Re: PESO - The Quiet City
On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 09:55:20AM -0500, Bob Sullivan scripsit: Frank, Lovely clouds over the city. Could you have the buildings turn on some lights? :-) There's been years of public campaigning to get them to turn the gods-be-feathered lights off; night-flying migrating birds hit the window glass, snap neck, etc. and die. Since Toronto is right smack on a migration route, this is even more actively bad than it might be in say, Banff. I was delighted to see that so many lights were _off_. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Photokina observations...
On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 07:04:10PM +0200, Thibouille scripsit: good question Steven (about 645d price). I wouldn't be surprised to see either an upgraded version, causing older version to fall in price or a 'low end' version to complement the current one. Let's say in one year. I figure that when a 645D electronics upgrade comes out, there will also be a 645D body with a full-frame sensor for much less, 4 kUSD or so. 'Cause there's no way on earth they can do 3 lens lines, and they're committed to 2, and if you want to be a pro and shoot full frame, well, here are some spiffy lens and a built-in body upgrade path... -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Bitter grapes: pure red...
On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 03:11:05PM +0100, Bob W scripsit: [snip] ...This sort of thing is found a lot where one language group has replaced another. The conqueror points to some natural feature and asks 'What is that called'. The vanquished native replies 'it is the Don' meaning 'it's the river, you idiot'*. The mighty conqueror says 'we shall call it the River Don'. And so it flows quietly on. *This is the meaning of the Ojibwe word Mississippi. My favourite of these is Torpenhow Hill. (Tor, Pen, and How all meaning hill in a succession of languages.) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: K-5 leaked: plausible IMO
On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 03:42:52PM +, SV Hovland scripsit: OK, I see what you mean, but I don't agree with you that K-7 was only a body upgrade from K20D. K-7 gave us more frames per second capture rate. 77 segment metering, fast AF in low light, white balance correction of AF, focus assist light, 100% viewfinder, 1/8000 shortest shutter speed and HD video. A rather large upgrade from K20D of both body and internal mechanics and electronics if you ask me. Body upgrade = anything mechanical or optical or inherently dependent on/glued to something mechanical or optical, such as light meters or focus sensors or assist lights. Electronics upgrade = the sensor and the associated processing stack. The only thing that's not body (to my mind) in your list is the HD video, and that's pretty purely a function of sensor generation. One of the most interesting things (to me) in the K-5 descriptions I've seen is the suggestion that the viewfinder has a transparent LCD that displays the framing lines and focus points. If that's true, it's a body thing, but it implies that (probably in the next one) they'll be able to do a lot more directly *on* the view in the viewfinder. On the down side, it might make it very challenging to put a third-party split-prism focus screen in there. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Also official - DA L 35mm f2.4
On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 01:34:17PM -0400, Mark Roberts scripsit: Adam Maas wrote: Last I checked, the FA was discontinued in most markets, and overpriced in the rest ($775 CDN for the FA 35/2? You've got to be shitting me). Mike Johnston just paid $780 US for a *used* Minolta 35/2 :-0 I suspect there just isn't the market to support sufficient volume in, oh, call it fine primes so we can avoid arguing about what is and isn't fast. Pretty much everything from Pentax in the last couple-three years has looked like as fast as we can get it and hit the price point, and for Pentax that's slower than for Canon and Nikon because there are just fewer Pentax shooters. (Note that increasing that number seems to be priority 0, post-Hoya -- more intro cameras, colours, focus on non-traditional DSLR markets, etc.) I mean, I'd about kill for a DA 35 Ltd. that was f1.4, but I'd actually have to pay something north of 1500 bucks for one, and while I might, in general that would really hurt sales. So my suspicion is that Pentax looked at doing a DA* 30 or 35 or whatever at f1.4, and concluded they couldn't sell enough of them to make it worthwhile to make it. But if they can get a lot of people using the DA L 35 on a K-r, they can maybe change that. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Also official - DA L 35mm f2.4
On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 05:49:13PM -0500, Bob Sullivan scripsit: FA 31mm f1.8 is mighty close to 35mm, a fast lens, and nice quality. It is, and I have one, and the DA Ltd. coatings are better. Expensive but very nice. I'm not interested in a DA 35mm replacement. I'm not sure I would be, either. I'd be a lot more interested in a 400/2.8. But eventually Pentax is going to run out of FA Ltds, and presumably wants to have enough market share to justify replacing them with something of comparably state-of-the-art-at-time-of-design quality. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Also official - DA L 35mm f2.4
On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 06:34:55AM +0300, Boris Liberman scripsit: [snip] Beside compatibility of mount there will have to be a compatibility of color... Did you notice on the colour-simulator page they have the FA43 with colour options? -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Anybody in the northern hemisphere missing winter?
On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 11:27:31PM -0400, Adam Maas scripsit: On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Graydon gray...@marost.ca wrote: It's more than a subset of them are convinced the rest of us aren't Canadian, rather than that they aren't. Said subset is in a demographic vise and knows it. (Rather like Toronto is currently past 30% recent immigrant; the Bay Street image doesn't fade very fast (what with Bay Street still being there) but having one metro region have a quarter of the population of a country still has side effects.) Just another note on this, but Westerners are not in a demographic vise, that's mostly affecting the Maritimes, and to a lesser extent Quebec I was intending to refer to the Pure Laine Quebecois, there. Who are in a demographic vice of the first order. The west is in a _climate_ vice, which is a whole nother problem. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Anybody in the northern hemisphere missing winter?
On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 07:26:05PM -0500, Walter Gilbert scripsit: Ah. Sounds like the Quebecois are Vichy Canadians, and Torontonians are Ontario's version of Parisians. Well, or Westerners generally don't like Québécois and you're getting the opinions of Westerners. It's more than a subset of them are convinced the rest of us aren't Canadian, rather than that they aren't. Said subset is in a demographic vise and knows it. (Rather like Toronto is currently past 30% recent immigrant; the Bay Street image doesn't fade very fast (what with Bay Street still being there) but having one metro region have a quarter of the population of a country still has side effects.) I have no French to speak of but quite like Quebec and various Québécois colleagues I've had over the years. Anyone with landscape photography ambitions could do a lot worse than to spend some time around Quebec City, and you could die of your age before getting through all the good food in Montreal. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Five Swans and Thousands of Cormorants
On Fri, Aug 06, 2010 at 07:44:07PM -0400, frank theriault scripsit: Okay, maybe not thousands, but that almost solid line just below the trees is (believe it or not) a line of cormorants skimming across the water: http://knarfdummyblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/five-swans-and-thousands-of-cormorants.html I've seen them skimming like that in the dozens, maybe even up to 50 or so, but never like that. Any idea what they're up to when they do that? It looks like they're just doing it for the fun of it! It's the start of fall migration, and they're practising flocking, probably. You get substantial groups flying out to feed together, but that's a migration-scale flock. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Semi-OT: GIMP
On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 01:16:36PM -0500, Walter G. scripsit: That said, I do have an ancient version of Photoshop Elements (2.0) that I got with a hard drive purchase many years ago. Any thoughts as to whether or not it would still be better to use than GIMP? If you need 16 bit colour management for printing, you might wish to take a look at CinePaint. (Common ancestry with the GIMP, forked by Hollywood ages ago.) If you're not printing, the GIMP is entirely fine for online images. -- Graydon (it's not actually what one would call _bad_ for printing with the right plugins, either; it's just not 16 bit.) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT: Happy Canada Day
On Mon, Jul 05, 2010 at 07:03:36PM -0400, John Sessoms scripsit: From: P. J. Alling On 7/4/2010 6:09 PM, Bob W wrote: What matters is that he should stop interfering in matters that don't concern him. What counted against him was that he was suspected of being a Nazi/German sympathizer, all else was a convenient excuse. That was Edward VIII and I don't think he was seen as a Nazi sympathizer at the time he abdicated. That came later. As I recall, what came out when the 50 year hold period on cabinet archives expired was that they knew there was a leak near the king, suspected a mistress, bugged the bedroom, and found out that the leak to the Nazis was the king. There was a discussion about how to deal with it that included utilizing the precedent of Headless Chuck; it was decided that abdication worked better. And then they stuck him in some Caribbean location through WWII, because he didn't quite take the hint. I think Bob's fussing about the current Prince of Wales. There are a bunch of people singing Wha'll be king but Charlie? with rather different emphasis these days, to be sure. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT: Happy Canada Day
