Malcolm Smith wrote:
Following on from the previous thread, what make of camera do you now use, and has it changed over the years?
This should get a lot of traffic, it's a question about the two favorite subjects of the PDML, cameras and ourselves.
My first camera, summer of '73 was an Argus C3. For my bar mitzvah that fall I was given a Minolta SRT-101. For many years I shot primarily with Minolta, occasionally borrowing Dad's Spotty II when I needed to use his 70-210. After a burglary, where I lost several camera bodies and lenses, I started replacing them with Nikon film gear because I had always wanted Nikon. I tried using it for a while, but where using the Minolta required little conscious intervention on my part, everything on the Nikon was backwards.
Somewhere around 2006 I picked up a Lumix FZ20 from a friend and started playing with digital. I upgraded to an FZ50 which I loved for everything but low light work. When it got stolen, I decided to get a low end DSLR to tide me over until they had come down in price enough that I could afford to buy a body with the performance that I wanted. I figured that the kit lens, and maybe one or two others would do everything I needed.
I was debating between the Nikon D40 and the Canon. My hands on experience with the low end Rebels made my skin crawl, there was nothing about the way that camera felt that appealed to me. I was nearly sold on the D40 with the 18-200. The salesman gave me some reasons why Canon was better than Nikon (mostly better service), and I was strongly considering that, but not convinced, when I heard him discussing the Pentax K100 with another customer.
The K100D super seemed to have many advantages over the D40, which would not work well anyways with my collection of AIS lenses, it was also less expensive. It seemed like a good deal to tide me over. Overnight, I went from playing with cameras sporadically to shooting about 100 frames a day. Any time I had a few free minutes, I'd go for a walk and look for things to photograph. The kit lens sucked at low light, so the following week I bought an FA31.
I'm currently shooting with a K-5 II. I'm frequently disappointed by the broadness of its autofocus areas, as it will often focus on the wrong thing, something not even close to where the focus point theoretically was.
I'm often tempted to get a Nikon body that will work with my AIS lenses, a D7100 or something, but even the used ones haven't fallen under my financial pain threshold yet.
This past year, most of my gear purchases have been lighting equipment. My two next big purchases will likely be the Sigma 18-35 1.8 and the Sigma 35/1.4.
My K-5 has occasionally been unreliable. If it gets too bad, I'll probably get a K-S2 to tide me over until the FF body drops to an affordable price.
Since I always carry a camera with me, I am occasionally tempted by one of the smaller formats, such as u4/3 or Fuji. There do need to be some serious changes in my personal finances before I start dropping money on such toys though.
For a lot of the hand held low light work I do, Pentax really does seem to have the best performance on the market.
-- Larry Colen l...@red4est.com (postbox on min4est) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
