Hi, Julia ... Nice to have you aboard ... another newbie to toast <g>.
For the time being stick with the body that you have. It's adequate for your needs, and the body is secondary to the lens in most instances. For portraits a lens in the 85mm - 105mm is just about ideal, if you're shooting the "standard" head and shoulders portrait. Something a little wider may be nice, too, as you may often want more than just a medium head shot. Portraits take many forms and shapes ... I've done some good work with a 50mm lens. The Pentax M85/2.0 is a good choice, as is the M105/2,8. Neither is too expensive, at least compared to some other Pentax lenses in their focal range. Another good lens, and maybe a better value, is the M75~150 zoom. It covers the main portrait focal lengths and allows a little extra on either end. That lens may be less expensive than the M85/2.0 alone. In any case, start there, practice, learn, explore your preferences, then decide which way you'd like to upgrade. Medium format can be beautiful for portraiture. Check out this site for some stunning work. http://edkrebs.com/ http://www.edkrebs.com/ballpark5/main.htm All photos on the second page were shot with a Rolleiflex 2.8E with Rolleikin, which is an adapter that allows the use of 35mm film in the 2 1/4 Rollei. All are hand-held candids in low light, at 1/60 f5.6 or f8. All on this page and most of the gallery are on Fuji Neopan 400, developed in PMK Pyro. Ed's work has almost single-handedly motivated my decision to stop waffling and move to medium format for some of my work. "J. Gerace" wrote: > > Hi All, > > This is my first message here and I've never seen this format before - > Wow... > > I have been studying photography for a little over a year (mainly, just > reading a lot and shooting a lot). I have a ZX-M. I bought it simply > because it was the most basic camera with no bells and whistles and I > figured that it would be the best to learn on. > > Here is my dilemma. I would like to pursue portraiture more seriously > in the future (kind of starting now) and I'm torn on how to upgrade. Do > I 1) go for a better body - MZ-S? or PZ-1P 2) go for better lenses (in > which case recommendations would be greatly appreciated) 3) Keep saving > and eventually go to either medium format or digital. Budget is an > issue - so I can't do all at once. > > Help? -- Shel Belinkoff mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/ http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/darkroom-rentals/index.html - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