On Sun, Jul 04, 2010 at 02:25:51PM -0400, Daniel J. Matyola scripsit: If we say that the Queen is superior by reason of birth and has rights that can't be taken away, No one says any such thing. The Queen is the Queen by right of Parliament, _not_ right of birth. (This is, for instance, why there is such a thing as the Succession Act, or why it's widely acknowledged -- since Parliament has done it, twice and a half (Headless Chuck, James the Fled, and Edward the Abbreviated) -- that the elected Parliament can replace the monarch, or, for that matter, why Her Majesty has publicly stated that if she's presented with an act converting the UK into a republic, she'll sign it.) Supremacy of Parliament is a very real thing. Which is not to say I'm not -- being of a somewhat egalitarian bent -- in favour of both a stronger monarchy and a selective one in Canada, rather than one with the current hereditary succession, but the idea that the English Monarchy came down on the side of Divine Right is really laughable. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT: Happy Canada Day
On Sun, Jul 04, 2010 at 03:14:23PM -0400, Daniel J. Matyola scripsit: The Queen is the Queen by right of Parliament, _not_ right of birth. Really? And you believe that? They just HAPPENED to pick the daughter of the last King? What an extraordinary coincidence! If Parliament says she stops being Queen, she stops being Queen. This happened to her Uncle Edward. It could certainly happen to her and if the general run of the British public weren't generally of a mind to see Princess Di's kids get the throne it might well have. Way back -- in the days of Alfred born in Wantage, way back -- being king rested on three things; divine approval, the consent of the governed, and descent. In France -- where about the same thing, for about the same reasons -- held true at that time, divine favour and descent won out, and you eventually wind up at the Terror after some really extremely statistically improbable runs of male primogeniture. In England, up until German George, you get something like half of the kings (and Queen) being the son or grandson of the previous king; you get a remarkable lack of associated piety, cult sites, and so on (mostly due to Devil Henry, Henry II; not only did he have turbulent priest issues, it appears absolutely no one was capable of believing in his personal piety in any way, nor that of his sons, and by the time that was done with it was a remarkably secular monarchy) and you *do* get the consent of the governed, in the form of the approval of Parliament, becoming the one thing that matters. (If Parliament sets the crown on a stook, I will fight for the stook, and that's from the time of Henry VII, fifteenth century.) The remarkably good order since Victoria is mostly just a side effect of the idea of not giving the constitutional monarchy any real power beyond moral suasion reducing the political focus on the office. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: peso real or photoshop?
On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 03:24:09AM +0200, eckinator scripsit: 2010/6/20 paul stenquist pnstenqu...@comcast.net: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=11154265size=lg leaning towards real Me, too; the reflection in the side of the car would be a major accomplishment in photoshop. Which doesn't prevent the driver, etc, from being a PS job but the reflection seems consistent with the ostensible location. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: First the 645D now this
On Mon, Jun 07, 2010 at 09:31:06PM -0400, Steven Desjardins scripsit: It does makes the 645D look good at under $10K. (Although I do question the use of the wordsteal for any of these cameras.) Only way most folks are going to be able to obtain one? -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Old outbuilding wall
On Fri, Jun 04, 2010 at 01:29:51AM +0200, Tim Øsleby scripsit: I think the knife is just a leaf caught by the mesh. Ah well. Sorry to let you down Graydon. Not knowing what to think stemmed from not knowing what I was looking at. This is very likely due to a wetware deficiency on my part. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Old outbuilding wall
On Thu, Jun 03, 2010 at 11:28:38PM +0200, Tim Øsleby scripsit: http://maritimtim.blogspot.com/2010/06/uthusvegg.html Is that really a knife in the window? If it is, that's bizarrely creepy. If it isn't, I don't know what to think. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO Robin at home
On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 10:20:38PM +0200, Toine scripsit: http://www.repiuk.nl/index.php/blog-mainmenu-97/138-robin-at-home So you've got good orange feather detail and bright yellow beak inside the shadowed nest box, and delicate moss green outside the nest box, AND good timing on the bug delivery. I don't think I'm going to collapse into loathing, but I'm going to have to at least consider it. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Yeller Feller
On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 03:09:27PM -0400, frank theriault scripsit: On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 3:57 PM, Ken Waller kwal...@peoplepc.com wrote: As already noted its an American Goldfinch, also called a Wild Canary - Carduelis tristis. The one you captured is a male. this site may be of help to you http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1189 American Goldfinch, eh? I guess they must have flown across Lake Ontario from Rochester, then... ;-) That's to distinguish it from the European goldfinch; American = Americas as continents in this case. Thanks guys. Now I just have to get a decent photo of one! Goldfinches are pretty easy; what you want for a real challenge is to go into High Park and get a shot of a male wood duck with accurate colour representation. -- Graydon, who is still working on that one -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Lightroom workflow Q
On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 08:48:52AM +0100, p...@web-options.com scripsit: Many people are uncomfortable using UNIX command line utilities. Give that man the Nobel Prize for Understatement. A little gentle remedial education, and all will be well for them. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PAW18 - Audience
On Sun, May 09, 2010 at 10:40:25PM +0200, DagT scripsit: Link as usual http://www.thrane.name/page3/page7/files/page7-1000-full.html K20D, DA70mm, 1/3500s, f/5.6, ISO200 I have no idea what that's saying but it's clearly saying something. Well done! -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: GESO - PDML Refus�s
I rejected this one by not sending it in: http://picasaweb.google.ca/lh/photo/Sq0e0U5ChP1EJoH8TViR2A?feat=directlink These two were rejected by the editors, presumptively because they're not cormorants: http://picasaweb.google.ca/lh/photo/1kGTPYcvc64EnB7H2hafow?feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.ca/lh/photo/4IlMAuCnrHRIrfbhQpLlIQ?feat=directlink -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - They're Calling For Snow Tonight
On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 07:53:11AM -0400, frank theriault scripsit: It's May! AAGGG!! Supposing they to be Environment Canada: A few rain showers ending this evening then cloudy with 30 percent chance of flurries or rain showers. Wind northwest 40 km/h gusting to 60 diminishing to 20 after midnight. Low plus 1. No respectable Canadian makes ARGH noises over a mere 30% chance of snow. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Early Morning Run
On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 10:56:39AM -0400, frank theriault scripsit: I took my advice, inspired as I was by looking at the Chicago Dankhaus Gallery this morning, and went out to shoot some. Down at the lake, I took tons of shots. While I'm off doing a little gallery of my morning stroll, here's one that I think might be a keeper: http://knarfinthecity.blogspot.com/2010/05/early-morning-jog.html Hope you enjoy. Comments always welcome. What's that thing on their head? Not to dispute the potential keeper-nature of the shot -- though I might myself want to lose the non-reedy portion of the left edge -- but even supposing that they're waving away flies, it still looks like there's some sort of aggressive scalp-gnawing mutant easter bonnet situation going on. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Something of interest from his Thomishness
On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 08:29:51AM -0400, Doug Franklin scripsit: On 2010-05-05 1:49, Larry Colen wrote: I've not actually done any comprehensive tests. I also always figured that at high shutterspeeds there'd be little enough range of movement that SR being on or not would be moot. I haven't specificially tested for it, but I have done spot checks, and it appears, without the scientific rigor, that SR on the K10D has had a positive effect on my hit rate while panning at shutter speeds up to 1/250 and focal lengths up to 400mm. It doesn't do much for the direction I'm panning (horizontal) but definitely seems to help with the vertical. This is based on some very informal head-to-head testing I did with the *ist D and K10D when I first got the K10D. I think it's pretty much good for user-induced shake all the time. (800mm mirror lens hand-held, for example.) It's a question of when the user-induced shake is the dominant contributor to the image being blurry, and if it's useful then. (so far as I can tell, if you get to 1/15, the answer is no, because the amplitude of the shake is too big in relation to the shutter speed.) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Tripods that fit in carry on
On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 09:58:58AM -0400, P. J. Alling scripsit: I've do a little research, and it appears that no matter what the Mail's agenda, there was little enough reason for a blankett ban air travel. Plenty of blame to go around. Sure there is. The ash is not evenly distributed. The ash is not predictably distributed. There's, oh, one chance in a hundred thousand of an emergency and some lesser chance of a crash if an aircraft flies through the ash cloud, and because it's not a nice neat plume it's difficult to route around. (It could well be worse than that; there isn't a large body of statistical data on flying wide-body jet aircraft through ash plumes because on those few occasions when it has been done it has gone extremely wrong.) There's between 22 and 25 thousand air movements in the affected area of Western Europe every day. So one chance in 5 some flight has an emergency, every day. Four chances in five that you'll get one in a week. Do that for two weeks and the odds of a crash get peskily close to certain. Despite which, many of the flights wouldn't have been affected at all. It's just that the one that *did* get the total engine out and crash would have been correctly describable as completely predictable. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Tripods that fit in carry on
