the background. This is the original composition:

It took a few tries to get the focus right but I figured I had a pretty good shot on about the third or fourth try. A few minutes later, the gentleman on the right walked up, sat down in the second row and pulled out his headphones and I knew that the shot I was looking for had finally materialized.

Shooting in airports is one of my favorite locations but they can be a mixed bag. There is so much to see and so many walks of life confined in a relatively small and typically interestingly designed space. However, you have to be careful of invading peoples’ privacy too much since there’s usually nowhere to run and hide. Shooting shots like this though, can be quite innocent as most people are lost in their own little iPod-isolated world. Also, if they give you a hard time you can show them the shot and prove that they’re nothing more than background texture ;-)

Technical difficulties involve poor and variable lighting conditions and constantly moving subjects. I tend to set my Pentax K10D’s auto ISO to 100-800 (or maybe 1000) and shoot in RAW so I can tweak the white balance later if needed. Generally I like to use my old 50mm lens left wide open at f/1.7. It is small with decent reach and not nearly as imposing as a larger and longer lens might be. Personally, I think Pentax’s SMCP-FA 77mm f/1.8 Limited lens would be a better choice for this type of photography. It is just as small and fast, sharper wide open, has longer reach, and is autofocus. Autofocus here is nice as it allows you to compose and shoot much faster with better accuracy than a manual focus lens (at least for me). That way you draw less attention to yourself while taking pictures.

Anyway, next time you find yourself at the airport, take your camera out of your bag and see what you can get! Here’s a few more that I took:

13 second exposure @ f/16. Camera was set on window sill and triggered with the 2 second delay self timer.

Tram passengers.

This shot was taken at f/4 to give a bit more DoF and sharpen things up a bit.

This was shot from the hip and I knew it would be out of focus but somehow it still works.

Waiting in line at the ticket counter. The shutter release caused him to turn around but I feigned taking a picture of the ceiling to avoid conflict ;-)

]]> http://www.booleansplit.com/?feed=rss2&p=481 0 http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=465 http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=465#comments Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:25:22 +0000 Robert http://www.booleansplit.com/?p=465

Day 2 I took another lap of the show floor looking for things I may have missed yesterday. Click through to see what I found.

This idea in some form or another showed up in several Asian vendors’ booths. The idea is simple: provide a remote display that uses the video out feed from cameras with live view. This version is wired to the camera and features an articulating screen. Others seen on the show floor featured wireless technology to transmit the video signal to a remote release. The basic idea is pretty clever but I have to wonder just how many people really need such a thing (voyeurs not withstanding).

CropLines is a specialty product that adds custom-designed crop lines to focus screens. They’re not particularly cheap (close to $200 per screen) but that is mostly due to the degree of handwork required. I’m thinking I could use one with square crop lines. If you print a lot of photos an 8 X 10 crop would also be useful. The focus screen pictured is for standardized studio portraits.

Those wily Germans at Novoflex have one-upped the tripod by adding a fourth leg. They call it the “Quadrapod”. Not content with adding an extra leg, they also made the whole thing modular. Each leg screws off to create monopods. Also, additional accessories can be attached to the head mechanism to further expand its usefulness:

Add two more mini legs and you have a packable table-top quadrapod. Add suction cups…

…and you can stick it to a window. In typical Germanic fashion, the build quality is second to none. I didn’t ask how much ’cause if you have to ask…

I figured if I was going to spend $15 on lunch I should get my money’s worth so I headed over to the Hilton to the Noodle Bar in the back of the Benihana restaurant for some Hong Kong style stir fry noodles.

Back to the show and I discovered Olympus’ cut-away version of their E3 DSLR. Is it just me or does this look more complicated than the Nikon D3 version from yesterday?

With the crowds dwindling I took a few moments to play with the Panasonic Lumix G1. It is quite a tidy little package though it feels a little on the plasticy side for my tastes. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) is quite strange for someone coming from a true SLR camera. The weirdest part was the fact that the EVF displays the exposure preview just like a PnS (point ‘n shoot) camera does. I can see this being sort of useful sometimes but could turn into a real turn-off as the image fluctuates back and forth looking for “proper” exposure. My guess is most users will just use the big LCD display on the pack like a PnS camera. I stand firm in my assertion that this camera (and others like it) are either pocket cameras that are too big to fit in a pocket or DSLRs that are too small to keep up with their larger brethren. BTW, I overheard a Panasonic employee boasting that their were a total of 6 lenses for the G1. Me, I’ll just keep carrying a PnS (an old Panasonic Lumix FX-07 actually) in my pocket and a real DSLR around my neck for the time being.

