PhotographyBanzai.com

The first article on the speed of the SD cards I wrote was pretty successful. I get quite a bit of traffic from that, so I think people probably find it useful. The issue with writing follow up articles is that I’m limited to what I have on hand to test with (if you have contacts to acquire test cards let me know). It’s been a few months and I did buy 4 extra SD cards (2 types) making it possible to write another article. In addition to those regular SD cards I scavenged around to find any else that would be testable. I eventually found quite a few micro SD cards, and I also have a single new Compact Flash card that I was curious about performance. The goal in this article, as was in the first, is to see how fast these cards write data. When being used in a camera, the write speed is the most important factor to performance. The testing process: I went over this in the first article, but basically I use a built-in Ubuntu Linux utility to test the speed of the cards in an internal USB ...

Have you been interested in trying out action photography? I have too! Just recently two friends and I tried out some basic action photography on a whim as were were taking photos at a local park. I thought that writing about what we did and adding a bit extra on how to do animated sequences (GIF files) in Adobe Photoshop would be a fun supplement to the main article. We switched cameras, so a friend took that image above with my camera (cropped). Camera setting suggestions: Set the camera to continuous shooting mode (high-speed). I was using a K-7 camera that has around 5 FPS maximum, which is alright. The faster your camera can take frames, the better your sequences will be. Set your camera to continuous auto-focus (AF-C) to start. Chances are that using AF-C mode it will slow your camera down, so you might want to experiment with manual focus. When in AF-C mode, try using just a single point like the center one. That way you can be sure to focus on your subject and not somet...

After being at a local Japanese garden a few days ago, we went to a local park that has a large amount of graffiti. I have some additional photos on this site from the same place, but I thought I’d add some from the recent trip as things change frequently.  I used the FA* 85mm f1.4 and DA 14mm f2.8 lenses. The 85mm is frankly amazing at rendering pleasing backgrounds. Not much else to say except that Pentax needs to release a D-FA WR version of the 85mm lens with rounded aperture blades and such just like they did with the FA 100mm f2.8 macro lens. A D-FA 85mm f1.4 WR would be a prefect lens by most accounts. I’m just a back seat driver, so what do I know though? 🙂

Now that the Pentax Q has started shipping, there is a lot more information available. I mentioned the Q back in June and I think a lot of what I said is still valid. I’m personally still on the middle road with the Q. I see positive aspects, but at the current price and lacking a few Pentax features (WR for example) it isn’t something I would be willing to spend my limited funds on at the moment. The main appeal to me personally is the possibilities of experimental photography that I’ll get to later in this article. The first week of sales in Japan look pretty strong (first noticed that link on pentaxforums.com and then 1001noisycameras.com). The white version was at #11 and the black at #17). This result proves an idea I had recently… The Q is certainly something unique. From my perspective it seems like an offering that is meant to show people how fun photography can be anywhere and everywhere (well besides rain, no WR sadly). It has a very Japanese flair to it. I really thin...

I used the Pentax K-7 with a 14mm f2.8 and 85mm f1.4 lens. You can probably see the stark contrast between shots as field of view and depth of field attributes are so different between the two lenses. I also tried some fast and slow shutter speed control with water features, which was fun. Seeing as tripods are not allowed there, I just put my camera on my camera bag for longer exposures and it worked out nicely.  I also had a polarizing filter that fits my 85mm that I experimented a bit with too. I was able to get a 3 second exposure with the filter on. This is just a small sampling of the 400 or so photos I took, but my site (and bandwidth) are not unlimited, so I am just showing you a few of my favorites. The garden is worth the small admission fee they charge, so I would suggest checking it out if you are in the Northern Illinois area.