On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 11:29:36AM -0400, P. J. Alling scripsit: On 5/5/2010 10:17 AM, Graydon wrote: On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 09:58:58AM -0400, P. J. Alling scripsit: I've do a little research, and it appears that no matter what the Mail's agenda, there was little enough reason for a blankett ban air travel. Plenty of blame to go around. Sure there is. The ash is not evenly distributed. The ash is not predictably distributed. There's, oh, one chance in a hundred thousand of an emergency and some lesser chance of a crash if an aircraft flies through the ash cloud, and because it's not a nice neat plume it's difficult to route around. (It could well be worse than that; there isn't a large body of statistical data on flying wide-body jet aircraft through ash plumes because on those few occasions when it has been done it has gone extremely wrong.) There's between 22 and 25 thousand air movements in the affected area of Western Europe every day. So one chance in 5 some flight has an emergency, every day. Four chances in five that you'll get one in a week. Do that for two weeks and the odds of a crash get peskily close to certain. Despite which, many of the flights wouldn't have been affected at all. It's just that the one that *did* get the total engine out and crash would have been correctly describable as completely predictable. WTF? The US didn't blanket ban air travel after Mount St Helens, there was no continent wide ban and no air crashes. Yes, there were several planes that made emergency landings from engine damage but they were in the air in the area of the volcano when the eruption occured. Most delays were caused by ripple effects from places actually effected by the plume, and actual air sampling gave a very good idea of where the problems areas lay. St. Helens wasn't the same sort of eruption; St. Helens blew off the top third of the existing cinder cone and scattered that through the atmosphere, it wasn't producing large quantities of ash in the eruption, and the majority of the fine ejecta wound up very high due to the explosive nature of the eruption. (the less fine ejecta came back down.) This particular Icelandic volcano melted its way up through a glacier; volcanic ash is just lava that has cooled into fine sizes -- think powdered glass -- and going up through cold water produces a lot of ash that doesn't go extremely high. So there's lots of ash and it gets up to levels where the jet streams can grab it and spread it around, which are levels where air travel happens. If the US and Canada had taken the same tack as Europe not a plane would have flown in North America from Mexico to the Arctic Circle, for the duration of the several eruptions that took place. That didn't happen. Flights were canceled only where they were at risk. Which is just what happened this time, too. It's just that this particular volcano provided more risk. The US and Canada have been extremely careful about routing air travel around some Alaskan volcano plumes, for example; we've just been fortunate that the ash plume is mostly in places where it can be routed around. (And the consequences of not routing around were discovered to be all four engines out and 747s don't glide so well...) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Peso Raven and nut
Good shot, but pretty sure that's a crow. Ravens have deeper bills and prominent decorative throat feathers. They're generally also noticeably larger than crows, and using the peanut for scale suggests that's a crow. On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 06:51:22PM -0400, David J Brooks scripsit: Another K10D and Sigma 300 f4 outing. These guys started hanging around last year. I don't care for them,. but can offer some entertainment dive bombing the squirrels. http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=10980051 K10D, Sigma 300 f4 Dave -- Documenting Life in Rural Ontario. www.caughtinmotion.com http://brooksinthecountry.blogspot.com/ York Region, Ontario, Canada -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Swan
On Tue, May 04, 2010 at 09:38:25PM -0400, frank theriault scripsit: Okay, this bird stuff is all new to me, so be gentle. I know it's not entirely sharp, but it's (by my standards at least) sharp in some places I'd like it to be (around the head and some of the water ripples and stuff): http://knarfinthecity.blogspot.com/2010/05/swan.html Does it work? Not in black and white. I *know* the bill should be screaming orange, and the strange grey causes speedbumps in my brain. There's something wrong -- this is more of a commiseration than a criticism, because swans are horrors from a managing-light-levels point of view -- with the choice of brightness curves because the base of the neck goes completely flat. Between the noticeable feather detail on the head, the drop of water off the bill, and the feather detail of the back (scapular feathers, but I'm trying to suppress this impulse of precision) it looks like something has gone wrong with the photograph to produce the flatness, rather like the differential-chemical-decay effect one sees in old prints. (if you're trying for looks-like-a-clean-scan- of-an-old-photo-of-a-swan, it's a resounding success, but I don't think you are.) The head detail is very nicely done. If you have more dots there, it would be nice to see that area larger and in colour. -- Graydon, who might point out there's a mute swan nest at the southwest corner of Grenadier Pond within 10 m of the sidewalk. (8 of the intervening meters are water, so it's not particularly crazy of the swans. Not that many people in Toronto actively want their leg broken.) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: K-7 replacement?
On Sun, May 02, 2010 at 10:53:45AM -0400, Adam Maas scripsit: [snip] little caret), but it still fails due to the poor assumption that your launcher and task switcher should be the same thing, a UI paradigm which sucked on NeXTStep and still sucks today. And it forces you to stack running windows, rather than having the option of having each individual window show up on the taskbar when you don't have a lot of them open (one of my favourite things about the Windows-style taskbar). This is why good implementations of the dock paradigm use viewports, too, and a large virtual desktop. You can give every running application or application group its very own screen and switch rapidly between them. That would really confuse people used to the Windows Task Bar, though. (I know this from watching people try to interact with my standard AfterStep desktop setup, so it's not just my emulation of the turnip-nature dealing with Windows.) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: K-7 replacement?
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 09:22:29AM -0400, Tom C scripsit: IMO, they need to come out with a full spec pro body that at least competes with a Canon EOS 5D MKII, or even better a Nikon D3X. They can't. They don't have the money, customer base, or network of noted pros who use their gear and provide publicity. Pentax has missed that train, and is now eight miles west of the tracks at a canoe launch in the wilderness. I don't understand what the AF issue is technologically. For one still being on the screw-drive. You'd think they could license the the technology if they couldn't design it. Pentax *does not believe* in autofocus for SLRs. It is not in accordance to their visualization of the Macrocosmic All. (Note that it works better as focus confirm than it does as autofocus...) Possibly it all comes down to a lack of funding? Of course it does. As a camera company, the only thing Pentax has to sell is a particular aesthetic. (The good small primes thing is a part of the aesthetic. So are the specifics of the in-camera image rendering.) It looks like someone in the new management has figured that out, and started trying to make money with it; the K-x is making money, and that's a damn good thing. The 645D can be another 'unique aesthetic' system. It's niche enough, and potentially good enough, to make money, too. But going head to head with Canikon would require much deeper pockets than Pentax has or can get. It's not at all clear *Samsung* didn't conclude, on sober reflection, that _their_ pockets weren't deep enough for that fight. (Or, rather, that they couldn't possibly make back what it would cost them.) I'm expecting that there will be a full frame sensor follow-on to the 645D; that the interesting shelf of lenses in the photos of the Japanese trade show where the 645D was declared available with get announced; and that people will buy both the 645D and the 645Dlite. It might never do what Ralph needs -- high dynamic range at high ISO -- or it might, it's hard to say. There's an awful lot of sensor tech from the medical imaging and science worlds that hasn't made it into commercial cameras yet, and especially if the cryptic comments about partners indicate a willingness to use sensors from somebody trying to lever themselves into the market by being first to market with any or some of those technologies, we could actually get a good surprise. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: GESO from a Norwegian Pentaxian Gathering
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 10:56:11AM +0200, AlunFoto scripsit: 2010/4/27 AlunFoto alunf...@gmail.com: http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/thumbnails.php?album=20 Glad you liked it folks. Sorry to precipitate so much hatred. Some consolation for David M. and Graydon; The gulls are not fighting over a single fish, but getting away with a piece each. We placed some cut herring on the rocks, pulled up a bench and a beer and waited for just a couple of swallows. Ah! And here I'd been thinking you're managed to see two gulls arguing over a fish close enough to get that shot and then actually *get* that shot. Revealed as dreadfully naive or not, I do feel better about it. Thanks! From the beer, that is. Great fun, and probably repeatable wherever there are gulls, and herring can be obtained. Beer is optional. :-) Beer has to be optional for me, alas; no gluten. And drunk gulls doesn't bear thinking upon. :) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: K-7 replacement?
