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Photo Forum / Digital Photography / DSLR Cameras / November 2006istD questions
I bought a Pentax istD several years ago and have hardly used it since then. I have to admit I've never been satisfied with its performance (I've always found the sensor produces images that are too soft). The one I got also had some serious technical problems (it drained power like crazy) and they took it back for a complete rebuild. All in all, I never bothered to explore its operating features, as a result. One of the things that always bothered me about the istD was that the ISO seemingly couldn't be set to a specific speed in Shutter priority, Aperture priority and Program mode. The ISO would automatically shoot up as high as 3200 in medium and low light to optimize the shot. At least that's what I got. The only way to override this I could figure out was by shooting in Manual. The operating manual that came with the camera is not very helpful in this regard. Experimenting with my camera in the past few days, I discovered that by setting the ISO to a certain speed, and then adjusting the EV control up a notch, the camera will shoot under any light in Aperture or Shutter priority or Program mode, with full control of the ISO. I've never seen anything in the manual about that. >I bought a Pentax istD several years ago and have hardly used it since > then. I have to admit I've never been satisfied with its performance [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Shutter priority or Program mode, with full control of the ISO. I've > never seen anything in the manual about that. Sounds like you have auto ISO set. Generally speaking D-SLR's from all manufacturers do not do aggressive in camera sharping, you will be able to adjust this later or set the in camera sharpening to be more aggressive. The problem is there doesn't appear to be any control for undoing auto ISO and there's nothing about it in the manual. > > One of the things that always bothered me about the istD was that the > > ISO seemingly couldn't be set to a specific speed in Shutter priority, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > camera sharping, you will be able to adjust this later or set the in camera > sharpening to be more aggressive. Yes there is. Menu/Custom Function/Sensitivity Correction Set this to "Off" >The problem is there doesn't appear to be any control for undoing auto >ISO and there's nothing about it in the manual. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >> camera sharping, you will be able to adjust this later or set the in camera >> sharpening to be more aggressive. > Yes there is. > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >>> camera >>> sharpening to be more aggressive. Sounds like same as DS, with the DS though you can set/limit the auto range. [snip] > Sounds like same as DS, with the DS though you can set/limit the auto range. Yes, I fell foul of that last night. When I got my DS, it didn't have AUTO sensitivity, but when I put on a firmware upgrade last summer, it got added. Last night I was shooting in the dark and couldn't work out why my shutter speeds were so much faster than I expected and so variable - turns out I'd reset the ISO with my glasses off and forgotten that AUTO is now above 200 and I'd got AUTO! Helen > [snip] > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Helen Great feature, if you set it right. ;-) So have you ordered a K10D as well? In article <455cc128$0$28181$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes >> [snip] >> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > >Great feature, if you set it right. ;-) :-) >So have you ordered a K10D as well? No, but I'm definitely in "I want" mode over the K10D. However, "I want" and "I can afford" are two different things:-( I went in a bit soon when I got the DS. If I'd waited a bit longer, I could have had it for less money. I'm in no desperate hurry to get the K10D. The anti-shake would be really useful (I got some blurred shots yesterday through hand-holding at too slow a shutter speed) and the device to vibrate dust off the CCD would be a godsend if it really works. I'm continually getting junk on my CCD and as I've been using the blower brush approach to getting rid of it, the stuff probably recycles itself. It needs a good cleaning right now, and it's not that long since its last good cleaning. The 10 megapixels would also be nice, and should bring A3 within easy reach, although as I haven't paid my sub for the camera club this season, I may not be doing so many A3 prints in the coming year. I'm not so sure about the li-ion battery. Someone posted a link to the K10D manual and the li-ion battery in the K10D doesn't seem to last any longer than the 4xAA rechargeables do in the DS. The AA rechargeables can be charged up a lot faster in my nice fast Ansmann charger, while the Pentax charger for the li-ion battery apparently takes 3 hours:-( I can also run the DS on disposable batteries at a pinch, although I've never actually done it. The battery grip sounds useful, although it adds weight to the camera, and I might shoot more RAW with the facility to shoot simultaneously in RAW and JPEG. I actually took three RAW shots last night (and can see more highlight detail in them) but they're the first RAW shots I've taken since the one I took when I first got the DS to see if I could process it under Win98. I couldn't, so I didn't shoot any more RAW, but I've now got WinXP, so I could shoot RAW if I wanted to, but obviously don't usually do so. I think that with simultaneous RAW/JPEG, there are times when I would use the facility. The very high contrast encountered in night photography may be more suited to RAW capture, and if I ever get down the Chislehurst Caves with a tripod, I think I'll shoot RAW so that I can decide on the white balance later. They use lamps for light, which are probably even warmer than tungsten, and as I'd only get one shot at it (it's bound to be expensive to take a tripod down there as I'd want a slower tour than the standard one) I'd hate to come home and find that my "atmospheric" pictures were irretrievably red, or that my pictures taken under a tungsten WB turned out to be too cool and had no atmosphere. RAW sounds like a good idea for that particular application. I wouldn't want to trust the back panel for judging whether the white balance was correct. I'm sure that my back panel displays too blue. I wonder whether the K10D will also be like that. I've seen reviews of several Pentax/Samsung DSLRs where the blueness of the back panel has been commented on. We'll have to wait for some proper tests to know the answer to that one. 