Furture Shock! Pentax K100D

Yesterday I got my Pentax K100D. I had a few scant hours to fiddle
with it, and I can see this is going to take some getting used to.

Before I tell my impressions of this camera, you have to understand
something. It's not just that I've gone from a film SLR to a DSLR,
there's more. It's that I've gone from an *ancient* film SLR to a
DSLR, and I think that's where the disorientation comes from. My old
Sears KS-2 (made by Ricoh) from the early 1980s had no autofocus, no
automatic aperture, no built-in flash or motor drive. I never even
owned a zoom lens for it, I just had a basic lens set of normal, tele,
wide and macro. It had a built-in light meter, but that was just about
the only frill. And. . . I loved it! I used it for over 15 years
and felt comfortable with it, and I got good photos out of it. I would
still be using it if I hadn't felt a need to get away from flim with
all its inherent hassles.

I've owned a couple of digital point-and-shoot cameras before, and I'm
comfortable with my computer and reasonably comfortable with Photoshop.
So, it's not the digital aspect of things that is causing me problems.
I love that part.

As I look over the Pentax K100D, the first thing I notice is its size.
With the kit lens, the bulk is just about twice that of my old KS-2. I
don't think it's twice as heavy, it feels less dense. I guess I can
get used to the size, as it feels pretty comfortable to hold in my
hand, and the versatility of a zoom lens is worth something. The
controls strike me as being well-positioned. I've had to refer to the
manual only a small amount as I figured out the basic operation. It
all makes sense, I haven't yet stumbled onto anything really mysterious
about it.

Now here's what bugs me. . . The K100D allows me to focus manually,
but manual focusing is much slower, more awkward and less precise than
it was on my film SLR. There's no focusing grid and splitter! The
K100D also allows me to set the aperture manually, but it's much slower
and more awkward than it was on my film SLR. It's no longer a
physical, tactile process of turning the F-stop ring -- instead I have
to squint at numbers in the viewfinder, and I haven't found any
aperture preview button to let me preview my depth-of-field. The K100D
can operate in "aperture priority mode" which is the mode most similar
to how I used my SLR most of the time -- but the light meter is slow
and awkward to read. In my old KS-2 it showed shutter speeds, but the
numbers also moved along a vertical column alongside the viewfinder, so
I didn't have to actually read them. I could tell in my peripheral
vision what the shutter wanted to do. In the K100D I have to stop to
read and intepret the numbers for both the shutter speed and the
aperture, and it just kills my soul.

The impression I get. . . Is that the people who designed and
programmed this camera wanted it to do everything for me. They
probably think they can program it to shoot better pictures than I can.
It just seems like they designed an automatic, point-and-shoot camera,
and then, as an afterthought, made the minimum amount of changes they
could get away with to sell it as a DSLR. They give you the ability to
set things manually, but then they make it so awkward and difficult
that you'll rarely have the patience to.

Picture quality? From the test shots I've taken so far, I haven't seen
any problems at all. I would even say it's impressive. My feeling
overall is that it's a good camera, but I'm just going to have to adapt
and learn a very different way of taking pictures with it. From past
experience, it sometimes takes me years to warm up to a piece of
equipment, then I end up falling in love with it and never wanting to
let it go. The KS-2 was a sterling example of that phenomenon.
Whether I'll ever warm up to this new camera, there's no way to know
yet. I'm going to give it a chance, because I don't really have much
choice short of going to back to film -- and I can't see that happening.

--
Tony Belding, Hamilton Texas

"Tony Belding" wrote in message
news:2006120608012916807-zobeid@techiecom...


Now here's what bugs me. . . The K100D allows me to focus manually, but
manual focusing is much slower, more awkward and less precise than it was
on my film SLR. There's no focusing grid and splitter! The K100D also
allows me to set the aperture manually, but it's much slower and more
awkward than it was on my film SLR. It's no longer a physical, tactile
process of turning the F-stop ring -- instead I have to squint at numbers
in the viewfinder, and I haven't found any aperture preview button to let
me preview my depth-of-field.

So, you have begun to feel that sense of detachment--that eerie feeling that
you are not really in control of your camera and lens? Welcome to the club!

That sense of tactile gratification that one gets from handling manual-focus
lenses, especially the classic ones with metal barrels and smooth-as-silk
focusing ring action, is gone with these new plastic "wunderkameras." They
may be great at getting shots of fast action--the kind of subjects that
often evaded us when we used manual equipment--but that sense of control is
gone.

