PhotographyBanzai.com

On day 4, I didn’t take any photos which is why I’m skipping it. For day 5 we arrived at our first port of call. It’s an island called St. Martin / Sint Maarten that is located in the Caribbean sea ( coordinates 18°01’N 63°03’W ). The highlight of the trip was a tour of our island by an American expatriate named Jose “Pacman” Jean. Look him up if you are interested in a fun tour. Most of the images below were taken on the tour bus or at points were we stopped. You can check out Jose’s new business called Double The Fun Tours on Facebook. One of my favorite images from the tour. Taken with the DA 50-200mm WR lens in a bus through the window. The iguana was bobbing its head up and down as it was trying to communicate something to us. The sea water is an amazing color in the Caribbean: I love the look of boats that still use sails: Most of the markets and shops sell the same stuff: I think I preferred the feel of the French side of the island: Back on the ship:

Day three was still a full day on the ship because our first destination was canceled. I spent most of my time taking photos of the ship and the ocean. “The gleaming sun.” The ship life boats on the horizon. The absolute forward of the ship. One of my favorite areas. They really try to make the ship seem grand with how it is laid out and the material used.

The second day of the trip we boarded the boat and waited for it to sail off to our first destination, which was Coco Cay (technically it ended up being St. Martin due to bad weather in Coco Cay). A large Christmas tree was on the main street deck (level 5): I managed to get a few nice bird images when waiting for the safety drill on deck 4: A nice little cozy nook near one of the bars: The boat is really dolled up with glass and shinny fixtures:

I’ll be writing an entry for every day of the vacation as I go through each set of photos. We arrived a day early in Florida, so we all decided to take the opportunity to visit Disney World. It’s pretty expensive for a single day (around $87 a person), but worth it. I’d like to take a dedicated trip there in the future. Waiting in line for the haunted house ride. I stabilized the camera on a ledge to take this photo. They must have lighting experts at Disney World because the park is really colorfully lit at night. The image was taken with the 31mm Limited at f1.8 and ISO 800. Cinderella Castle changes colors throughout the night. The day we were there a large amount of fog rolled in causing the mystic feel to this image. They have a parade every night. This dragon was my favorite part. There are small Disney details everywhere throughout the park. Toward the end it was almost impossible to see the castle due to fog.

I returned from the trip Sunday night. Started looking through the photos and some look pretty good, although I had a few issues I’ll go over in the coming weeks through articles on the site. Quick tip: Don’t use clear lens filters. I had a higher-end clear “digital” lens filter on the FA 31mm Limited and it caused very bad flare/reflections in some situations (reflections off of the filter were showing up in the images). So my suggestion is to always buy multi-coated filters if you want to have some protection on the lens. I had a 49mm Hoya UV HMC filter on my cheap DA 50-200mm WR lens and the results were consistently great. I went against my better judgment when buying that clear filter for the 31mm. I just ordered a few Hoya UV HMC/SHMC filters to replace the clear ones I have. I like filters for convenience, but clear uncoated ones are just not up to the level of quality I require.

There won’t be any updates for a week as I’m leaving for the trip tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll come back with a few thousand photos, some of which I’ll display on the site. Plans moving forward: Add more reviews in the format I’ve been doing. Once my collection is finished, go back and do more technical reviews showing resolution and comparison between lenses of similar focal length and/or aperture. Review other items such as camera bodies. Look for a way to rent or borrow camera goods to review. Write articles on pretty much all aspects of photography.

If you’ve had digital cameras for a while, you probably have quite a collection of memory cards. As I upgrade cameras I also buy a few memory cards to deal with the increased file sizes. What better way to keep track of and use all of my old cards than to buy a memory card wallet.  Probably a good half a year ago I bought a Lowepro DMC-Z to get my cards organized. Before that I was frequently losing cards and fumbling around with the plastic containers they usually come with. Specifications: Capacity: up to 6 memory cards, PC card or 4 AA batteries Size(Interior): 2.6W X 0.4D X 4.9H in. / 6.5 X 1 X 12.5 cm Size(Exterior): 3.3W X 0.8D X 5.5H in. / 8.3 X 2 X 14 cm Outer fabric: water-resistant Neoprene Weight: 0.15lbs/0.07kg Lowepro product page: Product page Features and information: To start things off, the “up to 6 memory cards” must be for larger cards like compact flash, as I can fit at least two SD cards into each memory card slot. Right now I have 14 cards in the wallet ...

All items are in and ready for the trip! I think I’ve got all of my bases covered in focal length and maximum aperture. I’m looking forward to giving my two new recruits (31mm and 50-200mm) a full run-through. I’ve decided to take: DA 14mm f2.8 – Rectilinear wide angle should be great for taking images on the ship, and of course landscape vistas. FA 31mm f1.8 Limited – All rounder, which I now dub the renaissance man of lenses. DA 50-200mm WR – Give some range to the kit without much weight. – Weather resistance to go along with the K-7 on rainy days if any occur. Call me crazy, but I usually use filters with my lenses. While it’s possible that there is some very slight quality loss I prefer having something in front of the main lens element for ease of cleaning and protection. I found to today that the new 31mm has a strange filter layout. The filter threads go all the way down to the front element, so when I put a filter on the two pieces of glass were touching in the middle. Lu...

I’ll be talking about my most recent purchase today. A Wenger Swissgear Zinc DSLR Camera Messenger Bag also known as “The ZINC” per their labeling. Here is an overview video I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzyE87mVmGE The true source of this bag is “Avenues in Leather, Inc” in Tinton Falls, NJ who appears to have licensed the Swiss Army trademark. Look for the Zinc Messenger Camera Bag here:  ebay: https://ebay.us/e7MPg6 Amazon: https://amzn.to/2KfnuSh Best Buy: https://bestbuy.7tiv.net/W5vjn   As an affiliate of these shops, I earn from qualifying purchases!  First off, let me describe where and why I bought this bag. It was a local purchase at Best Buy, the local big-box electronics retailer, which I tend to avoid. In my search for an understated bag that I could fit a camera+lens and additional two lenses in.  I noticed this bag on Best Buy’s website as being available in the store. The price was around $60, which was on the borderline of being overpric...

