I've cc'd my friend Candace on this email, so you can reply-all if you have something to say that would be of particular interest to her. I suspect that the topics below will generate discussion not only of interest to her, but some interesting digressions on technology, making compromises, and possibly even some sophomoric paronomasia.
She had been asking me about getting better low light performance out of her gear, what lenses to look at, or whether she'd be better off upgrading from her K-m. She lives in Sacramento, I live in Santa Cruz, and we met up at a friend's birthday party in Berkeley Saturday. Over the course of the evening, I let her play with an assortment of my lenses, and loaned her an M50/1.7 and a supertak 50/1.4. Since a lot of the end of the evening was our playing around doing impromptu portraits of a couple friends playing guitar, I'm not terribly surprised that she liked my 77/1.8 ltd so much. That is exactly the situation where that lens really shines. Prices have gone up a bit on them since I bought mine. I spent several months following ads, doing web searches and the like until I found it for about $700, at either Abe's or Prodigital 2000. Today, they seem to be up to about $1100, though KEH seems to have a couple of used ones for under $750. If anyone happens to know of any particularly good deals on them, from a store that's actually likely to deliver, I'm sure that Candace would be interested in learning more. In a similar vein, has anyone tried the Sigma 85/1.4? It's bit less expensive, two thirds of a stop faster, has it's own focus motor, and is a bit heavier. I definitely have mixed feelings about some of my sigma glass, when they work, they're wonderful. Sigma is also excellent at specifying lenses that I'd love to have, though you can sacrifice a bit of sharpness around the edges for the wider aperture. http://www.google.com/search?ix=heb&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=sigma+85+1.4#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=sigma+85+1.4+pentax+&oq=sigma+85+1.4+pentax+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=serp.3...349029.349029.4.349752.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0.va18x6RXcS4&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=5fcdc9aab960680&ix=heb&biw=1431&bih=1020 And while we're at it, I'll also point to the Samyang/Rokinon/Vivitar etc. Korean 85/1.4 manual exposure, manual focus 85/1.4 that is about half the cost: http://www.google.com/search?ix=heb&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=sigma+85+1.4#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=korean+85+1.4+pentax+&oq=korean+85+1.4+pentax+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=serp.3...19368.20908.5.21376.7.7.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0.yAvrV9nOzLU&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=5fcdc9aab960680&ix=heb&biw=1431&bih=1020 As to camera bodies, Candace seems to have two usage profiles where performance counts. One is night time parties with the "burner" crowd, or even at burning man itself. In these cases, I think that the critical factors would be: low light performance, dynamic range, and weather sealing (on the playa which is very, very dusty). In these situations, my gut feeling is that she'd be best off with a K-5, a DA* 16-50, and a DA* 55/1.4 (and possibly a DA* 50-135), though there's a lot to also recommend the sigma 30/1.4 for low light work. And, for when the playa is stupid dusty, a K-1000 a roll of kodacolor 200, would be able to share some lenses with the DSLR. Since Candace also cares about size and weight, there's probably an argument in favor of the K-01, but the lack of dynamic range vs the K-5 and weather sealing count against it. We've been talking about how the K-5 might be getting close to the end of its run, when would Pentax/Ricoh be likely to announce a successor? The other usage scenario for Candace is backpacking and hiking. Since she's a backpacker that brings along a camera, rather than a photographer that goes backpacking, she tends to bring along her point and shoot rather than her DSLR. She mumbled something about the K-m weighing as much as her tent, sleeping bag, stove and three days of food combined. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit. My guess is that for backpacking, she might be better off with something in the micro 4/3 system. It wouldn't have the weather sealing, low light performance, or dynamic range of an APS camera, but I suspect that the newest u4/3 bodies probably out-perform her K-m. Of course, someone with an unlimited budget would probably want a Leica M-9 for backpacking. Would she likely be better off getting a u4/3 system or a high end point and shoot for backpacking? It's my impression that some of the good point and shoots actually perform on par with most of the u4/3 bodies, and weigh a good bit less. -- Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est -- 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.