Finally, I wondered back to the Nikon booth to take a look at their new AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G lens. Obviously, I didn’t get to take any sample photos with it but it looks and handles pretty nice. I’m sure at $200 Nikon will sell a ton of these. If you have a Nikon DX format camera (anything other than a D700 or D3) I suggest you look at this lens. Having shot fast fifties on both full frame and DX sensor cameras, I can safely say that a 35mm lens on a DX sensor camera (52.5mm equiv focal length) is much more useful than a 50mm lens (75mm equiv)  for everyday use.

Tomorrow I’m planning on making one more pass. I wouldn’t hold your breath in anticipation of any more great finds.

Benihana Japanese Steak House, Las Vegas Hilton Hotel and Casino.

I had lunch today in the noodle shop in the back of the Benihana restaurant. The main part of the restaurant was closed and I was leaving I was struck by all the decor all lit up for nobody. I stopped, switched my camera to manual mode, dialed in f/16, ISO 100, and 30 seconds of exposure. I set the self timer to the 2 second delay and set the camera on a flat top of a wooden handrail support post. I didn’t compose the shot with the viewfinder (due to the low height of the railing) nor did I review the shot after taking this single exposure. Later, in Lightroom I dialed back the exposure -0.42 EV and set the white balance to tungsten. Not bad for a “snap shot” :-)

Bouchon, The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV

I have to say, this shot would not have been possible without my Pentax K10D’s in-camera shake reduction. I mean, they didn’t have IS 20 years ago when this lens was made ;-)

Outside the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino.

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 400, f/1.7, 1/100 sec, +0.7 EV, IS off

Shaggy shoe fashion.

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 100, f/1.7, 1/250 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV.

Check out more Bokeh Wednesday shots at the Bokeh Wednesday group on Flickr.

Day one of PMA is in the books and as promised here is my first round of interesting product picks with comments. I will have more to report as the show continues and hopefully some additional in-depth reviews of a few of these items. Let’s dive in:

Prior to the show opening I headed up to the press center to pick up a lanyard for my badge and check things out. Outside of the press center I ran across Greg Downing from xRez standing in front of an awesome panorama of Yosemite valley that he helped create. Rather than try and explain what’s going on here I suggest you hit the xRez site and check it out for yourself. Very cool stuff.

The show opens to a pretty good crowd. I’m used to bigger shows (CES, for example) so this seems a bit tame to me. The show is contained within the two floors of the South Hall of the LVCC. CES, for example, uses the entire LVCC + the Sands Expo Center.

Joby has added a much needed ball head with bubble level to their often-imitated-never-duplicated Gorillapod.

Ever wonder what a Nikon D3 looks like cut in half? Wonder no more!

The LensPen people have come up with a nifty little sensor cleaning accessory the SensorKlear Loupe. At $60 I still think it’s a bit pricey for a magnifying glass + LED flashlight but it does feature a nifty slot in the side so you can reach in with your LensPen to get that pesky last speck of dust while you’re using the scope.

Not technically a photo product (nor a product on display) but I spied this “Wrist Writer” product on a guest at the Sigma booth. It features 25′ of paper on a spool that can be manually advanced to keep a running logbook of shot notes while in the field. I recommend field use as it is pretty incredibly dorky for anything where you might encounter other people ;-)

Also while in the Sigma booth a snapped this shot of a fellow Pentaxian’s DIY BlackRapid R-Strap. More on that later. I’m digging the 31 f/1.8 Limited lens, though.

I know I said I wasn’t going to blog about the mainstream products but I had to take a look at Panasonic’s new G1 while I was there. I find these new small form factor DSLRs quite interesting. Unfortunately, this photo illustrates the problem I have with this whole concept. Why would I want to bolt such a nice tidy little camera to such a huge lens? I mean isn’t the whole idea to have a smaller camera system?

Investigating further I uncovered the other problem with this system. Above is the complete collection of compact lenses for the G1. Clever concept but too limiting for enthusiast use IMO.

Naturally, I spent much time in the Pentax booth. They had a very interesting macro photography demonstration set up on display.

