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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Update - Cybersyncs fire the camera!

Hooking the reciever to my K10D (or K200d for that matter) will fire the camera remotely! All I needed was a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter (ala Radio Shack) and I'm in business.
Another plus for the cybersyncs!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Pentax K10D DSLR


This was Pentax's flag ship professional camera (now replaced by the K20D) about 2 years ago. I won't be going into an in depth review here, you can find those all over the web. If you don't trust it's performance simply look at all the awards it's won. In hand, it just feels right for me. It's the perfect size, just meaty enough to hand onto but not to heavy. It runs on a rechargeable lithium battery pack and can be boosted with a battery grip. When using this at a 10 hour wedding I've yet to replace the battery... not bad in my opinion!

All of the features are at your finger tips, you don't have to dig through the menu very much at all. It has 2 e-dials that work very well together.

Picture quality is outstanding! I've got the settings just right now so my JPEG's come out almost perfect, fresh from the camera.

The SDM focus motor is outstanding, whisper quite and quick (if not to dark)

The down sides for me: No sync terminal on the camera, I have to use the hotshoe or an adapter for all flash work. Focus speed in low light isn't the best. High ISO image quality is poor, if this doesn't get worked on by the time the K30D rolls around that might be my push towards Nikon. But that's about it. Sure it's frames per second is around 3 but since I don't use it for sports much, that doesn't really bug me.


Keep on trucken' Pentax, I want to see a sweet K30D in the next few months!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Cyber Sync wireless controllers


My search for reliable and affordable wireless controllers led me to the CyberSyncs. It all started back with my ebay radio poppers (poverty wizards), which worked just fine in house, but when they failed me once on location...it was bye, bye. So then the search began. I was thinking about the pocket wizards, which are the industry standard, but I knew there had to be more options out there at better prices.
I was first attracted to the Skyports (http://www.elinchrom.com/), they where tiny, cool looking and you could group strobes into separate categories. But they just wouldn't work for me, apparently their triggering time is so quick they wouldn't reliably trigger my gear, so back they went.
I then came across the cybersyncs (while searching for solutions to my skyport troubles), and I'm very glad I did. First off, they were even cheaper than the skyports (score!), and they are smaller than the pocket wizards (not to mention way cheaper... double score!). To get them to work on my Sigma and Sunpak flashes (since they don't have any ports) I got the hotshoe adapter from http://www.flashzebra.com/. They fire all of my strobes, every time, and that is what I was looking for.
The receivers run on 2 AA batteries, which is nice since the are easily replaced when needed (skyports run on rechargeable lithium's). The transmitter works on a little watch sized battery. The transmitter slides onto the hotshoe and is very snug, there is no way to secure it in place, but it doesn't seem like it would go anywhere by accident (it's hard enough to remove when I want to).
It says that they will work up to 400ft, which is much shorter than the Pocket Wizards 1500ft but I can't image a time that I will ever need that. I haven't had a situation that they didn't work for me, through walls, etc.
They do have a couple millisecond "recharge" time between firing them, which might be a problem in some situations but I haven't ran into one yet. The Skyports could fire boom, boom, boom.
The down sides for me, so far are: no on/off button. Once you hit test, they go on and stay on for about 2 hours and then auto power down. In one sence it's nice since I will never forget to turn them off, but if they accidentally get bumped on in my bag, they will stay on for 2 hours. It would also be nice to be able to power them on and off and have to option to leave them on for as long as I want and not have to worry about them turning off. Next, and last down fall, no lanyard! This is such a simple add on I don't know why they didn't include one. I have had one fall and bust open from about 5 feet onto a hard wood floor, fortunately I put the batteries back in and it works fine (passed the drop test), but this shouldn't happen in the first place... with a lanyard.
Overall - I am very happy with these. Price is right and they haven't failed me yet.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Pentax DA* 50-135mm f2.8


I love this lens... LOVE it! It is perfect for wedding and portrait work. The 2.8 comes in handy for dark reception halls and depth of field in general. The SDM focus mechanism is whisper quiet and fast, it barely ever has to search (unless there is no contrast). The quality of the shots are outstanding. This lens is usually stuck on me all day at a wedding and the nice thing is it's relatively light (compared to a 70-200 2.8), the size is perfect. Occasionally I wish for a little more length in some situations, but then I would have to sacrifice on size.

Sigma 18-50 f2.8 For Pentax

This is my go to portrait lens for weddings, great for group shots as there really hasn't been a situation yet where I haven't been able to get everyone in. This lens is essentially on my K10D all day long. I have had has some trouble with sharpness at wide apertures, which I think is pretty common regardless of brand. The 2.8 comes in very handy and it can focus very close to the subject when needed (almost touching the lens). The biggest piss off I have with this lens is the fact that for whatever reason, Sigma designers decided to reverse the direction you rotate the barrel to zoom in and out... why?

Monday, November 3, 2008

Pentax K110D with 18-55 Kit lens

This is a great little camera, and my first digital SLR. I stuck with Pentax because that is what I learned on (back when I was 12), since then I've aquired more Pentax stuff. So when switching from film to digital it was the logical step. Even though Pentax is much less common than the big dogs.
The camera runs on AA or CRV-3's, the later will get you about 2000 shots (give or take) when you don't need the flash much. It does not have the Shake Reduction mechanism that other Pentax models have (I think all of which do now), and it doesn't really feel like a solid camera in hand. But the price is (was) right and the picture quality is just fine IMO.
The kit lens preformed just fine for my needs, although now a days it doesn't see the light of day much.