My own solution is to continue doing the image capture on film, using my
classic bodies and lenses, and then digitizing the images on the film
scanner and proceeding digitally from there. I find that the digital
darkroom is far superior and less intrusive of my time than a wet darkroom
ever was, but that the auto functions of DSLRs take away from the
satisfaction of taking photos.

And if you shoot mainly static objects, like buildings or mountains, the use
of manual lenses is no problem at all. If you are the kind of guy that
shoots with a tripod, lens hood and cable release, the kind of photographer
that takes his time setting up his shots, rather than snapping dozens in the
first minute, a DSLR might not be so rewarding to you.


The impression I get. . . Is that the people who designed and programmed
this camera wanted it to do everything for me. They probably think they
can program it to shoot better pictures than I can. It just seems like
they designed an automatic, point-and-shoot camera, and then, as an
afterthought, made the minimum amount of changes they could get away with
to sell it as a DSLR. They give you the ability to set things manually,
but then they make it so awkward and difficult that you'll rarely have the
patience to.


Well, these cameras are certainly not for the photographer that prefers 4 x
5 . . . Digital cameras have their place, but they tend to shift the focus
away from the image capture stage and emphasize the post-shoot edit stage.
Whether that is good or bad is something for everyone to decide for himself.
I obviously am not impressed with DSLRs, but I shoot a certain kind of
static subject material that is not really enhanced by automation in the
camera. Sports or news photographers will certainly see things differently.

DSLRs is not a "one-size-fits-all" solution. You might want to consider
returning to film . . .

"Tony Belding" wrote in message
news:2006120608012916807-zobeid@techiecom...
Yesterday I got my Pentax K100D. I had a few scant hours to fiddle with
it, and I can see this is going to take some getting used to.

Before I tell my impressions of this camera, you have to understand
something. It's not just that I've gone from a film SLR to a DSLR,
there's more. It's that I've gone from an *ancient* film SLR to a DSLR,
and I think that's where the disorientation comes from. My old Sears KS-2
(made by Ricoh) from the early 1980s had no autofocus, no automatic
aperture, no built-in flash or motor drive. I never even owned a zoom
lens for it, I just had a basic lens set of normal, tele, wide and macro.
It had a built-in light meter, but that was just about the only frill.
And. . . I loved it! I used it for over 15 years and felt comfortable
with it, and I got good photos out of it. I would still be using it if I
hadn't felt a need to get away from flim with all its inherent hassles.

I've owned a couple of digital point-and-shoot cameras before, and I'm
comfortable with my computer and reasonably comfortable with Photoshop.
So, it's not the digital aspect of things that is causing me problems. I
love that part.

As I look over the Pentax K100D, the first thing I notice is its size.
With the kit lens, the bulk is just about twice that of my old KS-2. I
don't think it's twice as heavy, it feels less dense. I guess I can get
used to the size, as it feels pretty comfortable to hold in my hand, and
the versatility of a zoom lens is worth something. The controls strike me
as being well-positioned. I've had to refer to the manual only a small
amount as I figured out the basic operation. It all makes sense, I
haven't yet stumbled onto anything really mysterious about it.

Now here's what bugs me. . . The K100D allows me to focus manually, but
manual focusing is much slower, more awkward and less precise than it was
on my film SLR. There's no focusing grid and splitter! The K100D also
allows me to set the aperture manually, but it's much slower and more
awkward than it was on my film SLR. It's no longer a physical, tactile
process of turning the F-stop ring -- instead I have to squint at numbers
in the viewfinder, and I haven't found any aperture preview button to let
me preview my depth-of-field. The K100D can operate in "aperture priority
mode" which is the mode most similar to how I used my SLR most of the
time -- but the light meter is slow and awkward to read. In my old KS-2
it showed shutter speeds, but the numbers also moved along a vertical
column alongside the viewfinder, so I didn't have to actually read them.
I could tell in my peripheral vision what the shutter wanted to do. In
the K100D I have to stop to read and intepret the numbers for both the
shutter speed and the aperture, and it just kills my soul.