I also spent a little time with their new smc DA 15mm f/4 ED AL Limited wide angle lens. This is an absolute jewel of a little lens. I couldn’t tell much about the image quality from the few test shots I took on the show floor, but the thing just felt so nice that I know it will do well ;-)

Olympus had a very clever display for one of their ruggedized pocket cams. They were frozen in a solid block of ice. I presume at some point they will remove them from the ice and prove that they still work…

Samsung has arguably gotten the most attention at this year’s show with their new NX compact APS-C sized DSLR. This photo answers the question of whether or not there will be multiple lens options available for this camera. I like the little pancake lens but I refer back to my Panasonic G1 comments otherwise. Samsung says this camera “bridges the gap” between compact pocket cameras and full-sized DSLRs. Sounds to me like a compromise situation where no one wins.

Jill-e debuted a new line of stylish leather camera bags for men called “Jack”. If you don’t know Jill-e check them out. They are doing some really nice things with camera bags from a fashion standpoint that I haven’t seen before.

Here’s another Jill-e bag design featuring a highly functional “gatemouth”-style opening that makes getting at your gear while wearing the bag much easier. This proves that Jill-e is thinking beyond just style.

Next I visited the Crumpler booth where they were stuffing their bags with toilet paper (?). I complained about the difficulty of accessing my gear due to their universal use of a flap-over design and was told in no uncertain terms that Crumpler “always puts style above functionality.” Hmmmm.

For you studio lighting types I’m here to report that CFLs are now all the rage. This one has the output of a 250w incandescent lamp but outputs almost no heat and lasts 10K hours.

Lunch break: $13.85.

Zeiss Pentax mount 50 f/1.4: $550 MSRP. This could be the ultimate bokeh tool. I took a few sample shots and was immediately blown away by the complete lack of vignetting. I’m planning on getting a review sample or two to do a more in-depth analysis.

Bryce Thatcher and the crew at Clik Elite had some of the most unique bags I have seen yet at PMA this year. They have a very narrow focus right now on the adventure sports set but I’m told to keep an eye out for some more “mainstream” products that might appeal more to everyday outdoorsy folks like myself. Their first batch of products should be showing up at your local REI store in the next couple of weeks.

LowePro had a huge collection of bags. The one that caught my eye was their new Classified series of shoulder bags. They feature un-camera bag-like take-it-to-work styling with that gatemouth type opening that makes so much sense to me. My Crumpler may end up in the bottom of the closet for good.

Another clever thing I spotted in the LowePro booth was this camera mount on the handle of their roller bag. Perfect for those airport departure lounge self portraits. I get the sense that LowePro’s design staff actually uses (or at least consults with people who use) their products. Lots of clever design features like this that are missing on lesser bags.

This is the Ray Flash ring light accessory. As you can see, it bolts up to your existing external flash unit and re-directs the light to a large ring around the lens. This type of lighting is very popular for portrait photography. I find this to be very clever but am somewhat appalled at the $200 price tag. Pros won’t bat an eye at it but us amateurs need a more cost-effective solution. Plus, it seems a little plastic-y for the $$ IMO (though I have not used one yet).

Not a very good picture of a very clever product solution. The Shootsac is a function-specific neoprene shoulder bag with multiple compartments that allow one to keep all their lenses within easy arm’s reach. The designer has seen fit to add a fashion component with a bunch of interchangeable covers (none of which I would have chosen). Were I still shooting Canon and had a bunch of L zooms this product would make a lot of sense. As it is, my little Pentax lenses would get lost in there.

Trek-Tech has some very interesting products all based around a very slick custom magnetic tripod mount (shown above).

The most interesting Trek-Tech product was their MagBag system. Using the same magnetic tripod mount, the MagBag securely supports your camera beanbag-style. It has a number of other unique features that I hope to go into more detail about at a later date.

Across the asile from Trek-Tech (and at the far back corner of the exhibit hall) I found Black Rapid’s tiny booth. I found their new R-Strap a few weeks ago while doing some camera strap research. From the information I read online I couldn’t quite make out how the product worked. I got the fact that you attach the strap to the tripod mount on the bottom of your SLR, but I couldn’t see how it would be much better than a regular strap. The main benefit is shown above- the strap stays stationary while the camera slides along the strap on a D ring. I could do without the SWAT-style padded-strap-with-pockets styling, but overall it seems a very clever attempt at a solution to an age-old problem.

After the show I returned to the hotel to retrieve my laptop and download my pictures from the day while enjoying a cold one.

Then, I treated myself to a table for one at Mon Ami Gabi at Paris for some wine and steak frites :-)

Day two I’m back looking for things I missed and spending more quality time with some vendors looking for some nuggets to report on.