Well, that is a lot of information...in regards to the green button - if you are shooting manual, you are missing out on one of the best features of Pentax - HyperManual. What this does is the following: There is a setting on your camera for behavior of the green button when shooting manual. When pressing the green button, it behaves like a single reading of the scene and setting of f stop/shutter speed for you. The setting tells the camera to do one of three things 1) Set both shutter and aperture (much like program mode) 2) Use the current aperture and set the proper shutter speed to match 3) Use the current shutter speed and set the proper aperture to match
In practice you don't have to spin both dials in manual mode to set your camera for the current light level. For me, I tend to set it to preserve my aperture. So all I have to do is point where I want and press green button and the shutter speed is set for me. If you try this out you will find it a much faster way to shoot manually. -- Best regards, Bruce Sunday, February 7, 2010, 5:49:56 AM, you wrote: TL> ….with my new K-7. I had an awesome shoot today and was sooooooo TL> impressed with how intuitive the controls are! I felt right at home within half an hour or so! TL> Thus far, these are my observations (some may seem trivial, but I am a girl afterall!) TL> 1. First thing, right out of the box is that I LOVE the new grip TL> on it. It is deeper and allows me to tuck my fingers in next to TL> the lens, making it feel like I have a much more secure hold. TL> 2. Oooooooooh, how GORGEOUS is the screen?!?! TL> 3. I love that it is small and light like the *ist D as I have TL> really small hands and weak wrists and I still feel confident that TL> I can hand hold at slow speeds with this camera (even without shake reduction). TL> 4. I love the continuous shooting !! Woot! Woot! No more filling TL> the buffer after 3 shots for me! I’m in heaven here! TL> 5. I reaaaally like the fact that there is a really easy to use TL> button to allow the shifting between drive modes, and likewise with the ISO button too. TL> 6. I notice that they still include the green button – a feature TL> that I think is useless and one that I have NEVER used. TL> 7. I think that they are going a bit overboard with the 9 TL> exposure modes! I rarely use anything other than manual, or bulb, TL> and think that on a camera of this calibre the green mode and TL> program modes shouldn’t even be included. IMO, anyone purchasing TL> a camera with these specs would never give these modes a second TL> thought. I think that the program and green modes should be left TL> on the lesser spec’d models like the K-x. In saying this, I can TL> sort of see the merit in the Tav mode, and might have a play TL> around with it from time to time, as an alternative to manual. TL> The reason being that I will sometimes get carried away and forget TL> to check my meter and then find that the light source has changed TL> slightly and I’ve underexposed or blown out a shot. It would be TL> nice occasionally to be able to shoot “freely” without thinking TL> about metering and still have full control of both the shutter and aperture. TL> 8. I know its superficial, but I luuuuuurve the sound when the TL> shutter is released – it makes me think of the same sound a Nikon makes! Lol. TL> 9. I love that the exposure mode dial now has a kind of “locking” TL> function on it, as I always used to accidentally knock it somehow TL> and go to shoot only to realise that it had been switched to Bulb, which was a PIA! TL> Bad stuff: TL> 1. I know that it is probably redundant anyways, but it sucks TL> that you can’t shoot in HDR mode in RAW. TL> 2. Noise- my brief today was to shoot an interior (a baby’s TL> nursery for a magazine) using only available light. I also had to TL> shoot a moving subject (8month old baby), using said available TL> light. Well, today we had torrential rain all day and at noon, TL> inside, it had about as much light as we would normally have at TL> 6pm at night. So, I upped my ISO to shoot at 400, and was really TL> surprised at how much noise this resulted in. Probably a TL> combination of two factors; slow shutter speeds (between 1/5 and TL> 0.3” sometimes) and the 400 ISO, but even so, I think it is a bit excessive. TL> Oh, and I never really saw any benefit in the inclusion of a Live TL> View mode until today either! I was trying to get a wide shot of TL> the nursery, and the widest lens that I have is 18mm, and due to TL> the slow shutter speeds, I had to use a tripod. But, I discovered TL> that I needed to get down as low as possible to get the TL> composition that I needed, and even with me lying on the floor, TL> and resting my elbows, it wasn’t low enough and I couldn’t hold TL> the camera still enough at 0.3” to get the shot I wanted. So, I TL> unscrewed the centre column of my tripod and mounted my camera TL> upside down on it, and almost immediately thought to myself “how TL> the hell am I going to compose this and focus it properly?”