More question and answer time! I answered this question before the last one I posted, but didn’t get around to posting this one. 🙂 Question. having worked with a number of nice lenses, how big a difference would you say the difference between a 1.2 and a 2.8 aperture makes? I think it depends on what you are interested in doing. If you are not interested in super smooth background blur or keeping your ISO as low as possible, then f2.8 is a decent fast-enough aperture for a lens. For example, I used a 40mm f2.8 lens most of the time at Otakon 2011. F2.8 isn’t that fast for a prime lens, but it is good enough because I was planning on using an external flash whenever I used the lens. F2.8 with the right settings and composition can produce really nice background blur. As I’m sure you know, some convention settings are dark with yellow colored light (dealers rooms or hotel settings). In those settings, f2.8 is alright if you are willing to crank up your ISO a bit, but there are negatives...

Fall is usually a time for new camera announcements. Just recently Pentax France showed a promo PDF that hinted at a new camera body besides the Q and 645D. They have since modified the PDF and removed the hint, but it’s interesting at least. If you frequent PentaxForums.com, you will know a debate on Pentax Full-frame comes up every so often. As I’m a person who feels I could benefit from Pentax FF, I usually post at least one message stating my reasons. This time , the discussion started with a pretty strong argument for full-frame. I agree that for Pentax to get back the popularity they had in their heyday, they should have at least one camera for each audience. We see that they are expanding their offerings after cutting back a bit on 35mm. They now have three digital systems (K, 645, and Q), so they are trying to increase their general appeal. Recent 35mm lens releases have been pretty yawn inducing from an enthusiast point of view. I wonder if it was because they were working on ...

Here is another question I received recently: I just wanted your opinion on k-5. Does it really warrant an upgrade from K-x? Should I try K-7 before breaking bank to upgrade to K-5? I’d say skip the K-7. The sensor in the K-7 has poor high-ISO capabilities. I like the camera and it has been my most used and dependable SLR ever, but I know the faults and work around them. I think the K-x’s sensor is technically better than the one in the K-7. Everything else about the camera I’d give to the K-7. There would be a pretty big difference from the K-5 to K-x. My first suggestion would be to handle one if you can. See if there are any mom & pop camera shops in your area that sell Pentax SLRs. I think the K-5 might go down in price more in the coming months as all of the new camera releases are announced. That recent K-5 rebate is a decent price reduction, but wasn’t really that much compared to the going rate a week ago. A few differences: – AF indicator lights in the viewfinder. – AF mic...

Fujifilm (or as I prefer to say…Fuji) just officially released details on their new X10 camera.  As I was saying, they have a different perspective with this camera as they did with the x100. 2/3″ sensor A fast zoom lens that goes from f2 – f2.8, with a minimum aperture of f11…? Is a minimum of f11 normal for smaller cameras? That seems odd. The most interesting thing about this is the manual zoom ring with the “power button” integrated in to it. Optical stabilization. An optical viewfinder. 7fps still image capture. Very attractive retro look with metal top and bottom plates. A good number of external controls for easy access to needed functionality. A few issues I see: It has an area of 58.1mm^2 for the sensor, which is pretty far from 4/3″ at 225mm^2 or APS-C at 370mm^2. Looking at it another way, it’s the biggest of the small fry digicam sensor options. Why go from that amazing x100 viewfinder to a physically tiny 85% viewfinder? Sure, it’s better than digicams, but how will i...

Is it time for us to start calling some digital equipment retro? Digital SLRs go out of style pretty quickly, sometimes as soon as a few years. However, there can be benefits to using older equipment, which I’ll try to cover in this review. The most obvious benefit is using equipment that was initially for pro-level photographers, but getting it at a cut-rate price used. While the *istD is on the borderline of what I would call pro-level, it does have a control layout that makes it justifiably part of that group. History: The Pentax *ist D (* is pronounced “star”) was the first DSLR released by Pentax in 2003. It is was and still is one of the smallest enthusiast-pro level camera bodies. If I can put it a bit harshly, Pentax regurgitated the internals of this camera into many of their following models. The closest is the *ist DS and DS2, but quite a few of the earlier K series cameras used the same sensor and presumably other internal parts. The *istD didn’t have a true success...