K200D Users ??

Well if you are using the K200D, I got to ask, maybe its just me, but are you noticing that the Pics appear Muddy, and have a color Cast , after Transfer from camera to computer?

I thought this was from using a polarizer , which will effect exposure if not a Circular Polarizer... but I use a Circular Polarizer..

Do you use Pentax software for transferring pics to computer?

Do you notice a cast tint to your photos, in my case I think to much yellow? or Blue?

Do your Shots look X-Lent in LCD window of camera, but after transfer look Muddy, and focus not real sharp??

Let me hear some of the bad you found out about the K200D, and your Remedies to fix?

I just can't get consistent... Good shots/ bad shots.. its like the camera has a mind of its own?

I shoot a K10D, but I'm interested to see some samples of what you are talking about. Could you post some pics, please?

Heres a shot that I am happy with but it still appears Muddy to me,,, tree areas, and perhaps even a tint??

amera Model: PENTAX K200D
Date/Time: 2008:07:24 23:41:20 Resolution: 800 x 508
Flash Used: No Focal Length: 20.0mm (35mm equivalent: 30mm...
Exposure Time: 0.0056 s (1/180) Aperture: f/6.7
ISO Equiv.: 100 Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix Exposure: Manual

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...bournefarm.jpg




Another, Appears Muddy , and I feel has a tint?? not best of Focus either ( Not Crisp )

amera Model: PENTAX K200D
Date/Time: 2008:07:24 23:12:37 Resolution: 800 x 472
Flash Used: No Focal Length: 40.0mm (35mm equivalent: 60mm...
Exposure Time: 0.0080 s (1/125) Aperture: f/8.0
ISO Equiv.: 100 Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: matrix Exposure: Manual

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...r4/Round-1.jpg


Yet this shot , same day , seems to have it all going for it??

No Tint/ No Muddy Feel., No Cast, and Good Focus and DOF..

It just feels as though the focus is only good in the area you focus.. No matter what the F/stop, Focus Falls off everywhere except what you focused on??

This one however I was happy with focus and DOF

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...icondaroga.jpg

White balance is set to auto. This is what causes the blue tint and slight muddy look. In order to combat this you need to manually set it to the scene accordingly. There should be a manual whitebalance mode somewhere on the camera, I'm not familiar with the K200D but I can see that this is probably most likely the issue. WB (whitebalance) is a tricky issue; sometimes the scene requires manual mode and sometimes it doesn't and auto works fine.

Sometimes the metering sensor is tricked by the amount of light in the region or the amount of gray (cameras see things as black and white). Try visualizing the region as black and white or even take a test shot in BW and then examine the photograph - which object in the scene has the middle tone of gray (50 % darkest, 50 % lightest)? That is the object you should meter your white balance off of.

If this is not the reason, then perhaps the air quality in the scene is at fault. Often pollen and dust particles in the air linger and cause the light to react weirdly when processed by the camera. It sounds a bit weird, but what I do is take a spray gun or a spray bottle (even a hose) and i douse the surrounding area with a spray of water to clear up any dust or pollen that may be in the region. Of course I'm a bit of an idiot, so for all I know I'm not doing anything effective but when working with limited equipment I try as best as possible to control the things I can rather than the things I can't (like a poor CCD sensor on my camera the size of a fingernail :D)


one more question; in picture 2 what is that slight haloing effect around the building? Is it an HDRi? I've seen that a lot lately but people claim they aren't taking HDR and I wonder what causes the haloing of light if not ...

Hi NEM, just a couple of thoughts from this end as I don't necessarily see what you're saying. All of these look fairly sharp on my monitor. But then again, my monitor is not calibrated, and that's my question to you. Is your monitor calibrated? If not, you could get all sorts of aberrations.
My next observation is about the time of day these were shot. It appears by the "time" on your exif data that they were shot at about "midnight" :) haha. However, I'm assuming that you have not set your cameras clock and these were taken about 11 a.m. looking at the shadows under the rail and the eaves, etc.
Although I'm notorious for taking pictures at this time of day, I keep getting told, my colors and contrast will be much better if I have longer shadows. Just something for you to think about. However, you may want to go ahead and set your clock. haha
Regardless, I love these shots. I have watched your New England shots with great joy as this is an area I have never been to. Your photos just enhance my desire to go there. Keep up the great work.

EUREKA ! I have it.

Were you using an UV filter for any of the shots? That'll slightly change the color and cast tint of the light.

No, just the polarizer ( Cir )... I thought it might be the polarizer, because a Linear Polarizer will effect exposure and focus.. but in testing , I found no difference..

Are you shooting RAW or JPEG? If you shoot JPEG, there's a certain amount of in-camera processing that occurs that will be very difficult to adjust in post-processing. If you shoot RAW, you don't have to worry about that. But you will be responsible for doing the processing yourself.

I disagree with Kajuah about using auto white balance. Using auto white balance gives your camera to do its own custom white balance for each shot and generally it will do an excellent job. And as long as you're shooting RAW you can change it if you want to, on the computer. However, if you're shooting JPEGs, you might consider doing a custom white balance.

Honestly though, looking at your photos, they look pretty damn good to me as far as sharpness, contrast, gradation, etc go. It could be you need to adjuct your expectations. How long have you had your K200D and what were you shooting with before? It may be that it just has a different look and you need to learn to expose and handle the image differently. Regarding sharpness, I can't see any problem.

I like your photos. I am not a expert but what I have read. The Pentax in Jpeg needs some adjustment. I shoot in both Jpeg and raw and looking at both side by side The raws were always sharper. What was suggested was to go into the menu under record and bump up sharpness by one click and saturation one. I tried that and it made a difference. I Left my camera on one click of sharpness but not saturation. This is a personal preference. Also play around with contrast until you get what you want. This did not seem to make a difference in Raw. I have a K10d but I believe you have the same adjustments in K200

I have been shooting mostly with a telephoto lens so I use auto focus just to get close and fine tune with manual because DOF is limited. I use a different camera for scenes. by the way I like your composition in the photos.

Hi guy,
Just learning the K200 myself so I shot this to test your yellow theory.
Shot from a tripod with sigma 70 and a cable switch plus a 2sec delay to bring the mirror up.The white areas look fine to me.
This is straight from the camera RAW, resized to jpeg. WB was set to cloudy, shoudda used shade. But, so it goes.
Love east coast myself.....can't wait to visit again......and your shots look great to me.
I've found that although shake reduction can help, I still get my best results from a tripod.

All you K200D users that are coming out of the woodwork here. We need your camera and lens reviews! We currently have no user reviews for the K200D. That's just not right. Please contribute to the site and post a review for your K200D (or whatever camera you have). Your reviews are the foundation of this site!

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Thanks in advance for your reviews!

Done.:) At least the best I could do.