On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 11:17:44PM -0400, Miserere scripsit: On 27 April 2010 22:05, Graydon gray...@marost.ca wrote: [snip] and the sensor won't be either Sony or Samsung. Which basically leaves us with Kodak, who only makes a CCD, not CMOS, FF sensor. There are others. They're small and poorly publicly known, but that's possibly an advantage for Pentax in their present circumstances. While I'm sure Pentax could do a better job with high ISO than Leica has with the M9, I'd still much rather prefer a Sony sensor. And why did you say Pentax couldn't rely on Sony for sensors? Because Pentax had serious trouble getting them on time and in sufficient quantity, and that was when Sony was just selling them to Nikon, not putting them in their own cameras. Japanese companies do not start buying high tech anything from Korean companies without a very strong reason. Sony, as a corporate objective, wants every other DSLR camera maker on the planet out of business. They may not be able to accomplish this but they're going to try. Makes them a bad choice, different business division or not within Sony, for a primary provider of a critical part. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: GESO from a Norwegian Pentaxian Gathering
On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 07:46:39AM +0200, AlunFoto scripsit: That was odd. I've tried to reset the access rights now. Please try again. :-) Working for me now. The two gulls arguing over the fish shot? Almost enough to make me give up at least bird photography entirely. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: GESO: 2009 Favorites
On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 03:31:52PM -0400, Christian Skofteland scripsit: On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 01:14:40PM -0500, Bob Sullivan wrote: Thanks Larry and Dave too! I always get Egrets and Herons confused, but this one has the green coloring at the eye. And Dave, I thought the fall leaves looked a bit more inviting with the gentleman walking in. Regards, Bob S. That would be a Great Egret. Your shots of the Reddish Egrets are also very nice. Pretty sure those are tricolored herons, and indeed very nice. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: K-7 replacement?
On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 08:59:10PM +0200, Ralf R. Radermacher scripsit: P. J. Alling webstertwenty...@gmail.com wrote: I expect that's because unless Pentax goes to a ~24x36mm sensor, there's not much more except bells and whistles that can be added to the K-7... I still see room for solid, no-frills improvement. Most importantly, they should scrap this miserable Samsung sensor and fit the successor to the K-7 with a decent Sony sensor to put an end to this grotesque situation where the picture quality - in terms of noise and dynamic range - of their top-of-the-line model is largely inferior to their current entry-level camera. Pentax started with the Samsung sensors because they couldn't rely on Sony. After they've got better results than Sony from the same sensor, I'd expect that to be even more true. My expectation is that the next one is a 645D body with a full-frame size sensor. They get to keep to 2 lens lines, they get an intro point out there at well below 10 kUSD, they don't need to replace the body design, and the sensor won't be either Sony or Samsung. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT rank- Link-Delight in Asia
On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 12:51:24PM -0400, David J Brooks scripsit: Received another email to day, from some one other than the one i have been dealing with. Seems they are admitting they made a mistake, but the wording is tough and i need to read between the lines. My missing item may be on the way. That only took 8 weeks, You can't expect direct admission of error from anybody in East Asia. (Just try getting a Japanese software company to acknowledge a bug, for instance.) It's generally more productive to say things like perhaps a package has been misdirected than to say you didn't send one. Even if this makes one's anglo nature want gnaw on rocks. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - And the holy spirit....amen
On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 08:07:16PM -0400, paul stenquist scripsit: Foreground Bokeh: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=10944325size=lg K7 and A 400/5.6, panning through trees. I think I should very much like a capsule theology of the offshoot of Christianity that viewed the Holy Spirit as an egret. I really like that shot. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Ultra-wide zooms
On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 07:32:26PM -0400, P. J. Alling scripsit: Unfortunatly it hasn't been done. Most prime designs are at least 10 years old. In the case of the DA 40mm limited it looks like it's about thirty years old, (see the M 40mm f2.8). [256 lines snipped] DA 35 Ltd. would appear to be a new design and both a very capable one and one that is, in the context of Limited branded lenses, affordable. As far as my very limited experience allows me to opine, people don't like primes because they don't like changing lenses. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Midnight on Augusta Street
On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 09:28:37PM -0400, frank theriault scripsit: Toronto's Kensington Market is alive and bustling during the day, but night time's a different story: http://knarfinthecity.blogspot.com/2010/04/midnight-on-augusta-street.html That one is from awhile back, what with the snow, which I believe only intensifies the why the pluperfect were you walking down Augusta at midnight (in the snow)? question this photograph evokes. Intense and enduring grudge against the Toronto tourist industry? Perverse desire for a complex epitaph? Implausibly lost? -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PDML Photo Annual on line now
On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 08:15:23AM -0400, Mark Roberts scripsit: I'm still re-installing all my apps after replacing my dead hard drive, so you won't be hearing much from me for a while. But I did take time to make the book available :) http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1286080 Was there a consensus on hardcover, image wrap versus hardcover, dust jacket last time around? -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Goddamn Micro$oft
On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 11:23:14PM +0100, mike wilson scripsit: Yes, I put the Pagemaker files through the same software and gibberish comes out the other side. Three different brands of software later (with much conversation with the producers, who are as stumped as I) and I have to come to the conclusion that Adobe dtp software cannot produce pdf files. Six months later, I print the document and scan it to pdf to produce them. Adobe software has a history of being Very Uncomfortable outside of the ASCII character set. This is not a fault of the PDF spec, but of the folks implementing the software. (The most recent version of Acrobat finally went to an internal Unicode representation and stopped mangling Chinese, but there are still some ticks and foibles in there.) I've produced PDFs in Thai, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Polish, Japanese, Hungarian, and fifteen other (mostly Western European) languages, but I didn't use Adobe software to do it. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: fa 100mm f2.8 macro or da 77m f1.8 ltd
On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 09:56:53PM -0400, Doug Franklin scripsit: On 2010-04-13 20:25, Graydon wrote: I find the FA100 is an excellent general purpose things-out-of-reach lens; inside at the zoo, flowers, stuff across the room, etc. Geez, I feel so out of place around here sometimes. There don't seem to be nearly as many long glass shooters on the PDML as there used to be (I know /you're/ there, John Francis :-) ). Pentax no longer sells anything longer than 300, and while I have both 500 and 800 mm mirror lenses, it's going to be quite awhile until I can contemplate hunting down an A* 400/2.8. The FA100 is still remarkably good for inside birds. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT PESOs - Film is king, the king is dead
On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 02:32:30PM +0100, mike wilson scripsit: [snip] http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/bodies/prototypes/MZ-D.jpg Does that thing has a screen in a rotary switch of some kind? LCD display. Similar layout on the MZ-S. http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/bodies/film_MZ-ZX/mzzxS.html You know you could have just posted a link to the MZ-D URL. http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/bodies/prototypes/MZ-D.html ??? Graydon was asking what the screen was, shown in the rotary switch of the D. I pointed out that it was an LCD display and referred to a URL for the MZ-S that had a clearer view of a similar feature. That's a very interesting design choice, I must say. And I can even see how it would be useful, but the idea of wanting to do that in the first place makes my head hurt. But thanks for the clearer view! Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: fa 100mm f2.8 macro or da 77m f1.8 ltd
