I've just gotten the latest K100D and turned alvinsclee to the Light side also!
Presently, Pentax offers the BEST value for money. Nice features at a great price.
I've just gotten the latest K100D and turned alvinsclee to the Light side also!
Presently, Pentax offers the BEST value for money. Nice features at a great price.
Richard, how much is the Pentax.
Thanks, siah heng
Siah Heng,
I got it at Alan Photo (Sim Lim Square) for $1120, K100D body with kit lens and 1GB SD card. At the recent COMEX, it was selling at $1269 for the same thing (body, kit lens, 1GB SD card) ... but with an accompanying bag and free Epson PictureMate portable photo printer.
The latest I heard in ClubSNAP Pentax forum was that Alan Photo quoted someone $1020 for the K100D with kit lens, 1GB SD card and bag! I should have waited... perhaps its price will drop further when the higher-end K10D materialise in a few months' time (it was just announced in an official press release very recently).
Last edited by alvinsclee on Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:36 am, edited 7 times in total.
yeah lor...I'm one of those who bought during Comex 2006 @ $1269..!
But what I paid extra in money, I earned back in satisfaction...
except now I am tempted by the coming K10D!
Haha, here is a secret of the Jedi knights... not many people know that Zeiss T* and Pentax SMC technology was jointly developed by Zeiss and Pentax, who'd been working together on projects since late 1960's to early 1970's (the partners went separate ways when Zeiss partnered with Yashica in the RTS system)
Last edited by alvinsclee on Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
siahheng wrote:Hi Alvin and Richard, thanks for the info.
Has either of you used it in astrophotography? Any mirror lock feature? Looking at the specs, the max shutter speed is only 30 seconds.
Siah Heng
Set to manual mode and use Bulb for shutter speed, you can open the shutter as long as you want. Remember to use remote or cable to release the shutter in Bulb, don't use your hand to hold the shutter.
Hi Siah Heng,
I tried the Bulb setting with 2-sec self-timer combination to do 'mirror up and wait for 2 seconds before shutter release'... it works! However, the mirror-lockup may drain the battery because there is no mechanical lock-up. Also, you may need a way to hold down the shutter button... one way is to get the optional shutter release cable switch CS-205 or the Remote Control F.
For exposures up to 9 hours, I'll recommend the Orion StarShoot Deep-Space CCD Colour Imaging Camera (it has ThermoElectric Cooling to reduce random electron noise). This CCD camera has excellent reviews about its use in the taking of good DSO images.
Besides using the Pentax K100D for nature photography, I'll probably also use it for short wide-field exposures or star-trials up to 30 seconds of exposure time. I might consider trying a series of short exposures with it and then stack these exposures using IRIS/Registax.
Last edited by alvinsclee on Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:34 am, edited 9 times in total.