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Archive for March, 2009

Pentax vs Canon AF Performance

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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…

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blog maintenance

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I recently discovered that my blog had become the victim of a hacker’s malicious code. My index.php file got hacked on March 16 which resulted in re-directions of many viewers to a page claiming that my site was “a reported spam site.”

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone viewing my blog. I use a Mac and had not experienced this myself. Yesterday I was trying to show someone my blog on a PC when I first encountered this situation. It took me about 3 hours this evening to back-up my blog and re-install WordPress 2.7. My understanding is that the hackers may have exploited a security hole in WordPress’s code.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on things from now on. Please let me know if you notice anything unusual.

worth the wet knee

worth the wet knee

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:

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season’d

season'd

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.

at the DMV

at the DMV

Pentax K10D, Pentax SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (manual focus), ISO 200, f/1.7, 1/100 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Had to drop by the DMV office yesterday to trade in my Tennessee driver’s license for an Alabama version. Of course I took my camera with me ;-) I didn’t take any pictures of the folks waiting with me in the lobby. It was too quiet and crowded and they were a bit of a surly looking bunch. I tried to take a picture while I was at the Trooper’s desk but she said it was “against the law.” Anyway, after a relatively brief 30 minute wait I was on my way out the door when I snapped this quickie.

This image is as close to SOOC (straight out of the camera) as I get. All I did was import the RAW image into Lightroom using my mild default import processing and exported it as a JPEG to Photoshop where I added the black bars. I’ve started adding black bars to make my uncropped images square. Being an avid Flickr-er I prefer square crops as I think they look best as thumbnails and in my photstream.

About

I'm an industrial designer and an avid hobbyist photographer. People are always asking me "how'd you do that?" So, I decided to create this site as a place to share my experiences and insights about photography, the gear and what it all means to me. I'm not sure if this site will make anyone besides myself a better photographer but I figure it's worth a try. Take a look around and let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by!

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