How important is that little cap?
How important is the Electronic cable release socket cap, that little bit of plastic that covers the socket for the cable release on the ZX-M and related bodies? Just realized that mine turned up missing. At first glance, it doesn't seem very important -- the cap itself doesn't make a tight seal, meaning the only purpose it could serve would be to protect the contact pins from physical damage, and the pins are recessed, making such damage unlikely. Suppose it could also serve to protect the inner electronics from electrostatic discharge. I'm mostly inclined to believe it's a cosmetic thing, in which case I'll get along well enough without it. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: Digital woe - tales of the unexpected
On Wednesday, Apr 2, 2003, at 19:10 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Seriously, that is a bitch. Like you said, it's got nothing to do with digital per se, but I would've caught it with my MX or Spottie! vbg Sure it has something to do with digital. Digital cameras are the most dependent on batteries of all cameras. Even all-electronic film bodies have much longer battery lifetimes. With digital, you have to be aware of the status of the batteries much more than with film. Just a given. Of course, the fundamentals of the situation aren't all that different; a digital camera with dead or no batteries is approximately as useful as an MX or Spotmatic with no film or an unwound roll parked on exposure #37. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: THE FRENCH
On Wednesday, Mar 19, 2003, at 14:06 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [verbiage edited] To reiterate what has been said many times: take it elsewhere. Politics is off-topic for this list. Thank you. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: TO FRED WITH LOVE...
On Wednesday, Mar 19, 2003, at 14:06 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I believe I've responded no less than 5 times to different folks saying, I was wrong, My bad, My error, etc. concerning my ignorance and misunderstanding of where you were from and I'm getting Goddam tired of it.. What you're overlooking is that (a) e-mail doesn't travel instantenously, (b) people don't always read their e-mails as soon as they arrive, and (c) people typically read messages in the order they arrive. Put it all together and it means that you're going to get multiple responses to what you post, because most responders won't have read (or even received) the other responses before sending theirs. It comes with the territory on a mailing list. Always has, probably always will. If it makes you feel so oppressed and persecuted, maybe you should unsubscribe and pursue leisure activities which don't cause you so much emotional distress. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: opinions on A 24-50/4 needed quick!!!
On Tuesday, Mar 18, 2003, at 18:53 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just wish they don't leave my packages on the doorstep, quietly... My UPS driver is equally annoying. In the absence of a written notice pleading with him to ring my unit, he'll leave a UPS spoor (aka a post-it note alleging I wasn't there) and run away. More than once, I've been in all day only to be greeted by the sight of a UPS spoor on the way out in the late afternoon. It's like he's afraid to touch the entry system or something (does he think it'll give him cooties?). End result is that UPS three-day service ends up being more like eight to ten day, over three day, or we'll deliver it when we feel like it service. I think I'm going to start requesting parcel post delivery whenever possible. Even if the mailman doesn't ring my unit, they hold the package in a local post office instead of holding it hostage in a UPS sorting facility way in the outer bumfuck port district industrial lands and taunting me with multiple lying notices. It's worth paying a premium for that alone. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: Bessaflex in M42 mount
On Saturday, Mar 15, 2003, at 07:53 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Seems quite interesting to me! I only hope they make it in K mount. Unless I'm seriously mistaken, they are. It's called the Vivitar 3800N. I've heard varying things about the quality of the Cosina bodies, myself. It's one reason I've stopped short of actually buying one. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Railroads stations around Toronto
On Saturday, Mar 15, 2003, at 13:53 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which reminds me to ask. Anybody know if any of the old stations in or around the Toronto area are still standing? Any place somebody could take a picture? Rode the train from Toronto to Niagara Falls this summer, and one of my memories was it going past the large old abandoned station at Hamilton. No idea how easy it is to get access. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: *ist and the lens mount
On Friday, Mar 14, 2003, at 06:07 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apparently this is a real problem that costs Pentax dealers and service departments a lot of time (ie, money) because of cameras brought in for warranty repair when there's nothing wrong with them. Perhaps the user manuals could be made clearer :-) Whether or not that would help is very debatable, however. I used to work in computer support, and mark my word, the ability for users to ignore instructions (even instructions stated multiple times) knows no bound. Seriously, this is probably a big point in favor of the C and M-- strategy of completely burning bridges to older lens technologies. (And as someone who bought a Pentax because of their commitment to lens compatibility, it pains me to say that. If only it were the case that fools themselves were the only ones hurt by their folly.) -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: Bessaflex in M42 mount
