When I got my K100D, the first lens that I sought the most is the 50mm fast prime… until I realized that combining the 50mm lenses with cropped APS-C sensor is not so ideal. 50mm on APS-C sensor translate to roughly 75mm. That is just too long for a normal walkaround lens.
So I decided to look for shorter prime lens (or.. fast normal zooms, but those are expensive), and this is what I got :
Pentax SMC-A 28mm F2.8
I found the lens at Pasar Baru Jakarta, selling for Rp 150.000 (roughly US$15). The condition is pretty bad. The filter thread is slightly damaged, making attaching a filter quite a pain, there are fungus all over the lens, the metal contact for auto aperture setting is missing (so I can’t set the aperture from my K100D). But other than that. I’m quite happy with the result that I had from the lens 
Below are some of the photos that I took with the A28:
Filed under: K100D, Pentax, Photography | Tags: 14mm, K100D, Pentax, prime, SMC
It’s been a while since the last time I posted something related to my hobby other than installing the most cutting edge Linux distros, which is taking photos I am fairly a noob in this field, so I’ll steer away from writing something technical, and keep the content of my post as light as possible.
Anyway, the newest entry for my collection of prime lenses is a 14mm Pentax prime lens, the SMC Pentax-DA 14mm F2.8 ED(IF), equivalent to 21mm in APS-C format. At first I was planning to use the lens for taking landscape photos, but turns out, this lens is a whole lot more than just your average ultra-wide lens
The lens is built like a tank!. It’s metal all around, and while not as beautifully-crafted as the Pentax limited glasses, the finish is still amazing. The lens is very heavy, and sports an internal focusing system. Filter diameter is 77mm, and due it’s massive size, you won’t be able to use the K100D’s internal pop-up flash, as the lens will cast a shadow on the lower part of the image. As with most ultra-wide lenses, the barrel distortion is pretty evident.
SMC Pentax-DA 14mm F2.8
Most of the time ultra-wides are used for taking landscape pictures, sceneries and so on, and so on. But turns out, most of the time I use it for something entirely different
What I like about this lens is that, the minimum focus distant is so small, I think it’s about 17 cm. And due to that, I was able to take pictures such as these :
a Mercedes logo
Filed under: K100D, Pentax, Photography, time out | Tags: Bayu's Wedding, K100D
So the Collection Department of the company that I work for (whose primary task is to collect payment from our clients) have decided to take a drastic turn and deploy a new approach on payment collecting, by hiring a new kind of collector team. They are told not even to smile to our customer!
Rela deh Kalo Debt Collectornya kaya gini 
Kidding 
These fine ladies are a friend of mine from the company that I work for. The pic was taken at Bayu’s wedding reception.
Filed under: Go Go Gadget..Stuff!!, IRL, K100D, Pentax, Photography, time out | Tags: lens, limited, pancake, Pentax, prime, SMC DA70
Finally got my hand around this little neat thing.
SMC Pentax-DA 70mm F2.4 Limited
SMC Pentax-DA 70mm F2.4 Limited
Sibling to the DA40 pancake, the lens is pretty small. Built quality, just like the DA40 or any Pentax Limited lens, is superb. The all metal construction felt sturdy, with no wobbly parts that shake or rattle. The focus ring, -the best yet out of all of my autofocus lenses- is a lot better than the DA40 with a dampened feel that together with the Quick-Shift Focus System makes manual focusing a breeze.
Naturally, given it’s focal length, the use of this lens will be portrait photography. Such as these
ISO800
ISO800
Tack sharp when stopped down.
ISO200, F9.0
ISO 200 F4.5
Photos of the lens were taken using SMC P-FA50
Filed under: K100D, Pentax, Photography, time out | Tags: AF70-300, K100D, urbanfest08
So, on last saturday, I went to see this year Urban Fest, held in Ancol’s Carnaval Beach. The main attaraction was ofcourse various Indonesian Band. The main dish for the first day (Urban Fest was held for 2 days non-stop, from saturday to sunday) was Nidji.
Well I don’t really enjoy these popular bands, but AgriKultur was pretty awesome.
Using an M42 or screw mount lens on my Pentax K100D is a fairly same issue as using an SMC-Pentax M lens that i covered in previous post. Metering works just fine like always (one of the primary reason why I lean toward K100D).
But when I “booted up” the K100D with the Vivitar 235, instead of the usual “enter the focal length” screen that greets you when you mount an SMC M lens, it went directly to show the info screen that shows that SR is off. I also found out, that I can only use spot metering. When trying to shoot some picture, It hit me that focus confirmation also wasn’t working. it’s just like the body failed to detect that a lens is attached.
