Hi guys & gals,...
For the past few weeks I've had the pleasure of using a borrowed LX, with the
possibility of purchasing it in the near future as its owner is getting a digital
camera around xmas time and wants to sell one of his LXes to help finance it.
I haven't really used it much because I've been really busy lately. In fact, I'd
only run two rolls of film through it, one print and one slide. The pictures I took
on the print film mostly sucked (my fault), and I haven't really looked at the
slides yet.
I'm returning the camera tomorrow so I took it out for a last session today. I
made a point of only taking four of my favourite manual focus lenses: SMCP
35/3.5, SMCP 50/1.2, SMC-A* 85/1.4 and the SMCP 135/2.5. I also made a
point of using all the lenses at least once.
The day was overcast which was just perfect for grabbing a few outdoor
portraits of my girlfriend (with the usual level of cooperation:), and quite a few
scenic pictures of the river mouth and estuary where we were walking. She
even managed to get a pic of me, as much as I hate having my photo taken
(yeah I know its hypocritical of me).
I want you all to know that I thoroughly enjoyed using the kit, despite wishing
I'd brought the 300/4 a couple of times. The 85/1.4 can do some pretty good
closeups and the 35/3.5 is the perfect companion to the LX due to its small
size and light weight (and versatile focal length).
Then after I got home I found out just how good the LX is for macro. It is the
_perfect_ macro camera. I wanted to take an extreme closeup of an LCD
module I've been playing with. So I put the FA100/2.8 macro onto my entire
set of extension tubes (total 68mm extension), then all that went on my 2x
teleconverter. I think it ends up around 4x magnification. I put some text on
the display ("Pentax" on one line and "LX" below it), turned the backlight on,
then set the rig up to take the photo.
Having trouble focussing, I popped the viewfinder off and used my 10x loupe
to focus. I then set the lens to f/8, set the LX to "auto", screwed in a cable
release, checked the focus one last time, and released the shutter. Exactly
three minutes later I had my photo :)
I finished the roll by grabbing the flash and walking through the house doing
handheld macros (without the highly unstable rig described above).
That camera is really nice.... I'll have the films back within a week, depending
when I drop them off.
Cheers,
- Dave
David A. Mann, B.E. (Elec)
http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
"Why is it that if an adult behaves like a child they lock him up,
while children are allowed to run free on the streets?" -- Garfield
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