Its been awhile since my last post. Since then, I have upgraded from my Pentax K10 to a K7 and purchased a DA* 50-135mm along with it (what can I say, I’m a sucker for those Pentax rebates). The above collection of shots were all taken on my first few trips out with the 50-135 and so far I really like it. The combination of the 2.8 aperture and focal length result in some nice bokeh. But let me start from the beginning of my experience…

Pentax DA* 50-135

The first 50-135 I ordered was delivered with what I felt was inadequate padding. The lens box was simply placed inside a cardboard box and had the standard air packets on one side of the box, to keep the lens box from sliding back and forth. This left every other side exposed with no padding. I had read concerns with others having issues with the SDM, but most of the negative reviews were for the 18-50mm. Either I was unlucky, or the padding was an issue, but the first copy of the lens I received did not auto focus. I could hear some high pitch noises when activating auto focus but the focus would just not move. With some help, I could get it to squeak along very little.

I marked the item as defective and Amazon quickly sent me another copy. Again, this copy came packaged in a similar manner. At first, the SDM again did not function. After a few turns on the manual ring, the SDM started to function. I have noticed that after periods of non-use or extreme cold weather, that it can require some manual help to what it seems like free up the focus ring. With the price tag and pro grade rating of the DA* line, I had hoped for a better experience. I hope this doesn’t become more of an issue in the future.

But that’s pretty much where the negatives stop. I have been pleased with everything else about the lens. The completely internal zooming and focusing are nice. I quickly put the weather sealing to test with the recent snow storms we have been having in the DC area. I snapped the lens hood on and headed out in the snow. By the time my fingers froze, then lens was completely covered with snow. The hood did a good job keeping the snow off the front element and a quick wipe down with a towel once back inside seemed to do the trick. This lens is a bit heaver than my previous go to lens, DA 16-45 but it doesn’t feel too heavy or unbalanced on the K7. However, it barely fits into my slingshot 100 attached to the body.

K7

Comparing the K7 to my K10, I have noticed several very nice (but smallish) improvements that all add up for a better experience. Two of my favorites are the electronic level and the locking mechanism on the mode dial (I was always accidentally changing the mode without knowing on the K10). The electronic level provides on screen feedback (on the top lcd, in the viewfinder, and on the rear lcd during live view) on camera tilt. There is even a function to auto correct tilt – however I have this disabled as it uses the sensor shift mechanism to rotate the sensor. This sensor movement is also utilized by the image stabilization system. I’d rather have clearer images and have to adjust the horizon in post. I have noticed that it can be difficult to see the view finder information on sunny days.

Some other welcome changes are the larger rear lcd, what seems like better auto white balance, and live view. I never thought live view would be that useful, but have found it handy when trying to compose shots while holding the camera over my head. The K7 also provides movie mode, but my memory card doesn’t appear to be fast enough to support recording anything over 30 seconds or so of the high quality video. Its also worth mentioning that auto focus does not function during video recording.

One other feature worth mentioning is the auto lens correction. The idea is that the camera will detect which lens is being used along with the focal length information to correct for any distortion. I haven’t actually given this feature much attention yet. It actually caused some concern for me when first playing with the K7. With this feature enabled, the camera makes some odd noises during what I’m guessing is its processing of the images. Also, this feature seems very expensive in terms of processing. With it enabled, the processing quickly becomes the bottle neck before the buffer can even come into play. Regardless of the image size and raw/jpg, I could only shoot 5 consecutive images before the shutter speed would slow significantly. Initially it seemed as if the buffer was filling up and the memory card couldn’t keep up. But disabling the auto lens correction feature allowed for shots at the full frames per second until the buffer filled up.

I haven’t really found anything I dislike about the K7 so far. I’m still trying to familiarize myself with the button placement. The green “magic” button has been moved along with the ISO and exposure compensations buttons. The body also felt a bit cramped to me initially, but I have no problems with that now. Overall, I’m happy with the K7 and 50-135 combo and has become my walk around choice. However, the wide angle side of me is always wanting to put the 16-45 back on.

The above are several shots taken from a bridge on the sound side of the Outer Banks. We headed to this bridge to do some fishing and watch the sunset. We ended up catching a single blue crab but no fish large enough to keep.

I have a RAW version of the first image and plan on playing with some HDR once I get my computer back up and running. I was unfortunately unable to do a bracket because I snapped it as the group I was with was leaving. Hopefully the RAW file will give me enough exposure and detail latitude to get something interesting out of it.

I also want to try stitching the last two images together to form the wide angel shot similar in the 3rd image. I probably used my SMCP-FA 50mm more than my standard go-to lens DA 16-45mm on this trip. Perhaps because I tried to take more images of people than landscapes this time around. I was happy with the results of most of the images from the 50mm but still find myself looking for the wider end of the lens every now and then.

The first was a Vented B-Series. I have to say that I did find the Vented B much easier to control than the Standard. I’m not completely sure if it was in fact the vents that made the difference, the fact that I had a strong and steady ocean wind, or perhaps a little of both. Regardless, I was quickly able to get a stable inverted hover and fairly smooth inverted slides to the right (going left was a different story). Wind permitting, I think this will be my standard go-to kite. In lighter winds, I’ll obviously be forced to pull out the standard. Perhaps I should have considered the mid-vented…

The second was a Vented Supersonic. I was a bit unsure what to expect from the Supersonic. I knew it was going to be fast and twitchy but was hoping I would still have something that resembled controlled flight. I had purposefully waited for the beach for its first flight to avoid crashing into any unsuspecting pedestrians on the National Mall. To my surprise, I had relatively good control over it. Dive stops were amazing and the spins were fast (both crowd pleasers). I’m not sure I enjoy it more than the Rev B as some told me I would, but it is definitely fun to fly and a change in pace. Over several days of flights, I had no real hard crashes with it. I’m sure that having a good handle on the Rev B didn’t hurt.

The setup was ice cubes on a an old cooking sheet in a dark room. The flames were created by igniting rubbing alcohol. I originally tried to pool the rubbing alcohol on the ice cubes, but was unable to light it. I’m not sure if it became diluted too quickly. Perhaps I need to try this again with lower temperatures to keep the ice from melting too fast (resulting in too much liquid water).