Why? (more…)
Filed under: K100D, M42, Pentax, Photography | Tags: K100D, M42, manual focus, vivitar
Here are some pics of Vivitar 135mm F2.8 that recently fall into my custody My first M42 lens.
Some sample that I took around the house
Update @ 26-04-2008
I finally got the chance to play with the lens when I visited the local zoo. Here are some pics that I took with the lens paired up with my trusty K100D (more…)
SensorKlear works. Well.. sort of. It’s certainly not a snake oil story.
Usually, I send my K100D to Pentax authorized Service Center in Jakarta. The service is free, since my camera is still under waranty. The camera spends 2-3 days there, and delivered to me clean and shiny.
But yesterday was not the case. I was in Singapore, and I don’t really know where to look for Pentax service center. Beside, I don’t have 2 days, as I will be leaving for Jakarta first thing in the morning, and I really really need to use my camera. So the only option that I have is to do it myself.
So what are the available DIY solutions for DSLR sensor cleaning? (more…)
Filed under: Go Go Gadget..Stuff!!, K100D, Pentax, Photography | Tags: K100D, lens, Pentax, SMC FA
Finally I was able to get my hand around one of these beauties. The body is made of plastic, and feels kind of woobly. The smooth surface of the focussing ring feels awkward to use, having tried the smooth M 50mm. Also the aperture ring makes a pretty loud clickng noise when turned.
Here’s the side by side comparison of the lens with my SMC P-M 50mm
As for image quality, the lens is a bit soft on F1.4, but very sharp when stopped down. Oh and I love the color rendetion of this lens. Seldom I feel the urge to fiddle the result taken by this lense.
The lens is perfect for portrait, and the large aperture helps a lot when taking photos on room light.
Here’s some sample I took with the FA 50mm
Anyway, I’m very delighted with the result that this lens gave me
Filed under: Go Go Gadget..Stuff!!, K100D, Pentax, Photography, SMC-M 50mm F1.4
It’s been a while after my post about my Pentax K100D. I have updated the post to include some infos about using AF to help you manually focus the SMC-M 50mm F1.4, do check it
The latest “toy” that came to my possession is the AF-360FGZ Flash unit, which is a quite versatile unit. It has the GN number of 36, and support P-TTL, TTL, Auto and Manual mode. It support High Sync function, so you can use it as fill-in flash. It comes with a built in diffuser, and a white card that can be used to direct some light forward when the flash is set to bounce. This unit can also be triggered wirelessly (in dumb mode) using the built-in flash unit of K100D. Sadly this unit can’t swivel, so it might be useless when using the camera vertically. Some of the folk at pentax-indonesia mailinig list claimed that this flash unit is too expensive, and not really worth the money. But hey, since they sell it on a bargain, I think it’s a good buy
Anyway I’m not gonna write about using the AF-360FGZ with my digital lens, instead I’m gonna tell you my experience on using the unit with my SMC-M 50mm F1.4. I’m still pretty much novice in this kind of thing, so please bear with me if some of thing that I wrote is not right.
My novice experience in using the the M 50mm lens with the built-in flash unit on my K100D are mostly painful. Since I have limited power in controlling the power of the built-in flash, I compensate this by adjusting the aperture. This is fine when I need to use small aperture. But when the shot require large aperture (2-2.8) tight DOF, the built-in flash became useless, since at the lowest power setting (-3), it still gaves you too much light.
With the AF-360FGZ, I have a whole lot more control over the amount of light it produces. Since the 50mm manual doesn’t tell the body what aperture its currently set to, P-TTL/TTL is out of question. Also you can not use High Sync function, so you need other way to control the light produced by the flash.
So I switched the flash to use “Auto” by pressing the “MODE” button until “A” is displayed on the LCD. In Auto mode, you can setup 3 parameters. The first one is ISO value. When using the flash as fill in, you will want to set this as low as possible. Press the “S” button until the ISO value on the LCD flashes. Enter the desired value by scrolling the wheel around the “S” button. The second is the aperture value. Set is according to the F value that you use on the lens. Again, press the “S” button until the F value on the LCD flashes and set the desired value by scrolling the wheel around the “S” button. If the flash still produce to much light, you can put lower value in this parameter. Additionally, you can set the zoom level by pressing the “Zoom” button, or leave it on auto (“A-Zoom”).
This one is cropped out of picture taken using the 50mm on large aperture (2.0 if I’m not mistaken), while using the AF-360FGZ for fill-in. The light is further soften by bouncing the flash upward, and using the built-in diffuser
The use of flash is still evident as you can see some light reflection on the lens at the middle. As you can see from the picture above, the desired DOF can be acquired by using large aperture, and the AF-360FGZ provided additional lighting needed for the shot. This method is far from perfect, and if you have any input and advice, do share it here