On Friday, Mar 14, 2003, at 13:35 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I like the idea of Bessaflex. It's a nice design. I hope they make a K-mount version. I believe they already are, just not under the Cosina or Voigtlander names. Unless I'm mistaken, the Vivitar 3800N is made by Cosina. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Short telephoto prices
Why does the SMC-A 100/2.8 sell for significantly more than the SMC-A 135/2.8? Does the former have better optics than the latter or is it just that the former is more convenient for portrait work? -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #86
On Thursday, Mar 6, 2003, at 01:01 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On the other hand I don't know what the rest (Av, M, P, Tv, Hm, etc.) mean either. That's in the Summary of the K-Mount Evolution, Names, and Features. page under the Body-Related Information page (itself under the bodies page). Sorry, can't post the URL for it as (the suckiest thing about the K-mount pages) the site uses frames, and one of the many ways in which frames suck is that there is no URL for a frameset. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: MZ-3 vs ZX(or MZ)-5n (EX: Re: *ist v. MZ or ZX series)
On Thursday, Mar 6, 2003, at 00:49 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In bright sunlight the high shutter speeds can be wonderful assets. I have speeds up to 1/8000 in pentax and even a 1/12000 in a minolta body. If you want to blur your background in a portrait type image in bright sunlight you'll need the fast speeds to run f2 range aperatures. Very fast shutter speeds can be used for such purposes, but they're far from the only way. Slower films (at ISO 100, correct exposure at f/2 is 1/2000 in direct sun... even ZX-M can do that) and ND filters are two others that come to mind. -- David Barts Portland, OR
HTML frames
On Thursday, Mar 6, 2003, at 15:50 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You mean like this? http://www.BDimitrov.de/kmp/extras/summary/index.html Well, sort of. It's a single component of the frameset I navigated to, albeit the one with the information of interest. The pisser about it is that the URL window of my browser never changes from the site's main page, no matter where I navigate. Instead of being able to copy the text from that window, I'd have to engage in backhanded sleuthing based on the status information that's displayed when I mouse over the URL. That's inexcusably user-hostile. You obviously have more patience for broken (presence of frames automatically makes a site broken in my opinion) web sites than I do. Thanks for posting the URL. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: Omaha, Nebraska - any help ?
On Thursday, Mar 6, 2003, at 15:50 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Modest winters, modest summers. Compared to where, that planet on Lost in Space where the temperature oscillated between sub-Antarctic cold and hot enough to ignite plant material? -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #16
On Saturday, Mar 1, 2003, at 04:56 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: where is the rest of my quote that says unless they don't have any SLR.? Wasn't your full message: just about everyone that would buy a Pentax DSLR anyway. as BR is fond of pointing out, no-one is going to buy a Pentax DSLR that isn't already committed to Pentax. looks, whether exotic or mundane, won't affect any non-Pentax user's decision unless they have no SLR at all. Which seems to be making two disjoint statements: a) that nobody who isn't already committed to Pentax (which I interpreted as having an existing Pentax outfit) is going to buy a Pentax DSLR, and b) looks won't affect what that hypothetical non-Pentax user does. I see no unless they don't have any SLR on the end of that first sentence, -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #11
On Friday, Feb 28, 2003, at 12:02 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am I the only one wondering when $2k became a budget camera? If I was going to spend $1500 right now [forget $2k] I'd be trying to decide between the Pentax 6x7, the Mamiya 645e and the Fuji 6x9 and not really thrilled with any of them. I wouldn't be looking at a camera that on a good day might equal a spotmatic in quality. I'm not so sure about $2K, but given where I am right now (more on that later) I'd certainly find a $1K DSLR tempting and a bargain. I've only been taking photos at an appreciable rate for the past year or so, and right now I'm starting to feel the itch for more control over the end result than I can get by having color (or bw) print film developed by a lab for me. If I go the slide film route, I'm going to need to get a light table, loupe, projector, spare trays for the projector, and slide scanner. That's gonna set me back about $1K. A DSLR means buying flash memory, color printer, CD burner (which I'm probably going to have to get anyhow), and color printing supplies, but a few years of avoided film and lab costs would probably be more than enough to make it pay for itself. And I'd get immediate feedback, the ability to change the ASA equivalent whenever I want (instead of being forced to change the ASA speed on 12, 24, or 36 exposure boundaries), and do things like custom white balance. Assuming I don't do a lot of travel (I wouldn't trust a digicam with un-backed-up copies of hundreds of photos, which means lugging a laptop and CD burner along, no thanks)[1], that makes digital seem a very attractive way of removing the lab's printing process from the equation. And regardless, I'd still keep the ability to shoot film for things like night photography and situations where I can't easily recharge batteries. But right now, $1000 buys an awful lot of Fuji Superia 4-packs and 1-hour processing at Fred Meyer, so I don't see digital in my immediate future unless I win the lottery. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #16