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 09:03:31PM +1000, Tanya Love scripsit: fa 100mm f2.8 macro or fa 77m f1.8 ltd The FA 100 hurts a lot when you drop it on your foot. The 77 much less. I find the FA100 is an excellent general purpose things-out-of-reach lens; inside at the zoo, flowers, stuff across the room, etc. It's not unobtrusive and it's not a particular good portrait lens and cleaning the front element is an unmitigated pain because it's deeply embedded in the casing. The 77 is surprisingly unobtrusive and makes a good candid portrait lens. It's not good for really close shots of anything, but does nicely at leaning over the fence to take pictures of the roses sorts of shots. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: fa 100mm f2.8 macro or da 77m f1.8 ltd
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 11:06:28PM -0400, paul stenquist scripsit: Uh, a small, light 100mm f1..8 is a physical impossibility. It has nothing to do with Pentax's expertise or lack of the same. If you use glass, yeah. It's going to have a certain mass to it. If you could use diamond diffraction grating lenses, maybe not. Going to be awhile before that hits retail, though. :) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT PESOs - Film is king, the king is dead
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 05:32:41PM +0100, Cotty scripsit: On 12/4/10, Derby Chang, discombobulated, unleashed: the canted top plate makes a lot of sense (especially, I imagine on a 645). I recant *sigh* http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/bodies/prototypes/MZ-D.jpg Does that thing has a screen in a rotary switch of some kind? Cotty, you *know* they're going to stick a full frame sensor in the 645D body and sell it for about 3 kUSD under a name no one could possibly have predicted. And we can all have a good thrash about having to buy medium format lenses for it. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: 300mm Kitlens
On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 06:52:16PM +0200, Toine scripsit: Yes it does have a filter like element on the mount side. I can't remove it manually. Tried a UV filter today and my impression is sharpness has improved, almost razor sharp. Focusing is very difficult. It pops in and out of focus maybe I need a Katz screen. Katz screens are helpful, but focusing being difficult is an inherent property of catadioptric designs; the plane of focus is very flat and has no depth to speak of (most but not all of a blackbird (treating North American robins and the Eurasian blackbird as equivalent units of measurement) at 20m, plane-of-focus depth.). This is great for many applications, especially off support, but it's something of a trick for hand-held shooting. I can manage one in five shots having the plane of focus more or less where I want it handheld on a very good day with something to lean against. Some days it is more like one in 15. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: tripod advice sought
On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 02:17:03PM -0400, John Sessoms scripsit: [snip my tripod laundry list] In your position, I'd just browse BH's web site and find the one that fits my needs and then look for a place in Canada that stocks it at a price I was willing to pay. Nobody does, so I actually ordered from BH. (Which I feel is fair; I've been using their website as a search resource for awhile.) Wound up with Cullmann Magnesit 528C Carbon Fiber Tripod Legs, which might be slightly short but this is probably survivable. (I don't actually know how much tripod head to eyepiece clearance I'll have to with the scope that isn't here yet, so I'm guessing. I hate guessing.) In my position, I'd just order what I need from BH (if one of my two local independent camera stores didn't stock it), since I don't have to hassle with customs to get stuff from NYC. Although I think the hassles come from Canadaian Customs rather than from BH. Sometimes. Sometimes they come from somebody at the shipping company just losing things, but you have to wait until it could not possibly still be stuck in customs before complaining. And at that, I thought Canada was part of NAFTA. Why *IS* there a hassle with Canadian Customs? Load, mostly. They have to collect either GST or HST, depending on which province, and if they're understaffed for the current peak load (which they ought to be about half the time...), things are slow. There have historically been various morality hassles and people enacting their own political agendas, too, which I am not pleased about but don't expect to apply to tripods. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: 300mm Kitlens
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 01:44:24PM +0200, Toine scripsit: Yep it arrived today. Maybe I'll try some stealthy street photography. It's a little soft for birds. It looks like it's missing its full-pass neutral density filter; many of the catadioptric lenses seem to assume there will be a filter, so if you (for some inexplicable reason) don't want to make things dimmer, you need to stuff a full-pass piece of glass in there. Don't know if this applies to the particular lens, but the picture sure looks like what my Rokinon 800/8 did before I got a full-pass neutral density filter for it. It's now quite sharp, if I manage to get the focus-plane-like-a-microtome where I want it. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: 300mm Kitlens
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 07:52:17AM -0400, frank theriault scripsit: On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 7:44 AM, Toine to...@repiuk.nl wrote: Yep it arrived today. Maybe I'll try some stealthy street photography. It's a little soft for birds. Street photography with a 300mm? Good for isolating faces. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: 300mm Kitlens
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 04:11:27PM +0200, Toine scripsit: Thanks, I'll try that with a UV filter. I knew that some lens designs need a filter at the end of their optical path. This one doesn't have a filter thread at the end. Even when you unscrew the kmount part? I've wound up with a bizarre collection of 30.5mm filters, and interesting scars from figuring out how to screw the filter into a place that assumes either specialized tools or very thin fingers. The softness is only visible when the lens is fully extended at 2.5 meter focussing range. It has optical parts in the front and rear. The rear parts don't move during focussing. Most likely the contraption is optimized at infinity. Quite possible. I've certainly never seen the lens you've got, so I'm speaking in generalities. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
tripod advice sought
OK, so I want to stick about 5 kg of spotting scope (127mm catadioptric) on a tripod; I've figured out that a Jobu Designs gimbal head will work with something that size, so I'm OK for answering what head do I get? but am currently wandering off into the weeds in all directions trying to sort out tripod legs. Ideally, I want something that: - has no centre column - is about 54 high fully extended (52 is not too low, but 50 is; 56 would be usable) - isn't heavy - isn't Feisol, since I though the 3442 would be about ideal and they just bait-and-switched me (got an email saying they wouldn't fulfil the order taken by their online ordering system at that price) - has, or has the option of, spike feet - can be had in Canada without resort to surreptitious parachuting And, of course, doesn't cost the earth. I figured the collective wisdom of the list would be a good place to start enquires, and since I do intend to attach the thing to a Pentax camera (1500/f12; better be a sunny day...) some of the time it's even on topic! -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Famous Scientist
On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 10:13:30PM +0100, Bob W scripsit: [...] He won a legal battle a few years ago against a toilet paper manufacturer who used a Penrose tiling on their paper to make it less bulky when rolled. They were judged to have stolen his idea, but I can't help thinking how wonderful it would be if some junior bogroll designer had come up with the same idea... I seem to recall that there are some medieval mosques with tiling patterns that use Penrose tiling, so someone seems to have managed it empirically. (At least; if they published back then, it is not known to survive.) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Another LBA.
