Monaco E-Prix with a K3-III and two lenses
Hi again guys,
Its weird I just post 2 topics in this subforum and both are about Monaco as if I live there or close. It is not the case. I'm not based that far away but I live in Barcelona city so... anyways. Thanks to the Pentax spanish forum and my activity there the admin spoke with the importer to borrow me a K3-III for a week to try it out as I am the one in that forum shooting motorsports and so I had the pleasure to use this new camera in this 1 day event.
Let me share some of the images I took with the camera and that I like the most.
And share some impressions of it.
As you could see here it was not my first time in Montecarlo, I have had the luck of being an accredited photographer for the F1 support races 2 years in a row and later for Formula 1. And now, in 2021, for Formula E. So I knew the spots, and I knew what was hard to get with my K3-II and so I did wanted to compare. Of course those cars are different, slower. They lap probably 30secs slower than Formula 1 cars do. But still its a hard job to get them in frame.
Beforehand I was able to get familiar with the menus and buttons on the camera, their layout and so on, so I let the camera on panning mode all the time because I wanted to check how does that go, and I was interested in using the crop factor of 1.3X the camera itself has. I just tested it once or twice and eventhough it does reduce the file size of the image, I was quite happy about it.
To be honest with you I made a mistake. The previous day I went to the Montecarlo train station at night and took a picture. Forgot to change the ISO from 3200 to 100 for the next day. So that caused me trouble at the begining because even though you (or I did not find out) can't really tell the difference, the camera was not properly focusing.
But the AF speed has improved vastly. I'd probably would never been able to do this shoots with my K3-II specially the one with the white and blue car flipping
_IMG9308 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
_IMG8916 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
_IMG9071 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
_IMG9233 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
I have to say also that I got 4 out of 6 or 8 photos of this car doing this movement on focus (I shoot in burst mode and AF-C mode). Plus for this event I was mainly using central expanded area of focusing instead of central point only as I do with my K3-II and K3
I think this was shoot with the Crop Factor on (1.3X)
_IMG9205 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
Using my beloved Sigma 100-300mm F4 lens as the previous images, also.
The exposimeter of the camera worked well on high lights vs high darkness points like here at the exit of the tunnel
_IMG9685 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
Also the Auto Focus was working well even with a fence in the way (at some other spots it lacked focus and was not able to work there)
_IMG9512 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
So in this image you can see a bit of grey colour in the middle of the scene and this is due to the fence,
_IMG0057 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
Or even with a car coming towards you I had this 12 pictures sequence of this car coming to me and to be honest probably 8/12 images are perfectly great and 4 to 6 are a bit out of focus on the driver's helmet, you can see the full sequence in Pentaxforums in the topic I just created about the same event if you like
_IMG0098 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
_IMG0515 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
I have a tone of pictures in my flickr account done with this camera and some from this event done with my K3 also. Also I've been playing with editions and also I have some images taken indoors with a friend that came to test the camera at home late at night if you are also interested on those.
To be fair I have to say the camera is a great improvement in AF and it works pretty well. I really liked it. Yet I also failed a lot of shots but probably due to my lack of understading the camera. Overall I find it way more capable than its predecesors and also I must say that one thing I did not liked is the buffer capacity of cleareance. You took a burst of 25-30 pics and then it slows down a lot. Maybe this is due to the technique, you need to (I need to) improve it and use it better with what you get,
Am I gonna buy the camera? Not now at 2000€ but in the future I'm pretty sure I'll. I'm not willing to sell all my gear to buy a D500 and lenses for it. And I have spoken with the guys at Pentax Spain to borrow it again next September when a 24 hours cars race will happen. To test the camera first of all in my local track that I know better and I know better where is hard to shoot with my actual cameras and lenses, and also due to the fact that there will be way many different types of light and situations that will stress out the camera and lenses and the photographer xD So will be good to see how does it performs.
Hope you find it interesting,
Until a next time,
Well it seems i wasn't logged in: I'm the user Red5isalive 🙂
Not sure if I am logged in now but yeah here it goes 😀
Awesome you got to use to this new body, in such an awesome capacity.  The price is so steep for a APS-C DSLR in 2021, if it was $400-500 cheaper I’d consider it.  I don’t know of any camera shops in the United States that rent Pentax bodies; I’d like to experience renting it myself.  That has to be such a unique experience of taking photos in the heat of the action, with the speed and noise that’s flying by you in real time.
Amazing pictures of an amazing event. I would love to attend one of these one day. There are a few rally races within a few hours of me that I'll get to one of these days just to experience in person. I'm not a huge motorsports fan, I just appreciate it and think it's cool 🙂
I was eagerly awaiting your thoughts on the new camera because of your expertise. Thanks for taking the time to share. I'm also waiting for the price to come down. I figure I have enough to learn and enjoy on my cameras for a few more years anyway, and then I can pick one up for much cheaper. I would only pick one up now if I was a professional and wanted to use my Pentax glass. The only big reason for me would be having the more modern IQ mixed with that faster frames per second/AF. I actually thought the AF on the K-3 was good enough for my novice self (every wildlife shot I missed was probably due to my lack of experience and not the camera). But I did miss the more modern IQ of the newer Pentax bodies for those super high ISO shots. I might pick up a KP to tied me over while I wait.