On Friday, Feb 28, 2003, at 18:00 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I definitely hope that the pop-up flash on the *ist could be permanently turned off ;-) If not, then some duct tape will certainly solve the problem ;-) Unless the firmware was coded to help you by refusing to take a shot unless the flash can fire properly. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #16
On Friday, Feb 28, 2003, at 18:00 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ust about everyone that would buy a Pentax DSLR anyway. as BR is fond of pointing out, no-one is going to buy a Pentax DSLR that isn't already committed to Pentax. I don't know about that. I could certainly imagine someone just taking up photography deciding on the *istD because it lets him/her use a wide variety of relatively inexpensive used lenses. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #5
On Wednesday, Feb 26, 2003, at 14:20 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Doesn't look any different than Nikon making those lenses for the APS SLR's they did. We are starting to seem as fickle as the stock market. I think we are over reading everything that Pentax does. I know. Really now, K-mount lenses and bodies are _already_ less than 100% compatible: I've heard about old Ricoh lenses that will permanently jam into place on a new AF body, and the low-end Pentax AF bodies that won't take MF lenses. Nikon's F-mount likewise has places where compatibility breaks down. Neither stops either system from being, in general, wonderfully compatible. Just avoid the specific bodies and lenses that cause trouble! And that's assuming the new lenses have less than a 24x36 coverage, which right now is pure speculation. -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #8
On Wednesday, Feb 26, 2003, at 18:54 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: already have the perfect portrait lens--the 75mm effective (a.k.a. 50mm) f/1.4 lens. Now just give me a good fast moderate wide-angle for the *ist D and I'm home free. Not really. The fact that the 50 has a field of view more like a 75 is created by cropping, not optical zooming. In effect, the less-than-24x36 image sensor size means that there's a permanently enabled digital zoom feature on the camera. All you're doing is cropping. The perspective-flattening effects of longer optics aren't going to come into play (or will they? maybe I'm the confused one). -- David Barts Portland, OR
Bodies: K2 vs. KX vs. LX
I'm likely going to be doing some extreme macro photography this summer (in the 1X to 4X range), so I've been seriously considering getting a body that offers MLU. I detest autofocus; worse, the modern Pentax AF bodies all appear to offer no way to get a focusing screen with a split-image center and a microprism collar. It's bad enough to pay for a (mis)feature I don't want, it's even worse to have my choices crippled because of the hidden premise that I'll always use the (mis)feature. Hence my interest in a classic body that offers MLU. LX is definitely the best, and if money were no object for me I'd just shell out five or six C-notes and be done with it. Alas, I'm poor. Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Page lists the KX and K2 as also offering MLU. What's worrying is that they're somewhat old bodies (all 25+ years old by now). The K2 also is an electronic camera, which makes me wonder how likely it is that the circuit board will suddenly up and quit (and if it does, how likely it is to be unrepairable). I also just plain have a preference for a mechanical-shutter camera, though I'll compromise on that if it means getting a good body with MLU for significantly less. I notice Adorama's used department has a several K2 bodies listed for under $150. A cursory search hasn't turned up any KX bodies for sale, though I expect I may see them at the camera swap meet in Hillsboro, OR this weekend. So, should I even consider a K2 or KX? Is there anything in particular to watch out for with these bodies? Or should I just forget about it and spring for an LX? -- David Barts Portland, OR
Re: pentax-discuss-d Digest V03 #27
On Monday, Feb 24, 2003, at 17:22 US/Pacific, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Before going too far in pursuit of the ideal body, you should see what you get with whatever gear you already have. It sounds like you are just getting in to this type of work, so you probably have a good deal to learn in terms of vibration control in general. See how far you can take that with your existing body. Thanks. I currently have a ZX-M and in general think it's OK (wouldn't mind more metal, especially on the lens mount). I've heard mirror vibration can be a problem, especially in macro with shutter speeds around 1/15 (and guess which shutter speeds I usually end up at). Also, it would be nice to have an extra body so I could shoot two different kinds of film. Given that I might have a chance to grab a classic Pentax body with MLU this weekend, I figured I'd ask now lest I lose a good chance. Regarding focusing, despite what I've read about a split-image not being useful for macro work, my experience has been just the opposite (at least down to 1:1). And for those that mentioned it, how exactly does the MLU trick work on the MX? From what I've read it sounds like a very nice body; lack of MLU was the main reason I had dropped it from consideration. -- David Barts Portland, OR