On Mon, Apr 05, 2010 at 11:02:23PM -0600, William Robb scripsit: Mike Johnson is right about the 35/2.8 LTD Macro. Yes, yes he is. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: adobe pdf question
On Tue, Apr 06, 2010 at 09:09:59AM -0700, Godfrey DiGiorgi scripsit: On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 11:42 PM, Larry Colen l...@red4est.com wrote: I'm running OS 10.5.8 on an iMac. Every time that I try to print something with adobe reader, adobe reader crashes. If it's in safari, it brings safari down with it. I just upgraded adobe reader from 9.2 to 9.3 and it still does it. I tried printing a PDF with photoshop CS3, but it only has the first page. I was sort of able to print things with open office, but was hoping someone might be able to give me a hint on how to beat the adobe software into shape. FWIW, my printer is a brother hl-2140. I've not had this problem with the latest Adobe Reader v9.3 installed on any of the systems available to me (PowerPC G5 and G4, Intel MacBook) or with any OS installed (10.5.8 or 10.6.3). It is definitely something at issue in either your OS installation, printer driver installation, or Adobe Reader itself. Adobe Reader is 2009's number one target for malware. Just because it's a Mac doesn't mean you don't have to worry about that, especially because PDF attacks can be cross platform. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: adobe pdf question
On Tue, Apr 06, 2010 at 06:02:05PM -0700, Godfrey DiGiorgi scripsit: While I don't disbelieve you, I've yet to see a single credible report of a Adobe Reader/PDF malware attack on Mac OS X documented. If you can cite one I'd be much obliged. Top-posting is of the devil. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/26/more_mac_malware/ isn't Adobe Reader; it's CS4. So we've certainly got a live exploit for Adobe products on OS X. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/26/more_mac_malware/ isn't OS X specific, but it does note that you don't need more than reader and PDF files to have a worm. So I'd be wildly disinclined to suppose that just because you're on OS X you're safe. Some always gets to go first, and the sort of everything crashes situation Larry's reporting is consistent with library damage from malware. (Or hardware issues, or file system corruption, or...) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Interesting comparison : DPReview EOS 550D (Rebel T2i),, Review
On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 08:55:50PM -0400, John Sessoms scripsit: One thing ... if they DO introduce a full-frame DSLR, that means they're going to have to sell a few new full-frame lenses too. Nah. It'll be 645 lenses with an adaptor. That way they can do two lens lineups -- which they can plausibly almost manage -- and in a couple of years when they can get the 645 size sensor into a camera at a 3 kCAD sort of price point they can say throw away your adaptor. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: UK: Photographer films his own 'anti-terror' arrest, February 2010
On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 10:23:55AM -0600, William Robb scripsit: Why is photographing a building downtown subject to police harassment but parking a car beside that same building not? Because pictures of police misconduct frequently have direct career consequences, *and* it's a deeply-absorbed movie-plot threat, while cars are normative symbols of security and prosperity, on the other. Stuff you hear repeated enough affects your thinking _even when you know it's wrong_. (Neurologists are having a fun time with this stuff of late. Makes it really hard to think of yourself as rational.) I wouldn't assume anybody in uniform knows the movie plot stuff is wrong; some do, many don't. The bit about pictures having political and career consequences *isn't* wrong, and SLRs are associated with photojournalists, whom the police generally do not like. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Let's not bitch about Pentax... Let's bitch about Adobe.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 02:46:58PM -0800, Godfrey DiGiorgi scripsit: I have no beefs with Adobe. Their software installs easily, quickly, and works very well. They support it when I call with a question. I bank my living on it. 80% of malware exploits in 2009 targeted Adobe Reader. It's worth avoiding for that reason alone. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: UK: Photographer films his own 'anti-terror' arrest, February 2010
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 03:34:41PM -0500, Mark Roberts scripsit: The thinking of the thugs with badges undoubtedly goes like this: A real terrorist is almost certainly going to use as inconspicuous a camera as possible, but if he does no one will blame me if I miss it. People with large cameras have money, and film the police, which gets them in trouble. This tends to increase insecurity. It has very little to do with terrorism when dealing with actual police. It's all about insecurity management; once you start thinking that people are The Enemy (and you don't know which ones! it could be anyone!) your capacity to do effective insecurity management goes away. If you look at actual crime stats, the trend is for less and less violent crime. But that doesn't sell advertising slots on the nightly news, so that's not what people hear repeated, and repeat *anything* enough and it becomes true. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Let's not bitch about Pentax... Let's bitch about Adobe.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 05:27:30PM -0800, Godfrey DiGiorgi scripsit: On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Graydon o...@uniserve.com wrote: I have no beefs with Adobe. Their software installs easily, quickly, and works very well. They support it when I call with a question. I bank my living on it. 80% of malware exploits in 2009 targeted Adobe Reader. It's worth avoiding for that reason alone. Not one of those on Mac OS X that I am aware of. Is it also worth avoiding Windows for that reason? Of course. You can even find august governmental bodies recommending that you not use Windows for online banking or any other financial transaction. Check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/20/adobe_reader_exploit/ for an exploit not known to not work on Macs. Generally, anything that uses security-by-obscurity isn't. Even slightly. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF and other must have features
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 08:00:06AM -0600, William Robb scripsit: I find these dismissive comments to be a little less than smart as well. I've been very good to Pentax over the years regarding supporting their lens manufacture, being told to go away and stop bitching because I would like a camera that is as good as what the competition had on the market 5 years ago is unreasonable. You've got quantified testing to back that up? I'd be quite surprised at 14 MP APS-C in 2005. (There might have been; I wasn't much paying attention.) (And yeah, autofocus; Pentax doesn't believe in the utility of autofocus. Much more a cultural problem than a technical one, I think. So the current cultural change might have interesting results.) Being frustrated, well; Pentax don't have the tech base to be a good consumer electronics manufacturer. Recent public comments (for in the last 12 months or so values of recent) could be taken as acknowledging that. It then comes down to how they partner, and with who; pretty much everybody who really knows how to do this stuff is either competition, second tier (however hard they're working on climbing), or mostly doing black project work for the USG. Though I'd be deeply amused at autofocus technology from Questar's high altitude observation division showing up in Pentax cameras. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF and other must have features
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 10:54:03AM -0500, P. J. Alling scripsit: Won't do any good, can't find a decent Keyboard for love nor money any more. (I keep searching for and recycling oldies with decent tactile feel). These are oldies, but they seem to have a warehouse of them somewhere: http://www.clickykeyboards.com/ These are brand new: http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html You're going to pay, but hey, it is the most used part of the computer. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF but without intent to start a flame
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 06:17:53PM -0500, frank theriault scripsit: On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote: God is dead. No she isn't. She's just moved on to a new relationship. She says we can still be friends. Were She really omniscient, she'd know that ~never~ works... Ah, but if She's omniscient, She can *make* it work. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF and other must have features
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:55:49AM +1100, Rob Studdert scripsit: On 26/02/2010, Graydon o...@uniserve.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 10:54:03AM -0500, P. J. Alling scripsit: Won't do any good, can't find a decent Keyboard for love nor money any more. (I keep searching for and recycling oldies with decent tactile feel). These are oldies, but they seem to have a warehouse of them somewhere: http://www.clickykeyboards.com/ I run the IBM model M13 black (Trackpoint II) on my main machine the only problem is the silk screening on the keys, I now have no A or S key labels. I have a whole lot of earlier ones too, they are damned hard to get apart though. So when I last spilt a full glass of red wine in one I hung it over the clothes line, gave it a good hose and let it dry for a few days, it's been perfect since. They are very robust (but noisy) I have a milspec M13 (Trackpoint II); it's beige. (The reason it's milspec? 1/8 steel back plate. Less noisy. Haven't tried to test the can be used to drive tent pegs assertion.) Had (well, I still have it, but it's dead) Unicomp Endurapro; it might have recovered from the water but not from me trying to get it apart to dry it. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF but without intent to start a flame
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 08:07:28PM -0600, Bran Everseeking scripsit: On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:55:52 -0500 Graydon o...@uniserve.com wrote: Were She really omniscient, she'd know that ~never~ works... Ah, but if She's omniscient, She can *make* it work. -- Graydon Dat would be Omnipotent Dat it would. (Though if you know everything presumably you know how to be omnipotent...) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF but without intent to start a flame
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:15:57AM -0500, Tom C scripsit: I almost never use the camera on my cell phone, granted it's about 3 years old. The camera on mine scarcely deserves the name, *but* in terms of money and manufacturing effort, it's cell phone cameras and a relatively small space marked other, which is where everything else goes. I find the mindset of those who use their cell phone as their only or predominant camera hard to fathom. I guess it's more about sharing the image immediately than it is about the image itself. Must be getting old. Or it's about social connectivity, which is a major motivating factor in a gang of monkeys. I generally agree with your thoughts. Especially that the value is in the lens, in that they are less transitory than the DSLR bodies. In the short time that DSLR's have been around I find that I upgrade my camera body every 1.5 cycles... Pentax has released 4 flagships... not counting the *ist D (the first), 3 upgrades were made available as the top of the line. I smartly skipped the K10D, foolishly purchased a K20D, and then got the K-7. I'd likely be the same with any other mfr. Certainly buying every new cycle release is a sign of excess disposable income in pretty much every other consumer electronics category as well. I don't see why cameras should be different. I believe that I could get the same or possibly better image quality with film and a good scanner. Though the price of film and developing would likely begin to encroach on the price of new gear, offset again somewhat by the need for more storage with digital, offset by the time required to scan the shots worthy of scanning... Ah, but what constitutes good scanner is also on that electronics release cycle. :) Next transition is the image formation moving out of the lens into lens plus processing, something we are already seeing; at that point, the value *isn't* in the lens, it's in the lens plus a body that has the correct (and nigh-certain to be intensely proprietary) algorithms. I'm not looking forward to that. With luck, Pentax isn't going there. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - There is No Time...