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ >In article <455cc128$0$28181$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- >01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [snip] >>So have you ordered a K10D as well? > >No, but I'm definitely in "I want" mode over the K10D. However, "I want" >and "I can afford" are two different things:-( [snip] >Helen It also occurs to me that with continuous JPEG shooting limited only by the size of the memory card that I may be able to put together some awesome animations. I did the ones on this page by firing the shutter at about 2-second intervals. http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/London_Shipping_Waverley_20060922.html I also apparently had noise reduction turned off all evening and the views across the City of London suffered from "hot pixels" which had to be eliminated in PhotoShop. I suppose hot pixels happen whatever the camera. It would be nice if the K10D had the ability to take a dark exposure for reference for later and then not take one every time you took a long exposure. If I'm doing leisurely night photography, I usually have noise reduction on, but for bonfires and fireworks, you miss too much of the action waiting for noise reduction, so I edit out the hot pixels afterwards. I think I got most of them when I did these fireworks: http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/Chislehurst_Fireworks_2006_Display.html Incidentally, the display lasted 25 minutes, I put in fresh rechargeable AAs just before it started and had the cable release activated more than 50% of the time, and the batteries still had life for the bonfire embers and a few more funfair pictures at the end of the fireworks display. I think I left noise reduction off, though. I suspect that using NR really affects battery usage. 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ >>In article <455cc128$0$28181$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- >>01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/London_Shipping_Waverley_20060922.html Cool, especially the large size. > I also apparently had noise reduction turned off all evening and the > views across the City of London suffered from "hot pixels" which had to [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/Chislehurst_Fireworks_2006_Display.html Cool, do you remember what aperture setting you were using? What shutter times did you use? > Incidentally, the display lasted 25 minutes, I put in fresh rechargeable > AAs just before it started and had the cable release activated more than [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!) > http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ In article <455d3e17$0$28182$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [snip] >> If I'm doing leisurely night photography, I usually have noise reduction >> on, but for bonfires and fireworks, you miss too much of the action [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >Cool, do you remember what aperture setting you were using? What shutter >times did you use? ISO 200 f22 - shutter times varied depending on the length of the sequences. Doing a quick trawl through the EXIF data, I'd say 4 seconds to just over a minute. 10-15 seconds seemed to produce the best results. Over 30 seconds yielded enough light to see silhouettes of the trees between me and the launch site. It depends on how close you are to the fireworks as to what lens you want to use. <g> For a local display where I'm quite close, the 10-20mm super wide angle is my lens of choice, but when I went to a big display up in town and was further away, I used my 28-300 but still used ISO 200 f22. Unfortunately my results were marred by someone apparently jostling my tripod during many of my shots and I got blurred backgrounds:-( I've salvaged some that weren't too bad and they're at the bottom of this page: http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/Thames_Festival_20060917_pics.html I suspect that some of the fireworks in this display were brighter than what I get in my local display, and I could have done with stopping down even further than f22 - but then I would have needed to find a break in the sequence to expose for the background, and those big displays up in town are usually rapid-fire affairs with very few gaps. They only last about 10 minutes. I suppose I could always "cheat" and superimpose fireworks on a pre-shot background, but I like to do it without cheating that way:-) 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ > In article <455d3e17$0$28182$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- > 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] > (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!) > http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ Thanks for that, I have found really good results at F8-F11 and around 10 seconds of exposure. http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=35683#35683 http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images/upload/Fireworks-5.jpg In article <455e2e80$0$28218$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [snip] >Thanks for that, I have found really good results at F8-F11 and around 10 >seconds of exposure. > >http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=35683#35683 > >http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images/upload/Fireworks-5.jpg They're nice. You may have been further away from your fireworks than I was from mine, hence the larger apertures working well. I liked the picture in the second link. The shadowy details of what's on ground level give the picture a reference point. I think 3, 4 and 6 were the best of the forum sequence exposure-wise, but I do like the gold colours in 1. 