EDIT: This website no longer exists. Here is a screen capture from the web archive: I noticed over at PhotographyReview.com that one of my lens review submissions was featured. It was the DA* 300mm, which in my opinion is a great lens overall. Here is their posting: http://reviews.photographyreview.com/blog/pentax-smc-da-300mm-f4-sdm-lens-review/ It’s a nice site with quite a large amount of information on photography in general. Thanks Photo-John for featuring my review!

Today I was at a local camera shop ( Camera Craft ) as my kit is lacking in the telephoto lens department. I’ll be going on a trip soon where I don’t want to bring my DA* 300mm as it is too big. I plan on bringing the DA 14mm f2.8, FA 31mm f1.8, and the lens I just bought today which is the DA 50-200mm f4-5.6 WR. I’ll get to the point of my posting later, but before then I’ll go over why I bought this lens even though I consider myself primarily a prime lens shooter. As with most people, I started out in DSLR photography by buying the camera body and kit lens together. I had the first edition of the DA 18-55mm, which was a pretty lack luster lens overall. From there I moved on to a Tamron 75-300mm, Sigma 28-80mm macro, a Sigma 24-60mm f2.8, and then finally my first prime lens (FA 50mm f1.4). While the FA 50mm f1.4 didn’t change my viewpoint on what tools I prefer, it did start my move to primes as it has nice sharpness, good bokeh, and is convenientl...

I recently wrote and article for PentaxForums.com . It was my most complex lens review to date, with a lot more technical information and visual examples than the ones I currently have here. I plan to get more into reviews like that one once I finish going through my lens collection with general opinion centric reviews. In this article today I’ll go over a few methods I’ve attempted so that I can better understand the strengths and weaknesses of my lenses. Keep in mind that this is what works for me and I don’t claim to have the best methods. It’s always going to be a learning process to improve results I’m sure of that. Technical tests: Tests that measure properties of lenses are a great way to understand more about your tools. If you learn by taking measurements or making comparisons with your lenses, you can in turn understand more about settings and configurations that will produce results you want most out in the field. Download an ISO 12233 lens testing chart or similar (e...

I’m going on a cruise in a week courtesy of my aunt and uncle. I’ve never been on a cruise (“vacations” are a foreign concept to me for the most part), but I just know there will be a multitude of photo opportunities over the trip. This brings me to the reason I’m writing this article today.   I took this opportunity to acquire a Pentax FA 31mm f1.8 Limited lens. It’s been on my wanted list since I’ve owned a DSLR, but I’ve always found a justification to not buy one (usually “It’s too expensive” was the reason). This trip was the deciding factor as I wanted a single lens to rule them all. While I plan on taking one or two other lenses with me, the 31mm will be my primary tool. Pentax Fa31mm If you’ve been interested in SLR and DSLR cameras for a few years, you will probably know the term LBA (Lens Buyers Anonymous/Lens Buying Addiction). It’s an affliction that “serious hobbyist” photographers get that leads them to serial buying of camera lenses. They find any justifi...

Here are a few suggestions on how to achieve optimal sharpness with any lens and DSLR camera. 1. Know your lens: All lenses have a range of settings and usage where they can achieve optimal sharpness. Aperture is a very important aspect to consider when looking to get sharp images. In many lenses, the largest aperture and smallest aperture will produce lower quality results compared to a few stops down from the widest aperture.   Many standard lenses are sharpest around f5.6, but that can vary based on the lens design. If you are using a zoom lens, you will need to search out technical reviews to find out which focal length in your zoom range is sharpest. It’s also important to consider distance from the subject as generally focusing on something very close or vary far will lead to more distortion or less detail. 2. Know your camera: Camera settings are extremely important as well. Using your lens at the optimal focal length and aperture will be useless if you take the im...

When thinking of Pentax as a camera company a few things come to mind. Skipping ones not relevant to this article, one of the major defining properties of their gear are special pancake prime lenses that provide a quality camera lens with an especially small size.  Small! These lenses use a lens element formula that tends to provide a relatively uniform amount of image sharpness throughout their aperture range. Pentax is especially known for these designs, and interestingly enough the big two camera manufacturers don’t offer anything equivalent. The DA40mm f2.8 Limited is the epitome of this lens design philosophy. The back of the lens. Pentax HD 40mm f/2.8 Limited Lens: Used on KEH: https://shrsl.com/29899 B&H: https://bhpho.to/2GqytTP Amazon: https://amzn.to/2UnEu8J ebay: https://ebay.us/b33VH3 Adorama:  https://adorama.rfvk.net/zNErar As an affiliate of these shops, I earn from qualifying purchases!  The DA 40mm f2.8 Limited on a Pentax *ist DS. Technical specifica...

I was getting scheduled maintenance and a car oil chance. As this usually takes some time, I decided to bring the camera along so that I could walk to a park around 10 minutes from the dealership. There is a large storm water retention structure in the park that is a prime target for graffiti artists. I actually like the graffiti, but as you will see from the photos there is an added negative side effect. They leave the spray cans on the ground… Lincoln graffiti representing. Someone must really love grilled cheese sandwiches. Graffiti reflection. Spray paint trash. Rust didn’t stop there. I’d say… let the people do graffiti as it’s interesting and colorful, but they should be responsible about the trash they leave behind. It’s disrespectful on many levels.