Hi there....long-time lurker, first-time poster. I got an *ist DS this past weekend & spent the weekend playing with it. I've posted some samples on my livejournal.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ouij Please feel free to go ahead & leave comments. the text of my entry runs like this: So I finally bit the bullet and bought a DSLR. It's a Pentax *ist DS. After plonking down a lot of hard-earned cash (I was nearly sick when I realised that the body cost about as much as the rest of my photographic equipment in all other formats did, combined--which probably says more about my tightwad approach to photography than the actual amount of cash dumped) I proceeded to do the obvious thing and play with it. Initial impressions: the camera is small--smaller even than it's predecessor, the Pentax *ist D. It is about as big in the hand as my Pentax MX filmbody. The controls are intuitive and nonthreatening--a big plus, considering that most of my photo equipment is all-mechanical. The viewfinder is bright and clear and actually pretty good to manual-focus with: gotta love real glass pentaprisms. And about manual-focus: it was trivial for me to attach my manual-focus K-mount stuff. Of course, doing so deprives me of a lot of the gee-whiz features: autofocus, spotmeter, matrix metering, program exposure. It does give me aperture-priority AE wide-open, and full-manual exposure (In the latter mode, the AE-lock button under my right thumb serves as a stopdown and meter switch, stopping the lens down, setting the shutter speed to what it "should" be, and then opening up.) The kitlens is a very small and light 18-55mm f/4-5.6 zoom. No aperture ring, and probably no full-frame coverage, so I can't use it on my film bodies. Not too bad, except for how slow it is wide-open. I haven't used it much lately, since the light has been pretty poor. So I took some sample pictures, which you'll find behind the cut below. These have all be resized & processed for web display (levels and unsharp mask, really). Full-res, straight outta the camera images are available if you're interested and know how to get in touch. Oh. And nearly all of these images were taken with my old 50mm f/1.4 XR Rikenon. thanks. -Luigi de Guzman www.livejournal.com/users/ouij