Quote from SpruceBruce on May 25, 2021, 7:32 pmAwesome you got to use to this new body, in such an awesome capacity.  The price is so steep for a APS-C DSLR in 2021, if it was $400-500 cheaper I’d consider it.  I don’t know of any camera shops in the United States that rent Pentax bodies; I’d like to experience renting it myself.  That has to be such a unique experience of taking photos in the heat of the action, with the speed and noise that’s flying by you in real time.
I've checked LensRentals, the online rental place, but they don't have one yet. They do rent Pentax stuff though, so maybe in the future? I'd consider that. Maybe not. For a camera that price it would probably be $100+ to rent for 7 days.
Your welcome guys, it's my pleasure to share my images and experiences.
You shall definitely try to attend a local Rally event. Specially if they race in gravel or surfaces like this, because its a pleasure to photograph. I mean, in a Circuit its harder to get "great photos of action" but in a Rally (I use to attend at least 2 WRC events a year which are the "supposedly" top of the top) if they race in gravel or snow you will create spectacular images no matter what. It is way easier to have a "WOW" shot.
I use to attend Rally Catalunya (gravel and tarmac rally) and Rally Sweden (snow) and you can have beautiful images no problem due to the fact they do not race on tarmac. So I'd say go give it a try. BUT please consider safety. Safety in a Rally event is always staying higher than action, and with a scape way after you, never having to go across the track. It usually will never ever happen anything bad, but if a crash happens you have to know how to react (it never happened to me but you always plan a scape route just in case).
Also the great thing of Rally is (or are) that you have one car to focus at the time and not a bunch of them all at the same time, so you can pre-focus and follow the car. And also that you can take it like a day out in nature with your family or friends and from time to time (here in Europe usually is every 2 or 3 minutes) a car will pass by.
I'd also say if you go to a Rally straight lines are "cool" but I like better tight corners, because its nicer for photograph and also with Pentax you have a slower car to track xDDDD
Let me add some examples I took over the years and you can go thru my Flickr account if you will
IMGP6911 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
This is from 2013 taken with my K-x and a slow 55-300mm. I took hundreds of pics those 4 days, I got like 5 very nice shots.
Just to show purposes on how you should try to be placed, here you can see the crown in one side and the crowd on the other side
_IMG4951 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
Just a random pic I like from 2 or 3 years ago in Sweden
_IMG6115 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
_IMG8552 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
Or if you wanna show the road or a scenery you just can climb up. Here we were standing at a 1000 years old castle ruins in a hill
_IMG2973 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
_IMG3022 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
That is the same view at 17mms xDD
_IMG8038 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
Or sometimes you just need to be quite high and the angle of the picture isn't that nice, but at least you got to watch the cars go by and take some images
_IMG8241 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
I like to take close ups to show more action but once you realise you can create nice images by showing the sorroundings also.....
IMGP5879 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
This is an old image re-edited this past year, this is a car on tarmac downhilling to a slower corners section
IMGP5157 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
All on all I am a circuiteer, but as a concept Rally is way better as pictures. And all these have been taken in general admision spots. I never ever got a media pass for a Rally event because as a spectator you can enjoy almost as much as professionals. Oh! And one last thing about Rally is that usually here in Europe you don't pay an entrance (well in Sweden you do, but most rally events are free).
So my advice is: Go and enjoy. I usually do some research on where to stay but we (I usually go with friends) always plan where to stay and the quickest way to get out of the way if a car comes to us. (the scape route I was speaking about before)
P.S.
Let me add this one also. I like it but its too dark to see clearly the car just kicked a snow bank and is taking it to speed up. I need to work on edit this image in a better way
_IMG8726 by Daniel Gonzalez Aguilera, en Flickr
BR and sorry for the long reply 🙂
And about the price tag. You are right, I agree.
Its just a matter of time (I hope) the price will drop and then we could think about it.
But when you realise the amount of new features and the improved ones on the camera it is then that you consider the price as "correct".
It is what you say, on a semi-pro or professional level it is a magnificent option to keep shooting with your Pentax glass.
Is a Nikon D500 a better option? Probably. But then you need to sell your gear and aquire new one. And it's not only a matter of time to sell and buy, but also of winning or loosing money on the process.
By the way guys if you would like to see more images taken with the new camera let me add here the link to the topic I just made in Pentaxforums so you can see for example a whole 11-12 pics burst of the same car coming towards me and the results
🙂
Seems I am able to get back on track after entering as a Guest somehow. Hello again xD
