Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Using the Pentax K-5 and K-7 with my new DA* 300mm and the AlettA Stabilizer. Terrific combination.


Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

Hi Pentax friends,

I spent the afternoon trying my new Pentax DA* 300mm with the Pentax K-5 and the Pentax K-7.  Most of the pictures were taken with the K-5 while I was using the K-7 with the DA 16-45mm lens to take picture of the way I was shooting the images.  As you can see below, The stability of the camera was important, as shooting "hand held" with a large telephoto is difficult. I didn't have a tripod on purpose since I also wanted to test my stabilizer as well.

Both performed very well. The DA* 300mm lens is a dream lens. Before getting it, I was using an older Tokina 400mm (soon to be on EBay or you can email me if you want it) which is good enough, but not comparable to the new Pentax DA*  300mm. The 300mm is a bit faster, with a maximum aperture of f/4, and the glass is optimized for today's DSLRs. If you look at the images below, you will see the water droplets very clearly. Of course, the images are small for this blogsite, but the full size images are stunning.  I will certainly have one or two enlarged for display and for selling.

The stabilizer was also instrumental in getting the right shots. It held both, the camera and the heavy lens, motionless like a brick, all without using a heavy and cumbersome tripod. The camera was atop the hood of my truck and some pictures were taken from the roof of the truck.  I even took some pictures with the camera sitting on an old rusty mailbox.

Today, I toot two horns...the Pentax horn for producing such a good lens...and my own horn for coming up with the idea for the stabilizer. I just love it, and if someone else would have designed it, I would have purchase one from them. Actually, it would have been much cheaper. Thus far, until I sell enough of my gizmo, I am in the hole for  thousands of dollars. Go ahead and check how much attorneys charge for a patent, a name registration and a trademark, not to mention forming an LLC company for my own protection. The first few units had to be custom made by a machine shop...just for me. These shops charge about $250.00 to enter the coordinates in the CNC machine the first time, and $75.00 per hour for actually machining the part. I had to rework the design four times before getting it right, but that's okay, because in the end, I got what I wanted. I just paid too much.


All the images of the Sprinklers were taken with the stabilizer set on either the hood or the roof of my truck. The shutter was released using the 2 second timer.






The image below was taken from this old mailbox position.


All four legs set at a different elevation.  It does a lot more that just keeping the DSLR / lens combination from tipping over when resting on a flat surface.

If you are lucky enough to own a K-5...you're lucky enough! As a bonus, the camera has an electronic level indicator which renders the task even simpler.



Thank you for visiting. Please come again,

Yvon Bourque

2 comments:

Unknown said...

very cool Yvon
that lens is a stunner.

Interesting to know all the in and outs to starting your stabilizer. But just think how much camera companies spend in developing cameras and lenses i think you got off cheap and will make up the R&D expenses easy if you haven't already.
Hope to see more from you new lens.

Unknown said...

It's been fun and I can only imagine the process of developing an entire camera system like the Pentax K-5 and lenses. The flip side is that it kept me busy at doing something I love.In the beginning, I only wanted to build one for myself, and actually I did that out of wood with my old K10D. It was okay but over the course of two years, I kept making little changes until I really thought it was a great tool for me, and hopefully for other photographers.