PESO 2009 #044

PESO 2009 #043

PESO 2009 #042

PESO 2009 #41

PESO 2009 #040

PESO 2009 #039

PESO 2009 #038

After rather long period of inaction, I've bought a new lens - Pentax SMC FA 20/2.8. Mine seems a good sharp copy both at close and far distances and also fully open. In fact, I will be writing a gear entry soon enough. Meanwhile - two shots from yesterday's evening of the day when it arrived.

PESO 2009 #37

Recently I seem to have a rather dry spell with my photography. On the other hand, Galia is doing pretty well. Not long ago she received her own FA 50/1.4 lens. Here is a set we compiled together from the morning walk we had in Tel Aviv.



Notice that full size version of this image is 1440 px across.

I must admit that sitting together with Galia in front of our computer and working on pictures is enormous joy.

PESO 2009 #036

PESO 2009 #035

PESO 2009 #034

PESO 2009 #033

PESO 2009 #032

I have come to realize that posting more than one picture per PESO posting is not exactly the right thing to do. This time, I think, it would be no shame at all to post a PESO made by my daughter Galia. Though the editing was done by yours truly.

PESO 2009 #031

Just where you would expect a busy highway crossing, lies ancient Antipatris fortress.



To see more including more shots by Galia please click here.

PESO 2009 #030

From a quiet evening walk in our town...

PESO 2009 #029

Last weekend we spent yet another quiet morning in Tel Aviv. Yes, there is such a thing as a quiet morning there, you just have to know when and where to look for it. Couple of shots came our way.



All in all, I am gaining more and more confidence in my freshly acquired Pentax K-7...

PESO 2009 #028

Recently members of Russian Penta Club living in Israel including myself had a meeting. This time it was on the sea shore south of Ashkelon. K-7 with Tamron 28-75/2.8 acquitted themselves with grace.



I've posted these images elsewhere and received a comment that a sand had a bit of a pink/rose tint in it. I don't see it on my monitor, but if you see it, please let me know as it will help me to debug my workflow. Thanks in advance.

PESO 2009 #027

Though cliche, I still cannot produce an up-the-tree shot that I'd like. Here is an attempt at it which I made recently.

PESO 2009 #026

It is September already and it is very evident that three digit numbering of my PESOs was too ambitious. Nonetheless I do keep shooting...

Long weekend at Vered haGalil, more on K-7

This year we've spent our vacation mostly at home. Just before Galia returned to school we went to Vered haGalil, which is a wonderful resort farm overlooking the sea of Galilee. As a matter of testing my new camera and according to "I shoot, I don't test" motto, K-7 came with us. It performed admirably whereas I am slowly starting to accept the fact that K-7 is just fine a camera which I am getting used to.

Please click here to see a short gallery of pics that were taken including some low light photography as well.

Few technical points:

1. The meter problem seems to be resolved. It is mostly my mistake but at least part of the credit for that goes to Pentax programmers. You see, there is this extended dynamic range mode (separate options for bright and dark areas) where the camera is supposed to deal with high contrast situations. If you turn on the bright areas option, it seems to simply apply -1Ev compensation to the right portion of the histogram.
   
   The catch here is that if you're shooting a reasonable contrast scene or one which has no very bright areas all together, the picture comes out underexposed.
   
2. Early shooting with K-7 showed some magenta cast issues. Indeed, this camera seems to be somewhat more sensitive and prone to going magenta. Yet, I cannot really fail the white balance sensor as most of the pictures came out with very good colors. Those few that had this magenta cast could be pretty easily corrected in LightRoom.

To summarize: meter is mostly fine, white balance is also mostly fine. More on image quality to follow.