It is something you just have to get used to. Autofocus film SLRs have been
this way since the mid-1980s. The throw of the focus ring is so short on
lenses that it is not as easy to focus accurately and the screen has a
course grain for brightness, not as great for manual focusing. If I'm not
mistaken, you can put A series Pentax lenses that still have the aperture
ring and smooth, long throw focusing ring, for some of that old time camera
feel. Many of those older fixed focus lenses will likely deliver a better
image quality as well.
John

The impression I get. . . Is that the people who designed and programmed
this camera wanted it to do everything for me. They probably think they
can program it to shoot better pictures than I can. It just seems like
they designed an automatic, point-and-shoot camera, and then, as an
afterthought, made the minimum amount of changes they could get away with
to sell it as a DSLR. They give you the ability to set things manually,
but then they make it so awkward and difficult that you'll rarely have the
patience to.

Picture quality? From the test shots I've taken so far, I haven't seen
any problems at all. I would even say it's impressive. My feeling
overall is that it's a good camera, but I'm just going to have to adapt
and learn a very different way of taking pictures with it. From past
experience, it sometimes takes me years to warm up to a piece of
equipment, then I end up falling in love with it and never wanting to let
it go. The KS-2 was a sterling example of that phenomenon. Whether I'll
ever warm up to this new camera, there's no way to know yet. I'm going to
give it a chance, because I don't really have much choice short of going
to back to film -- and I can't see that happening.

--
Tony Belding, Hamilton Texas

On Wed, 6 Dec 2006 08:01:29 -0600, Tony Belding
wrote:


Picture quality? From the test shots I've taken so far, I haven't seen
any problems at all. I would even say it's impressive. My feeling
overall is that it's a good camera, but I'm just going to have to adapt
and learn a very different way of taking pictures with it. From past
experience, it sometimes takes me years to warm up to a piece of
equipment, then I end up falling in love with it and never wanting to
let it go. The KS-2 was a sterling example of that phenomenon.
Whether I'll ever warm up to this new camera, there's no way to know
yet. I'm going to give it a chance, because I don't really have much
choice short of going to back to film -- and I can't see that happening.


Give it time. Shooting with digital cameras gives
some interesting options..

* shoot more pics, sort 'em out later
* vary ISO as required
* post-processing (esp. with RAW capture)
* no need to "wait" for film processing

etc etc.

One disadvantage (for most digicams) is that
manual focusing is difficult or works poorly.
So I just use AF and let it be. Works pretty
well, most of the time.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

jeremy wrote:

My own solution is to continue doing the image capture on film, using my
classic bodies and lenses, and then digitizing the images on the film
scanner and proceeding digitally from there. I find that the digital
darkroom is far superior and less intrusive of my time than a wet darkroom
ever was, but that the auto functions of DSLRs take away from the
satisfaction of taking photos.

Interesting; to me one of the great benefits of digital
is the ability to take "risky" shots, knowing
that if they don't come out, they cost nothing.

e.g.

long hand held exposures - I just delete
the ones with motion blur.

deliberate motion blur

difficult exposures (e.g. black velvet backgrounds);
just bracket (manually if necc) and delete the bad exposures.

active animals and children; just keep shooting!!
use motor drive (continous feed) if neccessary.

In any case, with the shutter lag on many cameras,
this is the only solution to capturing anything
good from rapidly moving subjects; if you can't
control capturing a moment, capture lots of moments
and edit!

All part of the joy of digital (for me...)

BugBear

"bugbear" wrote in message
...
jeremy wrote:

My own solution is to continue doing the image capture on film, using my
classic bodies and lenses, and then digitizing the images on the film
scanner and proceeding digitally from there. I find that the digital
darkroom is far superior and less intrusive of my time than a wet
darkroom ever was, but that the auto functions of DSLRs take away from
the satisfaction of taking photos.

Interesting; to me one of the great benefits of digital
is the ability to take "risky" shots, knowing
that if they don't come out, they cost nothing.

e.g.

long hand held exposures - I just delete
the ones with motion blur.

deliberate motion blur

difficult exposures (e.g. black velvet backgrounds);
just bracket (manually if necc) and delete the bad exposures.

active animals and children; just keep shooting!!
use motor drive (continous feed) if neccessary.

In any case, with the shutter lag on many cameras,
this is the only solution to capturing anything
good from rapidly moving subjects; if you can't
control capturing a moment, capture lots of moments
and edit!

All part of the joy of digital (for me...)

BugBear



That's why there is chocolate and vanilla.