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 06:34:32PM -0800, Rick Womer scripsit: I took a photo walk last weekend to the Penn campus, where there is a wonderful Victorian pile called the Furness Building. I found this on the third floor: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=10730845size=lg The ironwork and its shadow were also intriguing on their own, and I'm feeling indecisive: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=10730843 (K10D, DA 16-45, ISO 800, f/4 @ 1/60) Both impressive, I'd take there is no time in preference to the other. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF but without intent to start a flame
On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 09:55:48AM -0500, Tom C scripsit: Talk about a niche outfit. If it's not a cell phone camera, it's niche. I think it's about functional specs; how well does this meet my needs for what cost? I can see a 135 digital camera being better at ambient light indoor photography, but I can also confidently predict that two years from now, any such body will be obsolete and that the majority of its imaging performance will be available in smaller format cameras in less than a year. So is the six to eight months of better performance worth it? Since this is a hobby and not a business, no, it's not. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like a really good viewfinder; doesn't mean I wouldn't like an indifference to conditions scarcely to be bettered by a block of solid tungsten carbide. But it *does* mean I think the value is in the lenses, and that pretty much all of the imaging performance is going to make it into APS-C with a modest time lag. (You know how the camera business generally has suffered from a lack of regular consumables? Pentax could make them love it by the simple expedient of shipping a camera with insane levels of ISO got by resort to these little blocks of very cold solid hydrogen, the which you must regularly obtain...) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PUG picks
On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 07:55:30PM -0500, ann sanfedele scripsit: I thought I did this already -- Frank, Rick and Graydon made my faves... Woot! Frank and Rick because of the spirit of celebration interstingly caught and Graydon just because he captured so perfectly something beautiful that I always find difficult to shoot :-) Thank you! Though this is yet another one of those cases where the credit is mostly due to the FA31 and not the photographer. (the last three in the gallery) Last but not least, apparently. :) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: On FF but without intent to start a flame
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:13:21PM +, Cotty scripsit: On 22/2/10, Boris Liberman, discombobulated, unleashed: Let's hope Pentax does what I would like them to do ;-). Hat stew anyone? Nah. It'll be a 3cm x 5cm sensor in a format previously unknown to mankind. We'll be arguing about if it's full format or not for the next nineteen years. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: GESO - Tama
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 05:57:27PM +1100, Derby Chang scripsit: Dave's surfing and turfing inspired me to get out there and take some action pics. Tama is Tamarama beach, a much more pleasant place than posey Bondi, methinks http://members.iinet.net.au/~derbyc/10/10_02/10_02_tama/index.htm I don't think the young lady in the last shot approved of you at all, Derby. That's a very good gallery; I'm not even sure you would have benefited from a longer lens. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO: Hermit Silhouette
On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 10:46:34AM -0800, Jack Davis scripsit: [snip] K20, f8, 1/4000, 300mm, ISO 400, bean bag rest on door glass http://photolightimages.com/aspupload/detail.asp?ID=454 The title is simply my constant impression of the Egret. Looks like a black-crowned night heron to me. No North American egret has the dark eye stripe or the head plumes. Nice evocative shot, though. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: peso
On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 05:09:29PM -0800, Sasha Sobol scripsit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sobol/4361136515/ Comments and critique are welcome as always Amazing view, great geology, not quite sharp somehow. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - My New Computer Sucks
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 02:12:51PM +0100, eckinator scripsit: 2010/2/14 Brian Walters supera1...@fastmail.fm: Having just spent the better part of three days sorting out the monitor and external drives and loading up my applications, I don't think I could face the prospect of going through that again. I'll try to sort out the USB issue but I can work with it as it is, if I have to. you wouldnt have to if you swap the drive to a hopefully fault free identical computer =) could be you're just on the bad end of tolerance build up i tend to rule out an operating system problem since it can be eliminiated by a change of signal path Could very easily be a BIOS issue, though. Especially if it's a relatively new release of motherboard. you could have dave's cross check by popping in a usb port card at any rate i wouldnt let the issue go at this point Yup. If the USB traces are that far off spec on the mother board there's no telling what else is wrong. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Less than a month to wait...
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 04:51:19PM -0500, P. J. Alling scripsit: If you can find one. It will have to sell well enough to justify upgrades. I've been getting the impression that the folks responsible for the K20D, K-m, K7, and K-x are pretty firmly attached to reality. It's just possible that this particular camera will also be attached to reality fairly well, and so sell. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO: Stalking the Wild Pentaxian
On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 06:03:52PM -0500, frank theriault scripsit: But for me, I prefer something a bit more stealthy - I'll take black, please... Black isn't actually all that stealthy, especially not a semi-gloss black. What you want is a mottled matte dark green and dark blue camera; much harder to see. (Though much less useful if you mottle the lenses...) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO: Stalking the Wild Pentaxian
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 09:24:17AM +0800, Sandy Harris scripsit: On 2/14/10, Graydon o...@uniserve.com wrote: What you want is a mottled matte dark green and dark blue camera; much harder to see. (Though much less useful if you mottle the lenses...) Getting close? http://www.pentaximaging.com/slr/K-x_Navy/ Still rather glossy, but probably better than pure black for low observability at night. I remember one of the two greens as being pretty good, too. Of course, if Frank starts wandering about in a ghillie suit, someone's going to object, even on Queen Street West. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - Cornered
On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 09:27:47PM -0600, William Robb scripsit: [snip] The picture doesn't touch me, but is that an exceptionally large horse? The Toronto PD's mounted units are primarily for crowd control; if I recall correctly, 17 hands is the minimum size for their horses. Big warmblood hunters with this little spark of can we chase it? lurking back of the docile in their eyes. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: laptops again...
On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 10:13:00AM +1000, Tanya Love scripsit: The reason I want such a high spec'd system is because it will be a long time before I can afford to upgrade again and I really need this to be able to work well for at least the next 3-4 years without the risk of becoming outdated. If you can get it retail, it's outdated. Laptops have a half life around 1 year (a bit less, around 11 months, last time I looked at stats.) 4 years is 4 half-lives, one chance in 16 of making it that far in time. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT- Another freaking Winter Storm Warning....
On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 10:47:21AM -0500, frank theriault scripsit: Not that I want to get into YAGWFW (yet another global warming flame war), it's all about global averages, isn't it? Local weather may be colder or more snowy than usual, but Virginia's snowstorms may be balanced out by the fact that Toronto's winters have been much milder of late than in the past (last year being an exception to that trend). Well, there's some of that, but there's also warmer = more evaporation, and all that water has to eventually fall out of the sky, which it is going to do that at unhelpful rates and in surprising places some of the time. We've had a pretty mild winter this year, with lots of rain and almost not snow. Thirty years ago it would have been much colder and snowier. And there wouldn't have been the cool, wet spring that lasted until the end of July, either. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: laptops again...
On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 04:45:58PM -0700, steve harley scripsit: On 2010-02-09 16:33 , John Francis wrote: Laptops have a half life around 1 year (a bit less, around 11 months, last time I looked at stats.) my previous MacBook Pro (3 years, 1 month old) has just taken over from an iMac G5 as our home server for backups, iTunes and document scanning; my old 12 PowerBook G4 (5+ years) is still going strong as my partner's laptop, and it served both her and her brother daily for about a year; now that the brother has moved out, we had hoped to give him my partner's previous laptop, a Pismo PowerBook G3 (9+ years old), but it hadn't been started in a year or so and something has gone askew in the power train; fixable, i expect; not going to do much Lightroom on that last one, but the G4 holds up well with Mac OS X 10.5 and iPhoto 09 Yup. It happens. There's a difference between it happens and you should make business planning decisions on this basis. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: i'm in luuuuuurv...