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ > In article <455e2e80$0$28218$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- > 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > (I'm sure you can figure out what I mean!) > http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ Yes, the second link was closer, only had a few seconds to get set up for that shot as I arrived a bit late and as I was walking towards the area the fireworks started, was a bit lucky I knew my gear well because I had left my little torch behind, not that the torch makes that much difference because I am half blind in the dark anyway but prefer using my camera without my glasses. ;-) In article <455f68da$0$28170$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [snip] >Yes, the second link was closer, only had a few seconds to get set up for >that shot as I arrived a bit late and as I was walking towards the area the >fireworks started, was a bit lucky I knew my gear well because I had left my >little torch behind, Yes, knowing your gear well is a definite advantage. I can operate the things I commonly use on the DS without requiring light, up to and including putting the cable release into the socket on the side of the camera. I can't change the batteries without light because I can never remember which two go in upwards and which two go in downwards. I also find that it's not practical to change the batteries on a DS while it's mounted on a tripod!!! >not that the torch makes that much difference because I >am half blind in the dark anyway but prefer using my camera without my >glasses. ;-) So do I! However, I have to have my glasses close handy because I can't see the back screen without them if I want to check a histogram:-( 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ > In article <455cc128$0$28181$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- > 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > could have had it for less money. I'm in no desperate hurry to get the > K10D. If I had gone straight to a K100D I may well stick with it but with the greatly improved features it is too good not to get, the 9 cross focus sensors I really want now. > The anti-shake would be really useful (I got some blurred shots > yesterday through hand-holding at too slow a shutter speed) and the [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > itself. It needs a good cleaning right now, and it's not that long since > its last good cleaning. Definately looking forward to the SR, from all indications it is a very good system and works for every lens, gotta be happy with that.. > The 10 megapixels would also be nice, and should bring A3 within easy > reach, although as I haven't paid my sub for the camera club this > season, I may not be doing so many A3 prints in the coming year. I am printing at 12x18 from my DS, originally shot in RAW though, jpeg will print A4 easily. > I'm not so sure about the li-ion battery. Someone posted a link to the > K10D manual and the li-ion battery in the K10D doesn't seem to last any [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > can also run the DS on disposable batteries at a pinch, although I've > never actually done it. Apparently the Lion batteries hold a higher voltage over the life of the charge, at first I thought it would be a pain but really I will just get a couple of packs and that will take a lot of shots. There will be aftermarket chargers as well that may be a bit faster than the standard one, threee hours isn't really to bad. > The battery grip sounds useful, although it adds weight to the camera, > and I might shoot more RAW with the facility to shoot simultaneously in [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > don't usually do so. I think that with simultaneous RAW/JPEG, there are > times when I would use the facility. I have ordered a grip and see it being handy for portrait shooting, with no battery it will not add a lot of weight. > The very high contrast encountered in night photography may be more > suited to RAW capture, and if I ever get down the Chislehurst Caves with [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > pictures were irretrievably red, or that my pictures taken under a > tungsten WB turned out to be too cool and had no atmosphere. I ahve done some cave photography with off camera multi flash. I have a Sigma DG Super that will now work off camera using wireless, look forward to that, might even get another one. > RAW sounds like a good idea for that particular application. I wouldn't > want to trust the back panel for judging whether the white balance was [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > commented on. We'll have to wait for some proper tests to know the > answer to that one. Must keep in mind that the histogram is your freind and the screen is really just a very basic indication of the shot. > 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ In article <455d3bdc$0$28172$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- 01.iinet.net.au>, Pete D <no@email.com> writes [snip] >> I wouldn't >> want to trust the back panel for judging whether the white balance was [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >Must keep in mind that the histogram is your freind and the screen is really >just a very basic indication of the shot. Yes, the histogram is indeed my friend, but unless I'm missing something, it won't help me to judge whether I've got my WB right:-( 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ On Nov 16, 10:56 pm, Helen Edith Stephenson <h...