I do have a digital P&S for snapshots. Tons of great photos were taken on
film, and there is no reason why film cannot continue to be the vehicle for
excellent images now. Perhaps its the contrarian in me, but I am going to
continue doing it the way I've done it for 40 years. The world won't stop
turning if some of us stick with film for our serious work.

jeremy wrote:
"bugbear" wrote in message

Interesting; to me one of the great benefits of digital
is the ability to take "risky" shots, knowing
that if they don't come out, they cost nothing.

e.g.

long hand held exposures - I just delete
the ones with motion blur.

deliberate motion blur

difficult exposures (e.g. black velvet backgrounds);
just bracket (manually if necc) and delete the bad exposures.

active animals and children; just keep shooting!!
use motor drive (continous feed) if neccessary.

In any case, with the shutter lag on many cameras,
this is the only solution to capturing anything
good from rapidly moving subjects; if you can't
control capturing a moment, capture lots of moments
and edit!

All part of the joy of digital (for me...)

That's why there is chocolate and vanilla.

And pecan praline, and mint chocolate chip, and ......

I do have a digital P&S for snapshots. Tons of great photos were taken on
film, and there is no reason why film cannot continue to be the vehicle for
excellent images now. Perhaps its the contrarian in me, but I am going to
continue doing it the way I've done it for 40 years. The world won't stop
turning if some of us stick with film for our serious work.

It's a good thing, that. I'm pretty contrarian, too, but after 40 years,
I made a transition to digital. Both paths are not only feasible, but
enjoyable. Just as long as we don't listen to the naysayers at the extremes.

When I got my first digital, a v. high q. Canon p+s, the G3, I'd been
out of practice, so I used a lot of help from the camera's semi
automatic settings. Now four years later, I am closer to shooting the
way I did when I started: all manual.

Happy shooting to you both.

--
John McWilliams

On Dec 6, 7:01 am, Tony Belding wrote:
Yesterday I got my Pentax K100D. I had a few scant hours to fiddle
with it, and I can see this is going to take some getting used to.

I found the transition from a Pentax MX (no auto modes) to a Pentax
*istDS very easy. Far easier than trying to get used to my Olympus
750UZ that I stopped using when I got the DS. I tell anyone that asks
that it's just like using a film camera. I use it full manual with my
old K mount lenses but I'm also enjoying the auto focus DA lenses.

I do miss the split image focus screen though.

Andy

jeremy wrote:

And if you shoot mainly static objects, like buildings or mountains, the use
of manual lenses is no problem at all. If you are the kind of guy that
shoots with a tripod, lens hood and cable release, the kind of photographer
that takes his time setting up his shots, rather than snapping dozens in the
first minute, a DSLR might not be so rewarding to you.

Or a DSLR might be just the right way to go, with a good tripod head
that is.
I submit that once take the time to set you camera up on a tripod there
is no reason not to take a number of photos and stitch them into a much
higher resolution photo. I offer this sample as what stitching can do.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/68468500/large
To see the full resolution version hit Original at the bottom of the
photo
Once the tripod was setup it took 1 minute and 15 seconds to get the
shoots needed to do the stitching.

The time it takes to stitch the photos in on par with doing a hires
scan of 35mm film with DICE turned on.

I mostly use prime lenses when photographing to stitch, my 50mm 1.8 is
my favorite. The neat part is that I can get as wide and angle shot as
I want with the 50mm lens by just taking more photos, note due to the
1.6 crop factor the 50mm gives me the same field of view as an 80mm
would on a film body.

A side benefit is that you can adjust prospective when stitching very
much as it you were using a large format camera.

I keep harping on this because one and a while someone listens, Roger
Clack use to shoot a lot of LF not he is stitching, see the link here
for his experiences.
http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo/large_mosaics/

You can get carried away with this but of late I have scaled back the
number of photos I take in the stitched photo, I now normally shoot
just 10 photos, two rows of 5, in portrait orientation. These 10
photos take about 20 seconds to take and the stitching only takes about
6 minutes. Note the stitching time is computer time not my time, which
is much less. The end result of stitching the 10 photos is a photo that
has right around 50MP.

Scott

On Dec 6, 9:01 am, Tony Belding wrote:
Yesterday I got my Pentax K100D. I had a few scant hours to fiddle
with it, and I can see this is going to take some getting used to.

