I took the K10D this afternoon to Phoenix's Desert Botanical Garden. I took along the FA* 300 F4.5, the FA* 200 F4 Macro, and the A 50 F1.2. I deliberately left the monopod at home because I wanted to try out shake reduction with long lenses.
I learned several things. Since PEF images are compressed, I had wondered why the K10D reports the same number of images available whether the format is PEF (compressed) or DNG (uncompressed). With a 2 GB card, the camera reports that 123 images are initially available, regardless of format. I had thought that it would report more in compressed PEF format. Anyway, I spent the day shooting compressed PEFs. I started the afternoon with the camera showing 123 images available. Well, 123 images later, the camera shows that I have 43 images left. So if you shoot in PEF format, the camera continually recalculates how many images are left. I had trouble with SV mode. The rear wheel is not well positioned. I find that my thumb rests on the wheel, and turns it without me being aware that this is happening. Suddenly I found myself shooting at ISO 1600, without wanting to. The solution was to assign ISO to the front dial, and program shift to the rear dial. End of problem. I thought I would have no use for TAv mode. But following fast little quail today, I found that it is quite useful. I just set the camera for 1/500 @ F5.6, and forgot about ISO. This mode makes photographing such fast-moving subjects easier. The Pentax engineer who supervised the camera's design said that the mirror slap is not as quiet as it could be due to cost. Well, it is far quieter than the *ist D or the PZ-1p. I find it's sound pleasant. Compared to my *ist D, the camera is so quick and responsive. AF outdoors is fast, but I would say only a little faster than my D. The K10D does much better indoors in low light. Still, with the 200 and 300 mm lenses on it, the K10D would occasionally hunt. I started the afternoon using the FA* 300 F4.5. At first I was getting images that looked badly underexposed. The histograms were shifted far to the left. But when I looked just now at the images through the Pentax Photo Browser, the ones I thought were underexposed didn't look bad. Still, at the end of the day I put the old SMC F 70-210 on the camera and took one photo. The image is definitely a little underexposed. The day's one real negative is that my top lcd panel does not seem to illuminate as it should. What a nuisance if I have to send it in for repairs just for that. Look for some images from the day. Joe -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
