A is for Angry Ant, B is for Bee Bokeh

Just last week I was feeling kinda low mentally so to spend time reflecting, I decided to go out and shoot with no specific agenda. Armed with my trusty macro lenses, I took a quiet stroll and shot anything that I thought looked interesting. I guess not expecting any specific subject allowed me to see things a little differently and I came away with two macro shots that I happened to like.

This angry ant was shot using the FA 100mm f/2.8 Macro with my cute little Pentax AF-200FG flash unit in fading light.



The bee bokeh was quite a difficult shot because I had to manually focus the Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro on the brisk moving bee perched on very tiny flowers with a hint of a breeze blowing. To top it all, I had some tourists who wanted a quick chat while I was shooting. Shot hand held using available light with the K20D.

Pink Gerbera

My wife had this pink gerbera lying around and with a little time on my hands, I decided to use my K20D mated with the Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro to record some images of it before it started to show signs of wilting.

Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4 tryout (2)

Some more interesting conversions with a PEF RAW file. Shot during the Garden Festival last year with the K20D and FA 77mm Limited.

Silkypix give pretty pleasant colours of this indoor shot of orchids, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) renders less colour saturated images. For practical purposes, output from DNG or PEF looks the same if processed through ACR or Silkypix respectively as each software will render according to their respective algorithms. Just for versatility I would opt to shoot with the DNG format. Interestingly, the jpeg straight from the K20D is pretty good too.


Pentax PEF RAW file converted to jpeg by Silkypix


Pentax PEF RAW file to jpeg by ACR 5.4


Pentax PEF RAW file converted to DNG to jpeg by ACR 5.4


Jpeg from RAW+Jpeg straight from K20D

Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4 tryout (1)

Tried the new Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4 on my Mac today.
The software interface is somewhat similar to Lightroom's panels and is so much better than the preceding Pentax Photo Browser and Photo Laboratory 3.

In a nutshell, it is a simple software to manage and process your images. Documentation is sparse but it is easy enough to work out the controls. But what is interesting for me is how the Silkypix processing engine manages the RAW files, especially when converted to jpegs. Control on the jpeg output is pretty basic and the conversion to jpegs is simple enough. In spite of the basic nature of the program, I kinda like the output from Silkypix. It has a nice punchy yet pleasant colour rendition akin to increasing the Vibrance slider in ACR/Lightroom/Photoshop.

Used a K20D DNG file of my chihuahua as an initial test. As I don't have a pretty model so poor Pepe the chihuahua will have to do. Taken with the DA 50-200mm.


DNG to jpeg conversion Pentax DCU4 (Silkypix)


DNG to jpeg conversion Adobe ACR/CS4

The software can convert PEF to DNG easily enough but I have encountered an issue in that if a jpeg is to be extracted from the converted DNG within the software (PDCU4), that new jpeg file has a problem and can't be opened up by any program, including PDCU4 itself. No problems if it is a straight conversion from an original DNG or PEF file to jpeg. My experience may be a one-off but hopefully this is not common to all and a quick software fix can be worked out.

Father's Day Weekend Macro

Went out with some fellow Pentax users to shoot some macro shots on the eve of Father's Day. Decided I didn't want to use a flash. All shots with the K20D and the FA 100mm f/2.8 Macro

DA 55-300mm - a nice tele zoom

Quite a long time ago I asked a good friend of mine to source out a DA 55-300mm f/4-5.8 ED, a consumer grade tele zoom that was been getting very favorable reviews from Pentax users. I had just about forgotten all about it when my I got a call to say he had one waiting for me.





I already had a DA 50-200mm, a very nice and compact tele zoom that had been around for quite some time. It's a great lens but if you need to shoot subjects at slightly longer distances like birds or stealth candids, it often felt that 200mm was just not long enough. So it was the attraction of good optical performance and that longer 300mm reach which got me to consider this lens. A price drop also made it all all the more attractive.



Physically, it is comparable to the DA 50-200mm, except when it is zoomed out to 300mm when the longer barrel extesion becomes apparent. The lens is a variable aperture zoom where the maximum aperture changes as the focal length increases. Starting a f/4 at 55 mm, it changes to f/4.5 at 107 mm, f/5.6 at 190 mm and finally to f/5.8 from 260 mm onwards. Minimum focusing distance is 1.4m.



Optically it is pretty good, images are mostly sharp and contrasty. There is some light fall off at maximum aperture but not very significant and nothing that can't be corrected in post processing. About the only criticism of this lens is some green color fringing when shooting backlit subjects and specular highlights. Again this can largely be corrected during post processing. The other issue is auto focusing. This lens has a long focus throw and if used in low light or low subject contrast situations, the camera's AF will occasionally hunt to lock focus. This is largely a camera body related issue but having Quick Shift does help in such situations. Aside from these niggling issues, this lens comes highly recommended.





These images were taken at a recent wakeboarding event using the K20D.

Grape Life

Shot this still life with the K20D and Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro using available light. Obviously this was a quick shoot because the sweet grapes disappeared pretty fast!

Vivitar 200mm f/3.5 first impressions

Today I tried out a old lens that had intrigued me for quite awhile, the Vivitar 200mm f/3.5. This K-mount lens is fairly uncommon and it also comes in a Pentax M42 screw mount version. Got it from a friend in the US who likes collecting legacy lenses so it was interesting to find out the kind of images it could produce.



I went out to shoot some tall grass to see how the lens fares wide open and to check out the out of focus rendering and I have to say it is actually quite nice. Like many old lenses, there isn't the snappy high contrast typical of made for digital lenses today, which is probably a result of the lens coatings used then but it does exhibit good sharpness. Shooting at f/3.5 does have some corner softness but quickly improves when stopped down to a smaller aperture. Light fall off at the corners is not excessive and I kinda like the colour rendition.



This lens is probably overlooked in Pentax mount because Pentax also has the popular M 200mm f/4 telephoto that is more widely available on eBay. However some tests done on the internet pitting the two lenses head to head appear to give the Vivitar the edge optically. The lens looks pretty ordinary in appearance (I think the M 200mm looks a lot nicer) but build quality is solid but not heavy.



About the only criticism of this lens is the dinky built-in lens hood which when slid out is simply too short to be really effective. Like all legacy lenses without the benefit of an auto aperture setting, the only practical exposure mode to use is Manual, which can be a hit or miss affair as exposure readings will vary when shooting at different apertures. So plenty of use of the Green button to determine the camera's preferred exposure is needed.



If you like to try using old manual focus lenses for fun, this is a good telephoto to look out for. And it definitely won't cost too much to give it a try..