Masking by Pentax Fa* 80-200mm f2,8

This was taken on a day out with my friend Voe. The trip was made difficult because of the heavy weight of fa* 80-200mm f2.8 zoom.

This zoom had been hailed as one of the best telphoto zooms around. With this focal range of 80-200mm, I could not imagine this lens to be that useful for wild life. This focal range is probably more ideal for wedding proceedings or candids in the street. However, zoom like this range is starting to lose its meaning to me.

However, I still keep this zoom in my gear list simply because of its bokeh rendering. The zoom is not so forgiving with blown highlight and backfocusing issue with aperture between f2.8 to f4

This gentleman is pretty much not too far away from me, waiting for an announcement of winner team for the costume display in hispanic festival. I captured him in a way to reveal the colour. The problem is that his expression is all masked by that beautiful plastic...

Pentax A* 300mm f2.8 Review

I have done this review long time ago. Thought that I might post it here as a data base :)

This is A lens and it has been one of my "walk around" lenses ever since it has arrived in my posession. Believe it or not. This lens is addictive... I bought it as a demo item from US.

Construction

This lens is definitely short, sturdy and compact. It weighs 3.2 kg (apparently same as Fa 600mm f4 - how come??) and is attached with a tripod mount. There is a built-in lens hood, sliding back and forth with a small screw to lock in. Apparently over-use of the lens hood sliding back and forth would produce inevitable scratch to contribute paint loss...

It accompanies a aluminium silver box that I left it at home most of the time. A UV filter of 49mm can be inserted into a drawer close to lens mount - I had not yet bothered that at all.

Specifications

Mount: Bayonet Lens

Construction: 8 groups 8 elements

Angle of View: 8.2 degrees

Diaphragm: Fully Automatic Min

Aperture: 32

Min Focus Distance: 9.8 ft.

Filter Diameter: 49mm (rear) Size

Max Diameter Length: 5.2 x 9.3" Weight: 104.8 oz.

Filter Size: 49mm (rear)

Lens Hood: Built-in Lens

Case: Trunk Case

Image Quality

With this lens, I have been using it in very dark environment. Aperture wide open has such a narrow depth of field, the subject needs to have the whole plane exactly parallel to the camera sensor in order to have sharp image all over. Using this lens wide open really requires a lot of technique as many of you maye be aware of how poor lighting can really give you little details in an image.

The images are sharp at all apertures (if i could focus accurately with my clumpsy hands). Image is really sharp after f4.

The bokeh quality does vary! Sometimes it shows up sigma style tubular matrix type bokeh sometimes it shows up 31mm style bokeh. It does not have 77mm bokeh CA - luckily. I personally like its bokeh most of the time.

Here are a few examples of images: (Forgive my lack of talent)

1/1000s f/3.5 at 300.0mm iso400 full exif

1/1000s f/4.0 at 300.0mm iso400 full exif

1/350s f/6.7 at 300.0mm iso400 full exif

1/180s f/4.0 at 300.0mm iso400 full exif

1/3000s f/4.0 at 300.0mm iso400 full exif
Handibility
Thanks to k10d VR feature, I could use this lens just with a monopod attached (with the tripod head loosely tightened). This definitely improves my ability to maneuvre camera together with the lens for various angles at ease. While using this lens to track agile birds, the monopod can be easily adjusted with its height and move around easily locating spot for the monopod. I know using this lens is quite tough but this has been quite an addictive thing for me now. While I hike, I could use the monopod as a stick to frighten away the snakes. Tom Lusk might get annoyed with this as he wanted me to photograph these snakes if I saw them...
Tripod is a no no for this lens. It kills the whole purpose of getting this lens as the weight is just unbearable. Hard to go through the bushes up and down with branches coming out of everywhere. The height adjustment of the tripod would take decades to accomplish and miss million of shots altogether.

Conclusion

Great lens (too bad that I already bought it; I had to like it anyway). The only issue would be its weight and price. I think manual focus is not that bad once you got the hang of it. If you can find this lens, I would go and get it to do protraits and other low light environment shots.
I am getting my Pentax Rear converter 2X very soon and hopefully it would give me 600mm f5.6 to play around with. I will post my humble opinions regarding this combination later on.

Ferret Falls by Pentax Da* 16-50mm f2.8

This is located near Wonderland carpark of Halls Gap, Grampians Natonal Park of Victoria, Australia.
The place does not resemble a wonderland. Instead, there is a lot of construction going on: Yellow tapes and Road work sign.
As you might be aware of, Joel, Voe and I went for this trip to this supposedly camping paradise of my home state. What we get in return was pouring rain scented with seagull poo. Yes, I had tasted plenty of organic manure from the mother nature...
The falls exist in the cyberworld. I could never locate this waterfall in Granpians despite this 11th visit to the national park. Thanks to some strange luck, we happened to get out of the car to pee into the bush off the road leading to Mt Zero. We spotted this trail leading to the bush with the sounds of water splashing! So here it was a magnificent waterfalls that was enpowered by the storm that nearly blew us away into the werribee sewage farm.
I had 3 sets of camera systems and I had taken several images of this waterfall with each system as well. Da* 16-50 has the best contrast and water flow out of them. This lens unfortunately has received a lot of negative feedback in various fora. I found the lens a joy to use if it is not a decentred lens. Pray to Buddha hard and try to enjoy this lens would be what I am suggesting to all Pentax users.
Besides, this lens is weathered sealed and making my hiking around the place rather easier. After rain, the contrast and colour usually pops in any sort of images. However, the glow and glare can be a concern and this is more of a problem on canon 5D. Olympus E520 has better saturation and colour than pentax k20d but its rendering of water is far inferior.
I will rest my rant and cease my bodily functions to my bed...

Green Green Grass of Home by Fa 31mm ltd

This is a very rare sighting of Victoria Australia. Thanks to the pouring rain that revitalised a unique introduced specie of grass that infests the whole hills of eastern Victoria.

The lighting and the green happened to present a unique sense of freshness and I wish everyone a fresh day to start :)

Hopetoun Waterfalls by Pentax Fa* 24mm f2

This is one of the 3 waterfalls in Otway Ranges, Victoria, Australia

The track to decend down to the waterfalls is quite steep. The walk, however, is rather nice on the way from carpark to the falls. The breeze is so refreshing from the waterfalls itself. The atmosphere is so relaxing that one can stay there for a long time.

Watermelon Freak Show by Frank Barresi (Fa 77 + 43 ltd)

Frank Barresi is one of the local Melbourne artist that performed in local Fringe festival as well as performing abroad incuding Europe and Asia.


He only lives several streets away from me! I had the opportunity to witness his freak show which truely frightened me a little. He spent most of the time, screaming into the sky like a wolf howling. It was definitely freaky.


There were a few very concerned deaf elderly ladies without hearing aids turning their heads towards us as they probably sensed the vibrations on the floor.The shots are not properly staged but I felt like documenting local culture in my home turf.

The truth about any artist performing is that they do not wait for you. I have a blast shooting the brief performance but most of my shots do not meet the required standard.I found the last shot interesting as it revealed the kind of feeling I had at the time. I was wondering whether the red bits were his blood or the water melon flesh...