Why Pentax

I've had my D70 a year now and shot over 28,000 frames, an average of 555 per week. In that time I've slowly begun to understand the camera, to anticipate what an image would come out like in a given situation. Even now though, as I explained in my Cooking With Colour article, I'm only now starting to understand the D70's various image parameters and the effects they have on the image.

It may seem odd, then, that on the verge of finally getting my head around the D70 I've gone and bought a new camera: a Pentax DS. The decision had nothing to do with the camera's inherent image quality as this has been perfectly satisfactory in the D70 for the vast majority of situations; the images on this site and the numerous 15×10" prints on my walls are testament to this. And besides, both cameras use the same CCD anyway.

No, the reason I wanted a new camera, and the DS in particular, is that for the type of shooting I'm doing more and more of these days the D70 is too big and heavy and indiscreet, uncomfortable to carry around in the hand all day and too “professional-looking”. The DS, in contrast, is small and light with an excellent hand grip and even fits in my coat pocket with a 50mm lens attached! The viewfinder is also something of a marvel among APS-C–format cameras: large, bright and with an excellent focusing screen that makes manual focus vastly easier than on comparable cameras from Nikon or Canon. The icing on the cake is that the screen is removable and companies such as Katz Eye make replacements designed with manual focus in mind, split centre prism and all!

Then there's the lenses. From the old inexpensive manual ones to the universally well-regarded Limiteds, Pentax make some fantastic glass. Some may criticise the range available, particularly in the telephoto area, but what is available is generally very high quality. Indeed it was the aforementioned Limiteds, and the 31mm f/1.8 in particular, that played a big part in my getting involved in the Pentax world. The recently announced 21mm ‘pancake’ lens reinforces the company's reputation for making small, high quality lenses, sticking to what they're best at. As a bonus, the FA50/1.4 is, according to Mike Johnston, one of the all-round best 50mm lenses available.

On The Fence

As of now I'm still undecided about what to do with my D70. I'll almost certainly put the 18-70mm DX lens on eBay as, good though it is, I hardly ever used it once I got my Nikon 28/2.8D and 50/1.8. The D70 itself is trickier. On the one hand it's a bit faster in use than the DS but that's really about its only advantage and it's not a significant one as far as I'm concerned. It's only at the D200/D2Hs level that the speed advantage really becomes worthwhile having but the price is just too high to justify the small amount of use such a big heavy camera would get.

So for now it looks like I'm sticking with Pentax for the foreseeable future and it's something I really look forward to. The DS is such a pleasure to use and to hold, even the mirror slap sounds nice. I will enjoy learning it, getting to know it as instinctively as my D70 (even though I now find that camera somewhat awkward to use!). In a month or two (or possibly six, depending on whether I remember/find the motivation) I'll write a follow-up article about my time with the DS but in the meantime I hope I'll be adding some nice photos to this site!

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