San Diego is a really nice place. I wish I could afford a house here. Pentax K-3 and DA* 60-250mm

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

 Hi Photographer friends,

I drove to the Sunset Cliffs area of San Diego today. I love San Diego. The temperature is usually moderate all year long and there are so much to do here. I find it easier to take great photographs when the location is great. As they say, "If you are lucky enough to live near the beach...you're lucky enough".

I will have to come back here later on so that I can actually capture gorgeous sunsets, as the name of the place implies. Today I got the Cliffs, next time I will get the Sunset.

Except for the surfer dude, all images were taken with the Pentax K-3 and the DA* 60-250mm. The camera was set as follow. ISO 100, Aperture of f/22, Multi-exposure+Continuous, Composite Mode set to Average, and the number of shots set to 40. You would usually need to use Neutral Density filters for this kind of photographs, but with the K-3, multi-exposure of up to 2000 can be taken and the image balanced to average, just like if you would stack several images using Photoshop.

I love this Camera.

Sometimes, simplicity is best. 

Long exposures produce nice images.

I wouldn't want to be caught in the waves, but it sure is pretty.

Distant view using the Pentax DA* 60-250mm, at 250.

There wasn't too many surfers today, as the waves weren't that good.

Thanks for visiting,

Yvon Bourque

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Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, Point Loma, San Diego. Viewed with a Pentax K-5 and turned Black & White.

Hi Everyone,

I heard of the new Pentax K-3 rumors everywhere. Hopefully there is some truth to it and we'll soon have a new Pentax Pro-Camera and hopefully Full Frame. I'm just fine with APS-C but apparently, the public perception can't be swayed.

______________________________

On another note, while I am in San Diego, I tried to visit Point Loma and the Old Light House. Unfortunately, it is under the Federal Park services and it was close on account of the Government shutdown. That's bad, but I won't talk Politics, It would be a very long blog. Republicans and Democrats are to be blamed and yet Republicans and Democrats blame each other, while "We the people" pay the price and get inconvenienced.

Anyway, although I couldn't get in the Park, Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery was accessible. It covers 77+ acres of veterans of all wars. I'st rows after rows of monuments. I had my K-5 and took several pictures. Because the images represents the past, I decided to turn them to Black and White and some with a vintage look or ethereal look. I think it's more respectful of the military personal buried here after serving the Country.

It goes on as far as eyes can see.

Walking in the Cemetery, you can almost feel the presence of the brave souls buried here.

I turned this image to light sepia color and added the caption. It looks like an old Postcard, don't it?

You can see the famous Hotel el Coronado in the distance.

Feel the souls?

A loved one left flowers.

This is a peaceful place for resting souls.

This is so sad and also recent. Was his life given in vain?

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque

brqyvn@gmail.com

Five day vacation in San Diego with the K-7 and the kit lenses only.

The church facade.

Look what I saw in one of the many gardens!

View from the inside court.

One young child after the Sunday Service.

You can see that the Church has been resurfaced many times.

Gate to one of the gardens.

A long porch leading to yet, another garden.

You can click on the images above to enlarge. Pictures above are all from Mission San Diego.

Visitors to this page also liked: See "Recommended Reading" on the right column. We honor reciprocal links. Email: brqyvn@aol.com

Hi pentaxian friends,

I'm sorry that I was not able to post anything for the last seven days. My wife and I went to San Diego for a mini-vacation. I had my laptop but the Hotel we stayed at, which was paid in advance, had problems with the Internet installation and I couldn't get to my blogsite. Life is tough without Internet. How did we ever do anything without it?

Anyway, we're back and here is my first post in a week. I decided that I would only bring the minimum, in terms of photographic equipment, to San Diego. So I brought the K-7, the 18-55mm kit lens and the 50-200mm kit lens. I also brought a Rode Stereo Microphone for attempting to shoot videos with the K-7 and a mini tripod.

I surprised myself and I was able to survive almost a week without my expensive DA and DA* lenses. In fact I often have problems, with front or back focusing, with some of my more expensive lenses. I had no such problem with any of the two lenses. They were spot on every time. The K-7 has the ability to correct distortion such as barrel and pincushion, and also fixes the chromatic aberration. Why the need for very expensive lenses all the times?

The bottom line is that I was able to take pictures as good as I would have with my expensive lenses. I guess that if I were to crop all the above pictures to 100%, there would be a difference. Does cropping to 100% something that needs to be done with every picture? I don't think so, except if you are in the business of testing lenses and equipment.

The image quality of any particular lens is often confused with out-of-focus images. Most of my pictures were taken at f/8 and all were taken at ISO 100. That kept the depth-of-field moderately wide and helped in the accurate focusing. ISO 100 produced the minimum noise, although some images have a little noise due to cropping on some of the images. When I needed bokeh, I used the 50-200mm lens at 200mm.


Imagine if I were a professional photographer...my images could have been fantastic, all with the use of the cheapest Pentax lenses. Go figure!

Tomorrow, I will post the pictures I took, with the same lenses, but at Pacific Beach, near San Diego. Then, I will post some video with stereo sound and music. The K-7 really can do it all.


Thank you for reading.

Yvon Bourque