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 11:49:56PM +1000, Tanya Love scripsit: [snip] 6. I notice that they still include the green button – a feature that I think is useless and one that I have NEVER used. One I use pretty regularly; it's a good way to be sure that you've got the camera's actual opinion when doing manual settings of ISO/aperture/shutter for some but not all shots in a changing environment. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: pef or dng why?
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 06:17:57AM -0800, Rick Womer scripsit: I believe that the DNGs are compressed on the K7, though, so there is probably no advantage to either format. PEF is Pentax-specific. DNG is a standard of sorts. So the advantage to DNGs is that almost all raw file processing software already knows about it; you don't have to futz about with per-camera upgrades. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: peso
On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 04:26:59PM -0800, Larry Colen scripsit: On Feb 7, 2010, at 4:20 PM, Sasha Sobol wrote: Critique is very welcome. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sobol/4316663584/ or if you do not mind watching it big: http://decluttr.com/4316663584_white Nice shot. I like the tonality and the atmosphere. Yes. I'd crop the top just above the top dishes and the right somewhere around the end of the cabinet and the start of the sink. It feels very static with it centered on Tommy Hilfiger I would have said it felt like it caught the last happy turning moment just before the creature whose shadow is on the wall over the sink pounced, with lamentable and gory effect. Doesn't feel static at all. (I realize the shadow is from the hanging ornament, but it looks like something with wings and fell intent.) So if you're going for an extremely mood-ambiguous shot -- happy? The Moment Before It All Went Wrong? I can't tell... -- I'd say you nailed it. The opinions of normal people likely vary from those of this reviewer. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: k100 viewfinder -- photos
On Sat, Feb 06, 2010 at 07:43:23PM -0600, Charles Robinson scripsit: On Feb 6, 2010, at 15:01, Larry Colen wrote: I took and posted some photos of the weird crazing in the K100 viewfinder: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157623241823983/ It doesn't seem to have any visible effect on the camera, it's actually pretty hard to see, you need light coming in through the lens and need to look at the viewfinder such that what you're looking at is dark, from far enough away to focus on them. That's some seriously screwed-up viewfinder there, Larry. Looks like glass that has shattered between layers of plastic laminate. I would not be at all surprised if that was actually the case. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Laptop computers with good displays?
On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 07:58:56AM -0500, Mark Roberts scripsit: Most of Apple's desktop displays are LG/Philips, with Samsung making an occasional appearance. But I can't find out what kind of display is in anyone's laptop computer. It's profoundly unlikely to be the same display in ever instance of a particular model in any case. Part substitution on that level is pretty solidly widespread. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Laptop computers with good displays?
On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 05:16:21PM -0500, Mark Roberts scripsit: Graydon wrote: On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 07:58:56AM -0500, Mark Roberts scripsit: Most of Apple's desktop displays are LG/Philips, with Samsung making an occasional appearance. But I can't find out what kind of display is in anyone's laptop computer. It's profoundly unlikely to be the same display in ever instance of a particular model in any case. Part substitution on that level is pretty solidly widespread. Part substitution is certainly widespread, but one shouldn't substitute a TN panel for an IPS, MVA or PVA! The folks doing the substitution are doing it on the basis of a very limited spec -- can it display this many distinct colours? -- and cost, not image quality. Typical supplier contracts will mandate 50% unit price reduction over the 6 month span of the contract. Last I checked, guaranteed image quality flat panel displays were two orders of magnitude more expensive than the stuff going into consumer laptops. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Surgery tomorrow!
On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 07:20:26PM -0500, frank theriault scripsit: On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote: Here you are: http://www.robertstech.com/temp/wrist1.jpg 8 screws - count 'em - 8 (One is mostly hidden in this view.) Cool! (I mean cool to look at, but I'm sure Dr. Lisa doesn't think anything of this is cool) Any break they have to pin absolutely sucks, but you can still go from aleph-null suck (radius and ulna reconstruction) to aleph-2 suck (reconstructed carpals). It's no fun being thankful that it's only aleph-null suck, but still. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Surgery tomorrow!
On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 08:34:19PM -0500, Mark Roberts scripsit: [snip] Seriously though, I've beaten myself up enough times in enough various ways that I'm fully aware of how painful a break like this is. It hurts just to look at it. Her surgeon says it'll take 6 months to heal even with pins. Without, it would be at least twice as long and might never heal properly. This is a nasty break. Sounds grim; I hope the events improve on the prognosis. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - computer hard drive question
On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 06:28:28AM +, Cotty scripsit: On 31/1/10, Graydon, discombobulated, unleashed: [backup advice] Many thanks. You're most welcome! If this is your primary business, and the UK has the same sort of tax laws as Her Majesty's Canadian Dominions, you might-maybe be able to claim backup hardware versus taxes. If so, looking at single external enclosure tape drives (LTO-3 or LTO-4) and sticking the tapes in a safety deposit box, preferably one physically located in a region of low flood risk and high tectonic stability. (Up in the crags of Wales comes to mind somehow) Tape is dog slow and kinda tedious, but the monthly backup of the stuff you don't want to lose does rather improve one's odds of still having it ten years from now. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Question of English, American and otherwise
On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 08:54:03AM -0500, Tom C scripsit: [snip] When one specifically states that something is a suggestion, I don't know how it can be interpreted otherwise unless it is almost deliberately misinterpreted. Words are chosen, usually with the intent of accurately expressing the thoughts of the speaker. Turning down I suggest requires a direct refusal. There are (in my rather tactful opinion entirely too gods-be-feathered many) people who consider the point of politeness to be arranging matters so they never have to say no directly. (The ones who consider this point to include never having to say yes directly are a different class of problem.) Much depends on audience; the VP Sales at a primary software vendor at one project I worked on was horrified by the level of argument I and their technical team would get into. We were having a great time, and the project was better for the candour. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Elements 2 ??
On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 03:47:48PM -0500, P. J. Alling scripsit: PNG has a lot of overhead, and are much larger than the equivalent Gif. Makes for a slow loading web page if you don't need them. Only if the PNG has been incompetently produced. Uncompressed PNG will give huge files, but compression is normal and works fine. A comperssed PNG will generally give a smaller file size than the equivalent GIF. (Plus more than 256 colours, transparency, and much more bit depth. PNG is a perfectly good image archive format if you don't already have a TIFF infrastructure.) -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: PESO - pond
On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 05:48:56PM -0800, Sasha Sobol scripsit: http://decluttr.com/4323191136_white critique is very welcome It seems to me you have a good photo of the statue being crushed like a bug by whatever that blue stuff in the upper right might be. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: OT - computer hard drive question
On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 11:42:54AM +, Cotty scripsit: Which would be better? I have a main external hard drive used as a scratch disk and for holding files for video editing. It gets backed up regularly (using SuperDuper - backup software) to a second drive for redundancy. Every few months or so I figure it is a good idea to wipe the main external HD completely and reinstall the backed up files. The question is, which would be better: Nice lady at Google got a *huge* data set on disk reliability and crunched it. Essential take home point -- 3 copies, on 3 different spindles, or you WILL lose it. So, first up, you've got only 2 copies. You're going to experience catastrophic data loss sometime. You probably don't want that. So you need a 3rd external drive. (Different maker for the enclosure and the drive if you can swing it.) Second, _why_ do you think deleting and replacing is a good idea? OS X uses a file system where you shouldn't have to worry about fragmentation in any way. Third, if what you want is a complete wipe, don't delete files; format the disk. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Spotted on Newegg
On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 04:12:51AM +0100, Dario Bonazza scripsit: ... and it's rather different from the 645D we saw previously... Anyone recognize the silver lens band colour? I know DA is green and DA* is gold and the FA lenses have aperture rings and that's about it, but it looks like a possible instance of novel branding. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Spotted on Newegg
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 08:55:59PM -0600, William Robb scripsit: http://is.gd/7g9Hv H. I hate it when there's nothing useful in the EXIF data. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: Please Ignore Me (too)
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 11:14:39AM -0500, John Sessoms scripsit: From: P. J. Alling I think that the law of gravity is unfair and should be repealed. Alan Sokal apparently agrees with you ... http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html Trying to start a mass movement? -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
