Tom Grundy's New Camera and Lens Page

As a photographer there are always lots of expensive shiny things I want. I am usually pretty good about resisting the urges. Recently I had a mid-life crisis or something and I bit the bullet and gave the credit card a bit of exercise and bought 2 things that I have wanted for a while. One was a K3 camera. This is 2 generations past the K5 (I skipped the K5II and k5IIs). I bought it along with a Pentax flash too. The other is a Sigma 150-500mm lens. This gives me a lot more telephoto zoom, with the K-3 crop sensor it is the equivalent of a 750mm telephoto on a 35mm camera. If all this technobabble makes your eyes glaze over it means that I can more easily take better pictures of things far away and they look bigger. Now I only need a good ultra wide angle lens, and a fisheye, and a tilt-shift, and a... well, maybe just the ultra wide angle.

Looking at you

It really is a bit of a bazooka. I must have adequacy issues.

nearly full moon (at 500mm but with the K5) I put Saturn in to scale in lower left

a bit past full moon the next night - at 500mm with K3

There are lots of things to figure out with the new camera. Among others I had to modify my cable release to fit in the plug. So far the only thing that I am not entirely happy about is where the autofocus button is on the back. I will probably get used to it, but it doesn't seem to be where my thumb goes naturally. The Autofocus is a big improvement, especially as the K5 was getting a little flaky here. There are also the usual increase in pixels, better high iso performance, and better video. Conveniently my old lenses, batteries, and memory cards all fit it. One improvement that I have already noticed is that the live view image of the moon isn't always blown out (so you can focus more easily).

entire image of yellow bird hiding in a willow

cropped in on the above it appears to be a Wilson's Warbler

With the telephoto lens it is hard to get sharp pictures handholding unless I am shooting in full sunlight. The OS (Optical Stabilization) built in seems pretty good, but I still do better with a tripod or at least my tripod used as a monopod for added stability. I have taken it to the park to practice on ducks and gulls as well as pics of the moon, Saturn (not a great image - but clearly Saturn), and other birds. My percentage of keepers is pretty low, but hopefully I'll get more used to it with time. It certainly is easier to get pics of birds that pose on a twig as opposed to the ones that continuously flit through the underbrush.

moonset over Mt Emerson from the front drive (this was recovered from a blown out image)

rufous sided towhee

house finch

flowers are easier - they don't fly away but closest focus is about 2M

same image 100% crop

mocking bird

mocking bird 100% crop giving an idea of the resolution possible (and how shallow the depth of field is) I think this is f8 and iso 800

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