Glad you like the camera. Two observations.
One: if you underexpose at all, you increase noise dramatically. Use
EV if you have to but nail the exposures in camera. I get good results
with the K7 at 3200. At 400, the noise level is indistinguishable from
200.
Two: Program mode can be extremely useful once you're accustomed to
it. You can choose menu options that will allow optimization of DOF,
fast shutter or best aperture for a given lens. I usually use the
latter mode. A flick of either the shutter dial or the aperture dial
allows you to change that and puts the camera in aperture priority or
shutter priority mode. A push of the green button gets you right back
to program mode and the stop or shutter speed where you began. It's
simple and an excellent tool for professionals.
Paul
On Feb 7, 2010, at 8:49 AM, Tanya Love wrote:
….with my new K-7. I had an awesome shoot today and was sooooooo
impressed with how intuitive the controls are! I felt right at home
within half an hour or so!
Thus far, these are my observations (some may seem trivial, but I am
a girl afterall!)
1. First thing, right out of the box is that I LOVE the new grip on
it. It is deeper and allows me to tuck my fingers in next to the
lens, making it feel like I have a much more secure hold.
2. Oooooooooh, how GORGEOUS is the screen?!?!
3. I love that it is small and light like the *ist D as I have
really small hands and weak wrists and I still feel confident that I
can hand hold at slow speeds with this camera (even without shake
reduction).
4. I love the continuous shooting !! Woot! Woot! No more filling
the buffer after 3 shots for me! I’m in heaven here!
5. I reaaaally like the fact that there is a really easy to use
button to allow the shifting between drive modes, and likewise with
the ISO button too.
6. I notice that they still include the green button – a feature
that I think is useless and one that I have NEVER used.
7. I think that they are going a bit overboard with the 9 exposure
modes! I rarely use anything other than manual, or bulb, and think
that on a camera of this calibre the green mode and program modes
shouldn’t even be included. IMO, anyone purchasing a camera with
these specs would never give these modes a second thought. I think
that the program and green modes should be left on the lesser
spec’d models like the K-x. In saying this, I can sort of see the
merit in the Tav mode, and might have a play around with it from
time to time, as an alternative to manual. The reason being that I
will sometimes get carried away and forget to check my meter and
then find that the light source has changed slightly and I’ve
underexposed or blown out a shot. It would be nice occasionally to
be able to shoot “freely” without thinking about metering and
still have full control of both the shutter and aperture.
8. I know its superficial, but I luuuuuurve the sound when the
shutter is released – it makes me think of the same sound a Nikon
makes! Lol.
9. I love that the exposure mode dial now has a kind of “locking”
function on it, as I always used to accidentally knock it somehow
and go to shoot only to realise that it had been switched to Bulb,
which was a PIA!
Bad stuff:
1. I know that it is probably redundant anyways, but it sucks that
you can’t shoot in HDR mode in RAW.
2. Noise- my brief today was to shoot an interior (a baby’s nursery
for a magazine) using only available light. I also had to shoot a
moving subject (8month old baby), using said available light. Well,
today we had torrential rain all day and at noon, inside, it had
about as much light as we would normally have at 6pm at night. So,
I upped my ISO to shoot at 400, and was really surprised at how much
noise this resulted in. Probably a combination of two factors; slow
shutter speeds (between 1/5 and 0.3” sometimes) and the 400 ISO,
but even so, I think it is a bit excessive.
Oh, and I never really saw any benefit in the inclusion of a Live
View mode until today either! I was trying to get a wide shot of
the nursery, and the widest lens that I have is 18mm, and due to the
slow shutter speeds, I had to use a tripod. But, I discovered that
I needed to get down as low as possible to get the composition that
I needed, and even with me lying on the floor, and resting my
elbows, it wasn’t low enough and I couldn’t hold the camera still
enough at 0.3” to get the shot I wanted. So, I unscrewed the
centre column of my tripod and mounted my camera upside down on it,
and almost immediately thought to myself “how the hell am I going
to compose this and focus it properly?”. Then, I thought of the
Live Mode. Switched it over and then though to myself “oooh, good
one idiot, now you have to look at it upside down on the screen”.
Well, low and behold, the camera switched the view around the right
way! I was so excited I almost did cartwheels! HOW COOL IS THIS
THING?!?!? Like seriously, Knarf, if you are reading this, from one
broke photographer to another, you NEED to save up and get yourself
one of these beauties, you will be AMAZED!! Lol.
You know something that I have just figured out about myself and the
way I shoot (yeah, I know, call me slow that it took me this long to
realise it!)? In going over the manual of the K-7 and in my initial
shoot with it today, I have realised that I am really a “no
frills” kinda girl, and in reality, THIS would be my dream camera:
Same body, controls, size, screen and general layout and aesthetics
as the K-7.
BUT, the only exposure modes being M, B, video, and maybe Tav.
RAW only for image quality/file format, who the heck can do anything
with a one * jpeg anyways?!?
Same specs in max shutter speed, motor drive, buffer etc.
Live View and video.
Shake reduction.
And obviously as a result of it ONLY being RAW, there would be no
white balance controls.
And THAT’s it!!
For me, all the other stuff is basically redundant.
See, I don’t EVER use exposure bracketing, EV compensation, any
white balance adjustments, or for that matter do I EVER use any of
the multiple AF points. I ALWAYS leave my camera on the centre AF
mode, and then use the focus lock function to shoot with. It is
such a habit of mine now that unless I am using manual focus, it is
the only way that I focus. I simply shoot in RAW and do ALL of
these adjustments in Photoshop, post shoot.
This brings me to ask, do any of you guys do the same? Are there
merits for doing these things in camera, rather than afterwards?
For example with the EV compensation, I prefer to just make sure I
have the best exposure that I can and then selectively underexpose/
overexpose or burn in what I need in the RAW converter, or if it
needs more work, in Photoshop itself afterwards. I prefer to do
this afterwards rather than in camera so that I can have more
options to play with.
Anyways, I know that the way that I do things is probably really
backwards, and probably really girly, but I do like to keep it
simple so that I can focus on the expressions of my models/subjects,
composition, styling and colours etc of what I am shooting rather
than fiddling with controls the entire time, if that makes sense?
One other thing that I am confused about is the RAW+ mode. I had my
camera set on it today, not really knowing what it was, and when I
have come home to upload the shots, it all uploads fine, but when I
try to view the PEF files, they won’t work? The jpgs are perfect,
but neither Lightroom nor Bridge can view the PEFs, does anyone know
why this is? I wonder would this be the same if I chose just RAW
mode, or are the PEF and JPG files somehow linked together? (I have
no idea what I am talking about here, so forgive me if I sound naïve
to it!).
Ok, so I’m going to get these shots edited and online, it sucks
though that basically I can only work with jpgs as I can’t seem to
access the PEFs. I’ll be putting a gallery of them up for my
client though, and will share it with you guys too, afterall, it is
my maiden K-7 shoot! I literally took it out of the box this
morning and went to the clients house! I had set my alarm to wake
me up a few hours early so that I could “have a play” with it,
and our power went out and reset the clocks, so I was woken by my
son at 8am, saying “mum, you’ve gotta go, you’ll be late!”.
(sometimes I do love having a precocious 11 year old!).
Phew, ok, I’ll leave you lot to digest this monster post!
Tan. ☺
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