. TL> Then, I thought of the Live Mode. Switched it over and then TL> though to myself “oooh, good one idiot, now you have to look at it TL> upside down on the screen”. Well, low and behold, the camera TL> switched the view around the right way! I was so excited I almost TL> did cartwheels! HOW COOL IS THIS THING?!?!? Like seriously, TL> Knarf, if you are reading this, from one broke photographer to TL> another, you NEED to save up and get yourself one of these TL> beauties, you will be AMAZED!! Lol. TL> You know something that I have just figured out about myself and TL> the way I shoot (yeah, I know, call me slow that it took me this TL> long to realise it!)? In going over the manual of the K-7 and in TL> my initial shoot with it today, I have realised that I am really a TL> “no frills” kinda girl, and in reality, THIS would be my dream camera: TL> Same body, controls, size, screen and general layout and aesthetics as the K-7. TL> BUT, the only exposure modes being M, B, video, and maybe Tav. TL> RAW only for image quality/file format, who the heck can do TL> anything with a one * jpeg anyways?!? TL> Same specs in max shutter speed, motor drive, buffer etc. TL> Live View and video. TL> Shake reduction. TL> And obviously as a result of it ONLY being RAW, there would be no white balance controls. TL> And THAT’s it!! TL> For me, all the other stuff is basically redundant. TL> See, I don’t EVER use exposure bracketing, EV compensation, any TL> white balance adjustments, or for that matter do I EVER use any of TL> the multiple AF points. I ALWAYS leave my camera on the centre AF TL> mode, and then use the focus lock function to shoot with. It is TL> such a habit of mine now that unless I am using manual focus, it TL> is the only way that I focus. I simply shoot in RAW and do ALL of TL> these adjustments in Photoshop, post shoot. TL> This brings me to ask, do any of you guys do the same? Are there TL> merits for doing these things in camera, rather than afterwards? TL> For example with the EV compensation, I prefer to just make sure I TL> have the best exposure that I can and then selectively TL> underexpose/overexpose or burn in what I need in the RAW TL> converter, or if it needs more work, in Photoshop itself TL> afterwards. I prefer to do this afterwards rather than in camera TL> so that I can have more options to play with. TL> Anyways, I know that the way that I do things is probably really TL> backwards, and probably really girly, but I do like to keep it TL> simple so that I can focus on the expressions of my TL> models/subjects, composition, styling and colours etc of what I am TL> shooting rather than fiddling with controls the entire time, if that makes sense? TL> One other thing that I am confused about is the RAW+ mode. I had TL> my camera set on it today, not really knowing what it was, and TL> when I have come home to upload the shots, it all uploads fine, TL> but when I try to view the PEF files, they won’t work? The jpgs TL> are perfect, but neither Lightroom nor Bridge can view the PEFs, TL> does anyone know why this is? I wonder would this be the same if TL> I chose just RAW mode, or are the PEF and JPG files somehow linked TL> together? (I have no idea what I am talking about here, so TL> forgive me if I sound naïve to it!). TL> Ok, so I’m going to get these shots edited and online, it sucks TL> though that basically I can only work with jpgs as I can’t seem to TL> access the PEFs. I’ll be putting a gallery of them up for my TL> client though, and will share it with you guys too, afterall, it TL> is my maiden K-7 shoot! I literally took it out of the box this TL> morning and went to the clients house! I had set my alarm to wake TL> me up a few hours early so that I could “have a play” with it, and TL> our power went out and reset the clocks, so I was woken by my son TL> at 8am, saying “mum, you’ve gotta go, you’ll be late!”. TL> (sometimes I do love having a precocious 11 year old!). TL> Phew, ok, I’ll leave you lot to digest this monster post! TL> Tan. ☺ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