Before I tell my impressions of this camera, you have to understand
something. It's not just that I've gone from a film SLR to a DSLR,
there's more. It's that I've gone from an *ancient* film SLR to a
DSLR, and I think that's where the disorientation comes from. My old
Sears KS-2 (made by Ricoh) from the early 1980s had no autofocus, no
automatic aperture, no built-in flash or motor drive. I never even
owned a zoom lens for it, I just had a basic lens set of normal, tele,
wide and macro. It had a built-in light meter, but that was just about
the only frill. And. . . I loved it! I used it for over 15 years
and felt comfortable with it, and I got good photos out of it. I would
still be using it if I hadn't felt a need to get away from flim with
all its inherent hassles.

I've owned a couple of digital point-and-shoot cameras before, and I'm
comfortable with my computer and reasonably comfortable with Photoshop.
So, it's not the digital aspect of things that is causing me problems.
I love that part.

As I look over the Pentax K100D, the first thing I notice is its size.
With the kit lens, the bulk is just about twice that of my old KS-2. I
don't think it's twice as heavy, it feels less dense. I guess I can
get used to the size, as it feels pretty comfortable to hold in my
hand, and the versatility of a zoom lens is worth something. The
controls strike me as being well-positioned. I've had to refer to the
manual only a small amount as I figured out the basic operation. It
all makes sense, I haven't yet stumbled onto anything really mysterious
about it.

Now here's what bugs me. . . The K100D allows me to focus manually,
but manual focusing is much slower, more awkward and less precise than
it was on my film SLR. There's no focusing grid and splitter! The
K100D also allows me to set the aperture manually, but it's much slower
and more awkward than it was on my film SLR. It's no longer a
physical, tactile process of turning the F-stop ring -- instead I have
to squint at numbers in the viewfinder, and I haven't found any
aperture preview button to let me preview my depth-of-field. The K100D
can operate in "aperture priority mode" which is the mode most similar
to how I used my SLR most of the time -- but the light meter is slow
and awkward to read. In my old KS-2 it showed shutter speeds, but the
numbers also moved along a vertical column alongside the viewfinder, so
I didn't have to actually read them. I could tell in my peripheral
vision what the shutter wanted to do. In the K100D I have to stop to
read and intepret the numbers for both the shutter speed and the
aperture, and it just kills my soul.

The impression I get. . . Is that the people who designed and
programmed this camera wanted it to do everything for me. They
probably think they can program it to shoot better pictures than I can.
It just seems like they designed an automatic, point-and-shoot camera,
and then, as an afterthought, made the minimum amount of changes they
could get away with to sell it as a DSLR. They give you the ability to
set things manually, but then they make it so awkward and difficult
that you'll rarely have the patience to.

Picture quality? From the test shots I've taken so far, I haven't seen
any problems at all. I would even say it's impressive. My feeling
overall is that it's a good camera, but I'm just going to have to adapt
and learn a very different way of taking pictures with it. From past
experience, it sometimes takes me years to warm up to a piece of
equipment, then I end up falling in love with it and never wanting to
let it go. The KS-2 was a sterling example of that phenomenon.
Whether I'll ever warm up to this new camera, there's no way to know
yet. I'm going to give it a chance, because I don't really have much
choice short of going to back to film -- and I can't see that happening.

--
Tony Belding, Hamilton Texas

One of the funny disconnects with DSLR, is the cheaper they go, the
more they do for you. In the '70s the hey-day of film SLRs the cheap
cameras had no frills, nothing automatic, and it forced you to learn
some photography or put the thing on a shelf (no Ebay). That's how I
got my first Leica, my cousin's husband's father had bought an M3 in
the late 50s, found he couldn't figure it out, sold it to me in 1972
for $125. Sorry to digress.

Anyway, the more expensive DSLRs get the easier they get to understand
and use from a basic film perspective. You might want to look at the
K10 Pentax, yes twice the price but a lot more camera. It also has a
real prism in the viewfinder which makes a big difference in manual
focusing. More expensive may have more complex menus too, but you get
used to that.

You may want to dump the slow zoom and look at fast prime lenses for
the camera, also helps with a dim viewfinder. I find myself often
ignoring all the bells an whistles on my D200 and just use manual, due
to budget restrictions I have bought most of my lenses second hand and
really like the images I'm getting. I only have one zoom lens, for
telephoto, my main lens is a 24mm f2 (35equiv. 36mm), it's a manual
focus.

Post processing is the other thing you have to get used to, think of it
as developing your film. RAW files are really the way to go if you are
doing anything beyond snap shots. They can be batched processed
(developing a whole roll) or indivdually processed.

Brave new world, but very interesting. Still have my film drawer in the
fridge....

Tom