Hello,

I'm about to order a Pentax K-3 camera because I've been assured by the camera store that my K mount adapter is all I need to have in order to make use of these great Takamar lenses. ( I have 6 in all )
So of course I'd love to have this work out well. I know I'll be back to manual focus and that's OK with me.
Has anyone ever used these combinations? I'd like to hear from anyone who has any experience with using film based lenses on a digital camera.

We recently had a club show with over 300 images on display most 8X10 and a few were larger.
We played a game whereby the winners choose 10 for each category. P&S DSLR and DSLR full frame.
You need to know many of our members are long in the tooth both physically so yes their eye sight might not be as sharp as your youngsters but more importantly have 30 to 40 years and more at being damn decent photographers.
The results stunned us all. The winner had 62% ave. correct in each category. Most were within what we call statistically random choice around 35%.
So we took from this that
a. newer p&s cameras are pretty good
and
b. the person pushing the shutter button is still the most important ingredient.

p.s.
For those of you who enjoy stats yes, there were between 90 and 104 in each category.

Anyone care to comment on the potential usefulness of old Takamar lenses? They were fantastic glass with my old Pentax Spotmatic II

Some of my best group shots are taken after the fact. That is, the original shall we say formal shot is taken, then people start to breath, relax and bam that shot taken 2 to 3 seconds later before much movement occurs ends up being the winner.
So as has been suggested, shoot lots. This technique works best when ambient light only is used so flash battery recharging isn't an issue.
One more thing. I live in Canada and once we were taking pictures in February on a cold day so no one was prepared to go outside for the memorial shot. So we had the group arranged so they were looking out the large picture window. I placed the lens against the glass and got what you think you'd get, yep ugly. So we then moved to the smaller window set that had one that would open. Although there was less light and accordingly the f stop was dropped down to 2 larger f8 I seem to recall it was great. The group was relaxed yet not frustrated by having to move once and seeing me standing on a ladder outside in the snowbank gave them a facial expression that said " I'm enjoying this"

It was the last picture taken of 3 of the group of 11 and it still holds great meaning for me.

Yes and yes. I have used the feature and with decent results. The key as you suggest is the tripod. No one I know who has tried the feature has had steady hands even when using the poor mans tripod of string from tripod screw to foot on ground pulled snugly. Without exact duplicate compositions the resulting image is disappointing.

You might get a good image by relying on presets outdoors. That is have the camera shutter half depresssed so that the exposure and focus is set then wait until the dog turns into the camera at the set distance and shoot. The dog will turn to look because of some form of attention grabbing. Thisncould be finger snapping, their name, reaction words like "treat" or simplybringing a second dog into the situation.
As was said earlier just keep shooting. Often my best shots are taken before or after the time I took what I was expecting to be the perfect shot.

Yes,that should be true. I own a Nikon p7100 coolpix. It wasn't until I read a forum not dp review by the way that talked about a test using various speeds of cards that I found the fast cards did get a much shorter time between image captures. I got a San Disk Extreme Pro at 95 mg/ sec, class 10 and the time was cut in half!
Still not able to find out why cards can not be classed by both spped of write to and read from. Seems it is straight forward about the read speed but not clear at all about write speed.

Thank you very much. It appears I missed that page. I'll check the manual CD when I get home.
I may have paid for a very fast (95 mg/sec ) Extreme Pro SanDisk card that I didn't really need as in the speed of writing isn't much different. I bought it thinking I will remedy this "write speed" problem.
Oh well it can't hurt I guess.

Do you know why this red icon of a memory card with a direction arrow pointing into it shows up?
It appears when turning on the camera, and following all shutter releases.
The manual does not memtion its existance and on another forum it might be what they are talking about that says it is a lens error.
I'm leaving for Australia tomorrow evening and I'm afraid this is a condition that might make my relatively new purchase inoperable there and beyond the return date to my local store by the time I return. Otherwise, the camera does seem to be functioning properly.
Your help is appreciated.
I did take a very poor quality inage of it using my computer camera but I can not access it now since I'm at work and I just thought that thisforum might be able to "shed a little light" on my problem.

Do you miss the self timer function found on $200 p&s cameras that let's you know your camera is set to take an image? Often this is just a slowly flashing light on most Nikon Coolpix cameras.

Do any of you commentators care to bet your life on any $$ that a government enterprise costs?
Think of the trip as a statement about America. how many other countries could send their leader to South Africa, get the same amount of press, mostly positive, and be respected for his insights and comments?
I'm Canadian and I can tell you our useless PM can't even get a trade deal done with Europe even though he states his government is all about the economy.
I suggest relax on the 4th of July and be proud of all that America stands for and is respected for doing throughout the world.

When choosing between Lightroom and Aperture, don't forget that Aperture is nondestructive to the original files. Not so Lightroom. So if you think ahead to possibly having to restore from originals, it's doable in Aperture and not in Lightroom.
I love the MB Pro. If you are handy you can convert the memory to a hybrid purchased at a Memory Express here in Canada and use the HD in a shell for use as an external drive.
Fast, cool and cheaper than the Apple people sell it.

I use a B + W UV-Haze filter and find no difference when it is on or off.
Hesse are made in Germany. When I was shopping the store compared the " knock off" brand, the HOYA and the B+W over a coin. It made it very clear to see how the other two filters changed the view but the B+W was showing no difference from looking at the coin with no filter in front.
Maybe the filter brand is an issue especially if there are counterfeit HOYA lenses out there.

Do you know where I can acquire the above adaptor? he salesman for the Nokon Coolpix p7700 said there won't be a problem but no source has been found in Canada so far.

I'm also looking for a lens cap that will stay attached to the camera by use of a strong loop of some type of thread like material. again the store had them for all different size lenses but not for my 40.5 mm lens.
thanks.
may the golden hour and blue 20 minutes be with you always.
Cyclespeed

Since you are used to the Nikon brand maybe try the Nikon Coolpix S9300. 18X tele and DP review gave it 69%.
I just got a Nikon Coolpix p7700, 7X and love its external controls, yet is all in one. Best part it fits in every pocket I plan on using to carry it with me including the jersey pockets at the bottom back.
Remember the best camera is the one you have with you.
Wil