Yesterday I received my Christmas Present which most of you are aware was a Pentax DSLR K100D. After spending the past few days taking family snaps for Christmas I had a little spare time tonight to try to learn on what setting to use for modelling. For the past 4 years I have been using a Canon 2MP digital camera in fully auto mode so this is a huge learning curve for me. After reading the manual I decided to try using manual aperture mode to increase depth of field as this has always been a problem in the past. The first image looked ok however was much too yellow so I then read the manual about adjusting white balance. As you can see from the first image the white balance is incorrect for a shot with white fluorescent lighting over the layout. The next images were taken using the white balance for fluorescent white lights and I'm fairly happy with the results. The aperture reading was set at 38 which was the highest I could achieve. I'm not sure what is the highest available however I was never able to achieve this depth of field in the past. Any comments would be appreciated, I think I have a fair bit of experimenting yet.
Paul, very impressive depth-of-field. What lens are you using? Did you use a tripod? Is the camera focusing at a single point near the middle, or averaging many points across the image? Images #1 & #2 appear to have fairly sharp focus throughout, but #3 appears slightly blurred.
Very nice. What lens did you use to get those? Incidentally,even though the aperature is set by the camera electronically, the maximum and minimum aperature settings are determined by the lens. On my new K10D, I can go to F32 with the kit lens, but I can only go to F27 with my Pentax 35-80 zoom lens. (These are the only two lenses I have with an "A" aperature setting - the rest are fully manual lenses). F38 is very impressive. Paul
What lens are you using? I'm using a sigma 18 - 50 mm lens Did you use a tripod? Yes I did Is the camera focusing at a single point near the middle, or averaging many points across the image? At this stage a single point near the middle however now you have mentioned I'll have to check the manual to see if I can average. [Edit] I just checked the manual on selecting focus area, the camera has 3 settings 1. Auto - The camera selects the optimum AF point 2. Select - Sets the focusing area to one of eleven points in the AF area 3. Centre - Sets the focusing area to the centre of the AF area The camera is set to auto but I'm thinking next time I should try select
Very true Harold and thanks for your comments. I have just been taking a few more shots using both macro and manual aperture. I'm finding with the aperature fully closed to get better depth of field the shutter is staying open for up too ten seconds so definitely a tripod job. Here are a couple more with the first taken in macro and the second manually, it looks like the second shot is a little over exposed though but I'm really happy with the depth of field.
I took 3 more shots this time adjusting the EV (exposure Value)?? settings in 0.5 increments you can see for yourself the results
Paul, ain't this fun? New camera and experimenting with all the modes it has? They look good to me. :teeth:
I think there's still a setting problem. These Mopac engines sure look quite yellow. Ha ha! :teeth: Boxcab E50
I wonder if one of the camera experts can give me some advice. Is it best to shoot all pics at high resolution then resize on the pc or do you shoot at lower resolution and only use high res for certain occasions?
Personally I default to high res and only knock it down if I know i'm not going to use them for anything long term/important - that does often include 'quick' model shots for use in forums though! I have been known to knock the quality settings down a little if I know i'm getting short of space on the cards when i'm on a long railfan trip though. Not idea, but it gets you through the day.
If you have the storage capacity on card, I'd use a fairly high resolution as Martyn does. I resize and compress for other uses and archive the high resolution shots, and the added advantage is you can get a decent crop from the original image without having to resort to upsampling. Yes, I'm guilty of dropping the resolution when getting close to a full card, too.:embarassed:
Paul, I advise using high res in JPEG format. JPEG occupies less space than RAW for the same res. Also, buy a second card with as high a capacity as you can afford. This way, you will always have backup....unless you get totally carried away with your trigger finger. mg: :teeth: BTW, I have found that Macro doesn't give the depth of field that a manual shot does, because Macro is an auto mode. Use the same manual mode anf high f-stop that you are becoming comfortable with, and move in to the closest focal point the camera will permit.
These really look nice. I always have some trouble with depth of field in my Nikon 5000. It is not SLR, so I have to adjust the scene or limit my picture field to get the best photo.
Colonel, Always, always shoot in the highest resolution. You can always down size later on your PC. You can never up-size! With the cost of memory dropping like a rock get a few extra cards. I've seen ultra high speed 2GB cards for around $50. That's about 4-5 rolls of print film (with developing and printing). As for focusing, always specify the focus point and lock it down so you don't accidentally change it. If you let the camera pick the "optimum" (or so it thinks!) focus point it will one day pick one that's not really right and it'll be your million dollar shot. Murphy is also in the photographic industry. As for averaging focus points, no camera on the market will do average focusing. It doesn't exist. It's not a very good idea either as instead of having one point in focus you end up with a picture where nothing is in focus! Finally, for that 3rd overexposed photo, check where your focus point is. You can turn on center-weighted metering or spot metering so that your locos will determin the metering instead of letting the whitish mountain fool your exposure. Or, as you have discovered yourself, you can use EV compensation.
One more thing, you can get greater depth of field using a wide angle than a telephoto. If you stick with that 18-55 on the 18 end you get a little more DOF. However, nothing's free. You do get a fore shorten perspective with a wide angle ("big nose on a face syndrome") so you do have to watch out for that.
Gents, Thanks for your advice it is priceless to me as for the past 6 years I have used automatic digital and haven't had a SLR since my old Pentax K1000 over 25 years ago. I'm really enjoying this new camera but its great having you guys to bounce things across. MK, Is it advisable to use centre weighted metering all the time or just when doing layout photography?
Colonel, I agree with all the advice above. One thing you might want to try once you're comfortable with the features of the Pentax is the Helicon Focus software. It took me a while to be able to focus and expose a scene correctly. I've held off a bit here because I don't anything about Pentax cameras. With my Nikon on the railroad, I do have to expose one full stop over to get good results; outdoors, it's just dead on without exposure compensation of any kind. You might want to research the term "hyperfocal distance" on google. It's that point where you set the focus so that your most important far point is just in focus--wow! that doesn't make sense! I can write jibberish, so I'll leave it here just to prove it. Let's just say you try to use whatever depth of field you have to your best advantage. With Helicon, I typically shoot at f/11 instead of smallest aperture. Most lenses are sharpest at some midpoint in their aperature range, usually f/8 or f/11. I let the software then take the slices and put them together.
