Took the Pentax *ist DS to the War & Peace Show yesterday

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Helen Edith Stephenson - 24 Jul 2005 18:28 GMT

I took nearly 300 pictures - all best quality JPEGs.

I used the standard 18-55 autofocus lens and when I wanted to go in
close, I used my old Tamron 85-210 manual lens.

I even popped the flash up for some pictures inside the "jungle tunnel",
which was very dimly lit. The flash pre-fired to give the autofocus
something to go on. That's the first time I've ever seen it do that -
not being much of a flash user:-)

I have a habit of using my thumb to operate the shutter when I take
shots in portrait mode, and I've discovered that it is very easy to
switch the camera off with my thumb under those circumstances. I did it
several times:-( That must be the only complaint I've got about handling
my DS.

I've distilled out a small selection from the pictures I took:

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/helenedithuk/album?.dir=/44ec

Anything with 'ed' on the end of its name has been edited, while the
rest are straight out of the camera. The Buddha picture has had a
watercolour effect applied from PhotoMagic; and the bird picture (taken
through wire mesh) has had some unsharp mask applied. The rest are
straight pictures with just brightness, contrast and colour balance
corrected. The trumpeter in the yellow suit was taken hand-held on the
85-210 manual lens with ISO1600 and 1/750 of a second. I had the
aperture fairly wide open: at least f5.6 but maybe f4.5 which is the
maximum aperture for the lens. I can't remember exactly and the lens is
too old for that info to be recorded in the EXIF information.

The absolute best thing about digital capture is not having to scan my
stuff in later! No way could I have taken 300 slides/negatives and
chosen a couple of dozen of them and had them up on the Internet the
next day.

If anyone wants to see what I made of the same Show two years ago with
film cameras, I've still got some pictures up:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/baronmoss/WandP_Show_2003_pics.html
I really must get some more webspace sorted out and put up some nice big
images out of the DS.

Helen

Helen Edith Stephenson <helen at baronmoss dot demon dot co dot uk>
--
(I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Pete D - 24 Jul 2005 21:18 GMT

Thanks but the link does not work for me.

And how do you use you thunmb?? I would use a wired or wireless remote.

>I took nearly 300 pictures - all best quality JPEGs.
>
[quoted text clipped - 44 lines]
> (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
> http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Helen Edith Stephenson - 24 Jul 2005 21:59 GMT

>Thanks but the link does not work for me.

I just tried both the DS link and the 2003 link and they both work for
me, and no, neither of them point to my hard drive:-) The sites could be
temporarily down and I'm just getting cached pages, though, as I've
already viewed them today.

You could try http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/helenedithuk/my_photos
and then just click on the folder at the bottom of the list.

>And how do you use you thunmb?? I would use a wired or wireless remote.

I was hand-holding. I've got a cable I can plug in, but I don't use it
when hand-holding, I just operate the shutter button. I use my right
index finger when taking pictures in landscape mode, but when I turn the
camera around to capture in portrait mode, I orient the camera with the
shutter button towards the bottom and I operate the shutter button with
my right thumb. It works for me:-) Except for occasionally switching the
whole camera off. (The shutter button is in the middle of the switch.)

(Preserved links to pictures.)
[snip]

>> http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/helenedithuk/album?.dir=/44ec

[snip]

>> http://web.ukonline.co.uk/baronmoss/WandP_Show_2003_pics.html

[snip]

Helen

Helen Edith Stephenson <helen at baronmoss dot demon dot co dot uk>
--
(I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Jock - 25 Jul 2005 11:45 GMT

All good here Pete.
Some nice shots there Helen - I remember Chitty C.B.B. so the shots were
interesting for me. Nice to see the old stuff shot with the new.
Thanks,
Jock

| Thanks but the link does not work for me.
|
[quoted text clipped - 48 lines]
| > (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
| > http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Pete D - 25 Jul 2005 12:59 GMT

Yeah, I see it working now, not sure what the problem was but the site could
not be found. Still not sure why Helen uses her thumb though though?

> All good here Pete.
> Some nice shots there Helen - I remember Chitty C.B.B. so the shots were
[quoted text clipped - 60 lines]
> | > (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
> | > http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Jock - 25 Jul 2005 13:07 GMT

Because she can. Doesn't seem to be detrimental to the shots you must
agree?
Jock

| Yeah, I see it working now, not sure what the problem was but the site could
| not be found. Still not sure why Helen uses her thumb though though?
[quoted text clipped - 63 lines]
| > | > (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
| > | > http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Helen Edith Stephenson - 25 Jul 2005 21:07 GMT

>| Yeah, I see it working now, not sure what the problem was but the site
>could
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>agree?
>Jock

Thanks Jock:-)

I've been thinking about the "why" and I like using portrait mode with
the shutter at the bottom and by using my thumb on the shutter button, I
don't have to pronate my wrist so much. It's a habit that I think I fell
into about five years ago with my film SLRs.

Helen

Helen Edith Stephenson <helen at baronmoss dot demon dot co dot uk>
--
(I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Pete D - 25 Jul 2005 21:18 GMT

But she "accidently" turns the camera off so it is probably not the best way
to go.

> Because she can. Doesn't seem to be detrimental to the shots you must
> agree?
[quoted text clipped - 87 lines]
> | > | > (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
> | > | > http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Helen Edith Stephenson - 25 Jul 2005 21:46 GMT

>> |Still not sure why Helen uses her thumb though though?
>> |
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>But she "accidently" turns the camera off so it is probably not the best way
>to go.

It does seem that the design of the power switch surrounding the shutter
button doesn't take thumb operation into account.

I find using my thumb on the shutter button in portrait mode is just
comfortable, so I think I'll probably learn not to operate the on-off
switch while using my thumb.

Helen, whose other hobby is playing the bassoon, where the right thumb
has four keys to manage and the left thumb has five, so maybe my thumbs
just get bored when handling a camera:-)

Helen Edith Stephenson <helen at baronmoss dot demon dot co dot uk>
--
(I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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Helen Edith Stephenson - 25 Jul 2005 21:04 GMT

>All good here Pete.
>Some nice shots there Helen - I remember Chitty C.B.B. so the shots were
>interesting for me. Nice to see the old stuff shot with the new.
>Thanks,
>Jock

Well, partly new:-)

C.C.B.B was actually shot using the standard autofocus 18-55 zoom
supplied with the DS.

The shots of the three different bands were shot with a lens which I
originally bought to put on my Pentax KM. It's a Tamron 85-210 on an
Adaptall mount and I think it dates back to 1978!

The main thing that's frustrating me about the 85-210 lens is that with
the 1.5x factor on digital, it's too telephoto for anything but
telephoto shots. I'd love to have a nice 28-200 but I can't afford the
current crop of lenses. I shouldn't really even start scouring eBay for
something a bit older.

The next purchase really ought to be WinXP so that I can start shooting
RAW. It's been covered here before, but the Pentax RAW software won't
run on Win98:-(

Helen

Helen Edith Stephenson <helen at baronmoss dot demon dot co dot uk>
--
(I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!)
http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk

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