I'll have to get back to you on this--hoping to shoot some film this week
:-) Cheers, Christine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Addy" <pixelsmi...@gmail.com>
To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <pdml@pdml.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 12:02 PM
Subject: A few words about the love of Good Equipment...
If you will indulge me...
With all of the emphasis these days on digital and "Image Quality", it
seems that many have forgotten (if they ever even lived at a time when
they could KNOW it) what a satisfyingly tactile experience photography
was. We have been robbed of much of that tactile experience by our
automatic and autofocus digital cameras today. We don't get the
satisfying "pop" of the back when we would load or unload film. We've
lost the satisfying tactile experience of advancing the film lever and
cocking the shutter, or the act of rewinding the 35mm film into it's
canister.
Now few of us want to "chuck" our plastic-bodied, autofocus lenses and
digital cameras and go back to film - at least on a regular basis. But
we can recapture some of that feeling by putting some vintage glass on
our Pentax DSLRs. In my opinion, a m42 to K-mount adapter (that allows
infinity focus) is one of the truly "must have" accessories. My
personal preference is for the genuine Pentax brands that require no
tools to remove. As most of us know, this opens up the world of m42
Takumar glass to you and your Pentax DSLR.
I'm especially thinking of this recently, as I obtained a beautiful
black Spotmatic and had it CLA'd by Eric. It feels so great in my
hands. I just received an equally gorgeous S-M-C Takumar 135mm f2.5
for it, with caps hood and case. What a beautiful piece of kit that
is! Along with it I got a very nice chrome Spotmatic F (my first F)
with SMC Takumar 50mm f1.4 and S-M-C 35mm f3.5 - all looking as if
they were rarely used. There is a feeling I get when handling this
equipment that is missing when I pick up my plastic-bodied Pentax-F
autofocus lenses and that I have the feeling would be missing even if
I owned the new Pentax Limited lenses. The heft of the lens. The
buttery smoothness of the focusing action. The all-metal screw-in lens
hood with white lettering imprinted around the end. Certainly that
tactile experience has very little to do with producing excellent
images - but that feeling is an aspect of photography that I
originally fell in love with and that I feel again as I handle them
now.
The closest I can come to that feeling is shooting my DSLR with those
superb Takumar lenses on it, and in keeping a film body along for
those occasions when I want to recapture that feeling in total. The
ability to use this quality glass (easily) is one of the main reasons
that I originally went with Pentax for my first DSLR (even though I
owned no Pentax glass at the time).
Darren Addy
Kearney, Nebraska
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