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote: [snip] > The 10 megapixels would also be nice, and should bring A3 within easy > reach, although as I haven't paid my sub for the camera club this > season, I may not be doing so many A3 prints in the coming year. [snip] I have a *istD. I expect to be able to print at A3 for club work with about 5 million good pixels, and the *istD is good for this. For example, this (photograph of the print) is a club shot (HC = "highly commended"), and it recently got accepted at the Swansea City Exhibition of International Photography: http://www.ncps.org.uk/pages/gallery2006/an06prints/pages/IMG_0062.html (I recently submitted a print for a club competition from a 2/3 MP crop - less than 700 x 1000 pixels - from the *istD. I'll know next Tuesday what the judge thinks of it!) Yes - when I get a K10D, it will be easier. But I take it for granted that the *istD is suitable for A3 printing at club - or better - quality.  SignatureBarry Pearson http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/ >On Nov 16, 10:56 pm, Helen Edith Stephenson <h...@nospam.demon.co.uk> >wrote: [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] >that the *istD is suitable for A3 printing at club - or better - >quality. I've had pressure from my partner to print smaller. He didn't like my 30MB scanned images (equivalent to 10MP) printed at A3 and thought I should print smaller. I've compromised by buying Super A3 paper and printing two images per sheet. I think I could probably print DS images on a full A3 sheet if I wanted to, and they might even look better than the somewhat larger files from the film scanner. When using a low ISO setting, the digital camera is virtually grain/noise free, so I don't get speckled skies from it. However, the downside of this, particularly when resizing images to put them on the web, is that a low quality JPEG will display distinct boundaries between different tones in the sky, which is something I never had to worry about with scanned images as they had plenty of grain to make sure that a JPEG didn't render every pixel for miles around in exactly the same shade. 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ On Nov 18, 11:59 pm, Helen Edith Stephenson <h...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote: [snip] > I think I could probably print DS images on a full A3 sheet if I wanted > to, and they might even look better than the somewhat larger files from > the film scanner. When using a low ISO setting, the digital camera is > virtually grain/noise free, so I don't get speckled skies from it. I find it much easier to get good quality A3 prints from my *istD than I did from scanned 35mm slides, as long as I fill the frame. (My scanner is a Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400, so isn't a cheap and nasty one, and my lenses are mostly the same). But I (only) shoot raw, so have more control over noise reduction and sharpening, etc. I use Photoshop CS2 for all my A3 prints, and just lately I have needed to get rid of noise, left even after raw converter noise reduction, from smooth areas for a particular set of photographs. (Normally I don't mind some noise - I used film for decades, and got used to grain!). I have been using "Surface Blur" with a small radius (eg. 2) and a small threshold chosen to cater for the noise while not significantly reducing edge sharpness. > However, the downside of this, particularly when resizing images to put > them on the web, is that a low quality JPEG will display distinct > boundaries between different tones in the sky, which is something I > never had to worry about with scanned images as they had plenty of grain > to make sure that a JPEG didn't render every pixel for miles around in > exactly the same shade. I know the problem! I get it with skies, and also if I use a gradient for some purpose, perhaps for a layer mask. I sacrifice some noise and some compression by ADDING a small amount of noise (perhaps just "1") to the affected areas before conversion to JPEG. SignatureBarry Pearson http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/ >On Nov 18, 11:59 pm, Helen Edith Stephenson <h...@nospam.demon.co.uk> >wrote: [snip] >> However, the downside of this, particularly when resizing images to put >> them on the web, is that a low quality JPEG will display distinct [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >some compression by ADDING a small amount of noise (perhaps just "1") >to the affected areas before conversion to JPEG. Interesting that you should mention gradients. I had a picture where I replaced the background by a gradient and when I printed it, it looked like I had banding on the print, except that the direction of the "banding" was not across the sheet but along it! I put the print into a camera club competition in the hopes of getting some advice from the judge, but discovered that the judge was a died-in- the-wool darkroom type (I believe she's embraced computers since) and her only comment on the "banding" was "what a pity". I solved the problem by combining a linear gradient and a radial gradient. I can't recall whether I also added noise. Here's the result: http://www.wuronga.me.uk/helen/Images/Chislehurst_Prince_Imperial_20010625_26_gb g_bw.jpg 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.wuronga.me.uk/helen/ Thank you, John. Just what I needed to know. You have just made me very happy. That's why I love this group. > Yes there is. > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > >> camera sharping, you will be able to adjust this later or set the in camera > >> sharpening to be more aggressive. > I bought a Pentax istD several years ago and have hardly used it since > then. I have to admit I've never been satisfied with its performance [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Shutter priority or Program mode, with full control of the ISO. I've > never seen anything in the manual about that. There's a firmware update that lets you limit the ISO range the camera will choose in auto ISO mode. Find it on Pentax' web site. I leave the ISO set to 200, lowest setting. |
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