TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography

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HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW SR – Mini Review

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HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW SR

I was lucky enough to test out a prototype of the lens a couple of months ago. It’s big, heavy, and a lot of money. It’s also tack sharp, and with shake reduction built in, quite possibly the perfect travel lens for a 645D shooter. As I have an upcoming trip that would be ideally suited to this lens, I bought one last week, and have been using it both in and out of the studio.

Here’s another image of Rie in the field of cosmos flowers. Camera settings were 1/200 f4.5 ISO400 I shot the image handheld. The bokeh in the background looks great and the sharpness of the image is excellent.

HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW SR

When you open the image up at 100% you can see how I took the photo by looking in her eye. There’s me in the middle holding the camera. To my right is the farmer who wandered past and was press-ganged into holding a reflector. My friend, Shawn Miller, is standing just out of shot. He’s holding a Lastolite diffusion panel, the bottom of which is just visible on the left side of her iris. Behind me is Shawn’s Nissan Terrano and behind that is my little Suzuki Swift. You can even see that I’m standing on the banking giving me a little height so that I keep the flowers rather than the sky in the background behind the model.

HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW SR – Image Crop

The autofocus on the camera is slow compared to a 35mm camera, but this is to be expected. Also the advantage of the super sharp high definition optics will only be noticeable if you eliminate all other weak links in the image quality chain. A bad photo taken with an expensive camera and an expensive lens, is just a bad photograph in high definition. However, if you hit that sweet spot and get everything right, the images this camera and lens combination are capable of are stunning.

Now on sale in Japan at Amazon Japan for ￥ 349,783
Available for pre-order in the States through B&H for $4,499.95

Tatami Rocks – Kume Island, Okinawa

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Tatami Rocks – Kume Island, Okinawa.

Interesting interlocking rocks on Kume Island. They’re called tatami rocks after the Japanese floor matting, but they look more like turtle shells to me.

Diving off Kume Island, Okinawa

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Diving off Kume Island, Okinawa

I went diving off Kume Island a couple of weeks ago. The water is still quite cold in February so I was wearing a hooded 5mm wetsuit, but the visibility was excellent and there were plenty of things to see.

Diving off Kume Island, Okinawa

A small whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus) hiding in a cave. This was shot at 17mm, so I was only a couple of feet away. It’s quite emboldening having all the underwater camera and strobe equipment between you and your subject. Hope it recovered its night vision after being dazzled by 4 or 5 very bright flashes.

Diving off Kume Island, Okinawa

Alexis – Woman in Black

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Alexis – Woman in Black

Model – Alexis
Makeup & Hair – Summer Johnson

Pentax 645D with HD PENTAX-D FA645 MACRO 90mmF2.8ED AW S

Lighting – Charcoal background. Octabox powered by Profoto Pro-7a as the main light. Small softbox as low fill. A medium size strip softbox on both sides adding rimlight (powered by Profoto compacts). A fifth compact aimed at the background. Strobes triggered with PocketWizards.

Alexis – Woman in Black

The Cascade

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The Cascade

I rather like the contrast you get here between the transient etherial water and the static earthy root system. Shot north of Nago on an early morning exploration with David Orr and Shawn Miller.

Travels through the Cosmos

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Rie travels through the cosmos

Good weather, and a field of flowers in bloom. Time to get out of the studio, and make the most of the natural environment.

Model – Rie Tanaka Makeup and Hair – Summer Johnson.

Rie travels through the cosmos

64GB SDXC Card Comparison with Pentax 645D – a rudimentary test.

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Do different 64GB SDXC cards perform differently when used in my Pentax 645D camera?

Why is this question important? SD cards of the same memory capacity vary in price. Some claim “faster shot-to-shot performance” but does it make any difference with my particular camera.

