Just upgraded camera to Pentax K110D and a few ???

Brian L · Jul 22, 2008

Hello Peeps, I just got a steal on a brand new Pentax K110D SLR. My first SLR.... Woooohooo.. Ok im a little excited. Anyway its bout a 2 year old camera and from what I read on reiviews is a entry level SLR. I have bout 1 yeah in photography now learning with my old camera which is a fujifilm finepix S700. Learn a lot on that camera because of its features. Now though with SLR all that learning is coming together. The pictures are amazing. I can't belevie it lol.

So now that I have the SLR I wonder what RAW is. Just if someone could give little info on it so I get the idea then I can read some more if i get interested in it. Also could someone give me some info on a lens that would be good for all around shooting. That would include some family pictures at the park. Some nature and landscape. I know because its a SLR and I can change lense that I could have a lens for each item. However Im not rich so would like to play with everything to learn more on each shot.. Is this possible? Ok guys and gals have at me and let me know where I should go from here. Thanks.

Mike_E · Jul 22, 2008

Hi Brian, congrats on the camera. For information about RAW files you would have a better time using the search function on this forum and elsewhere to get The whole answer.

deudeu · Jul 22, 2008

Hello,

congratulation on your new toy. I am sure you will have tones of fun with it.
RAW is a term that describes the digital images before they are processed to jpeg.
So it is a file that contains all of the information your sensor collected.
The advantage of raw is that it gives you much more room to work in post processing. The inconvenient is that it takes a lot of memory space and time.

Since you have a Pentax DSLR, I would recommend you to shoot raw. To me, one of the weakness of the Pentax lineup is their White Balance and their jpeg conversion. By shooting raw all of this is easily corected.

If you go to the beyond the basics section of this forum and do a little search you will get tones of good info.

As far as lenses are concerned, If you are looking for a good, do it all lens,you have quite a few options.
Obviously, zooms are going to be more versatile and will help you figure out what focal length you like working at and then you can get a prime.
Since you are not rich here are some of your "affordable" options:
1. DA 18-55, or Pentax kit lens. It is a nice lens, though the Image Quality is not up to my standards. If you go for this one, just make sure you get the version II, which is much better at 18mm. You should be able to find one of those for less than $70.
2. Sigma 17-70. This is a great walk around lens. The Image quality you will get from this lens is much better than the kit lens and it has an interesting range. about $350.
3. Tamron 17-50 f2.8. The image quality of this one is one step higher than the two other ones, and it is also faster. For about $350 brand new, this is definetly a very good deal.
4. Tamron 18-250. A bit more expensive (Can be found around $500) this lens should cover almost all of the situation you encounter. But, with zooms of that range, be aware that you are going to get soft images at the extreme focal lengths.
5. Pentax Da 16-45 f4. At about $350 it is a very good deal also. Very good Images across the zoom range and from f4.

There are, of course, tones of other options out there. Especially if you take into consideration the old manual K-mount lenses. Those are cheap, plentyful, and have great IQ. But they can be a little bit of a pain to use.
But, if you want to go the prime way, you can pick up a SMC M 28mm f2.8, a SMC M 50 mm f1.7, and a SMC K 135 f 3.5 for about $200 total. As far as Image quality is concerned, none of the zooms can come close to what you would be able to get with the primes... something to think about.

Brian L · Jul 23, 2008

Wow. Ok thank you both for the great information. I really look into all those lens and figure out what I want to go with. I will have to save a little but will get some mid range. I have been taking photos so far in just jpeg cause have not done lots of research so far in raw. I will look into the advanced section of the forums and read more. I will also start taking raw instead of jpeg.

What would I use a polorized filter for? I saw at meijer of all places targus 58mm polorized lens for 8 bucks. I dont know how good it is as a filter for brand but for 8 bucks is it worth picking it up? Thanks and let me know.

deudeu · Jul 23, 2008

Polarizers will filter out some of the light in your pictures. It is useful mostly if you want to give a little extra contrast to your pictures or if you want to block out some of the reflection off water or glass.
For 8 bucks, it is probably not going to be a very good polarizer, those usually go for $40 at least. I guess you could pick it up to see what it is like, but don't be surprised if your image quality goes bad...

Brian L · Jul 24, 2008

Thanks for the info. I think I will save the 8 bucks and put that toward some other upgrades like the lens you mentioned. Thanks again for all the help...