The cards:

Transcend SDXC Card 64GB

Transcend 64GB SDXC Card Price 4,769 Yen (Amazon Japan) or $46.99 (Amazon.com)

SanDisk Extreme 64GB SDXC Card

SanDisk Extreme 64GB SDXC Card Price 6390 Yen (Amazon Japan) or $73.69 (Amazon.com)

SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB SDXC Card

SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB SDXC Card 12,819 (Amazon Japan) or 128.95 (Amazon.com)

Whether purchased in Japan or in the U.S. there is a clear difference in pricing between the three cards. Prices shown are the best available prices on the Amazon websites as of writing. (Please feel free to click on the links, and I’ll make a few cents from any purchases you make. This is a bonus, but not the purpose of the post.)

Pentax 645D with dual SD card slots

The camera:

I’m using my Pentax 645D camera. It has twin SD card slots. I have them set up so that the camera writes the RAW DNG file to both cards simultaneously. If there is a problem with one of the cards I have a backup. Also after filling the pair of cards with images I can then store the two cards separately. This reduces the possibility of all data being lost due to theft or another calamity. The Pentax 645D is a 40 megapixel camera, each RAW file is around 70 MB. On a 64GB card I can fit 712 images.

In the camera’s settings, high ISO noise reduction and slow shutter speed noise reduction are turned off.

The test:

Shooting continually, approximately 1 frame a second. How many frames will the camera take before it won’t let me capture any more images.

After shooting 5 frames in succession how long does it take for the preview image of the last shot to appear on the viewing screen.

The results:

All three discs produced the about the same results.

They camera shot about 17 frames in a row and then wouldn’t take any more images

After shooting 5 shots it took about 13 seconds for the most recent shot to appear on the preview screen.

The conclusion:

For the 645D camera, shot to shot performance was not significantly affected by the choice of SD card. I presume that limiting factor with regards to speed is the camera’s processor rather than the type of SD card.

Other types of camera may have better performance when using cards with fast write speeds, but in my case it would be better to choose one of the cheaper options.

Speed and price, however, are not the only variables when considering SD cards. Reliability is another issue. I have found more issues with corrupt files with the Transcend cards than with SanDisk cards. I have not done even a rudimentary test on this, but as a personal preference I would stick with the SanDisk brand.

Test winner: SanDisk Extreme 64GB SDXC

Shades of Blue

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Shades of Blue

The ocean, shot from beside the road on a cloudy morning. Turns out to be one of my favorite shots of the year.

Kiyoshi Yogi – Uechiryu Karate & Ryukyu Kobudou

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Kiyoshi Yogi – Uechiryu Karate & Ryukyu Kobudou

Kiyoshi Yogi is a master of Uechiryu Karate & Ryukyu Kobudou. He was the sai world champion, the bou world champion, and the first Okinawa traditional karatedo world champion.

Kiyoshi Yogi – Uechiryu Karate & Ryukyu Kobudou

Yogi sensei was the 17th master to be photographed as part of the Karate Masters Portrait Project. We stared on March 11th 2012 so we’ve being underway for a year. Over the past 12 months it has become clear just how important the project is. There has been praise and encouragement from all over the world, although the best feedback is usually the beaming smiles from the masters as we hand over the prints for their dojos.

Kiyoshi Yogi – Uechiryu Karate & Ryukyu Kobudou

Hopefully over the next year we’ll photograph even more of these Okinawan icons. I’ll continue to take the portraits, James will continue to organize the shoots, and the karate masters will continue to share their knowledge with the world.

Kiyoshi Yogi – Uechiryu Karate & Ryukyu Kobudou

Business Portrait – Hisano Pankiewicz

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Hisano – Jahana Kippan

Hisano Pankiewicz makes traditional Okinawan sweets. It’s been the family business for over a century. They have a small store in Naha called Jahana Kippan, which can also be found online at OkinawaSweets.com Her husband James is the owner of The Dojo Bar in Naha.

Hisano needed a new portrait that can be used when promoting the company and introducing herself as a young Japanese businesswoman. We decided to keep the look of the shot simple and natural. Hisano was delighted with the image, and a happy client means a happy photographer.

Hisano also gave me some coconut covered tougatsuke, as a thank you. Very happy photographer.