Pentax: Built like a tank

So states a professional photography blog naming the Pentax K1 full frame one of the three bests cameras of 2019.

And they are.

The review also goes on to note that you could "dive off a board into a pool" with the K1, which isn't something I'd do for sure (it's not water proof) and that it shares its all weather characteristics with every other digital Pentax.

And so it does.

I've long been a Pentax fan and have lamented the absolute rise of Canon in the digital age.  Indeed, I've been glad to see the recent rise of Nikon come along and take some of the wind out of Canon's sails.

It's not that Canon 's are a bad camera. They aren't.  It's just that they aren't the only great camera and frankly they compare poorly to Pentax camera's in several respects, the rugged outdoor nature of Pentax being one of them.

That's always matter a lot to me, as I regard photography as an outdoor thing.  And so do a lot of other people. For that reason alone Pentax's outshine Canon's.  Pentaxians, as they call themselves, laugh with glee when Canon users run for cover in poor weather.  If your camera can't be out in nature, what good is it?

Pentax cameras also will take old bayonet lenses made for Pentax 35mm SLR film cameras.  That's something most DSLR users will tell you is impossible, and that's a major plus for people who were using those cameras prior to the digital revolution.

So why so little love?

Well, it actually is there, and not just from die hard Pentax fans.  The cameras tend to rise to the top when rugged use is a major issue and when objective reviewers discuss it.  A few years back, for instance, a compact DSLR of Pentax's was awarded the position of best camera of the year by a photography magazine because of its all weather durability. And a noted press combat photographer about that time was also noted as a Pentax user.

But that's all a type of press and word of mouth popularity.  Pentax's marketing department, frankly, sucks.

The Ricoh company has owned the Pentax line for some time and while it markets its copiers, it flat out does the worst job in the world in marketing its cameras.  There's simply no excuse for it.  It makes you wonder if they given any thought to marketing them at all.

Well, they do give a lot of thought to their cameras.  And as a company that's come out with a rugged full frame they deserve applause.

Some of the old ones.

The Photographer

Those photos I don't take.

Salt Lake City airport

I have an entire collection of blogs.  Originally, I thought that this one would be the most active, but in fact Lex Anteinternet is by far the most active of them.  This remains, however, where I post my photos, as a rule, unless they are taken for a specific purpose.

Still, I can't help but note that there are a lot of photos a person would suppose I'd take, that I don't.  And there are a couple of places I've gone to a lot, that I don't photograph hardly at all.

Those places are Houston and Salt Lake City.

It's not because I hate Houston and Salt Lake City, its' because, in part, I'm a business traveler and in part, those cities are sort of hard to photograph.

As a business traveler, the places I go to the most are hotels and airports.  Not very exciting. And as a practicing lawyer, what I see to photograph is pretty haphazard.  Sometimes I have extra time and can see something, but a lot of times, if I seem something to photograph, it's because I've gone to that locality for work, or I pass by it on the way to what I'm going to.  Indeed, it was just such an event, in Salt Lake City, that caused the creation of our Churches of the West blog, as I happened to hike by the St. Peter and St. Paul Orthodox Church and took a photo of it with the camera on a really old flip phone I was then using.

St. Peter and St. Paul Orthodox Church, Salt Lake City.

Foot traffic actually explains a lot about why I have photographed a lot of things in some cities, and hardly any in others.  I actually have photographed a fair number of churches in Salt Lake City, but some would not that I've never photographed the LDS temple.  I've just never been on foot near it.   By the same token, even though I've been to Salt Lake a lot, I just posted a photo of a Salt Lake courthouse on our courthouse blog for the very first time today.  And I've been to other Utah towns and cities, I'd note, and am equally remiss, sort of.  Just didn't have the chance in a busy work day.

I've been even worse with Houston, but Houston is frankly hard to photograph.  Lots of glass and steel, but I hardly ever walk anywhere very far in Houston. All driving, which makes for bad photographs.

Also making for bad photos is that a lot of photos here are cell phone or compact camera photos.  I like DSLRs and SLRs, but I can't pack those easily.  Recently my wife's old compact Canon died, so recent photos here are cell phone photos. Far less than idea.

Just noting it, FWIW.

A note about the photographs on this blog.

When this blog first started, almost all the photos were by me, the fellow identified occasionally as "PTH".  I didn't even bother to identify who took the photos, unless they were taken by somebody else, in which case that person was normally my wife, DJH.

 "PTH" with Pentax K-x.  Photo by AGH.

Some of the older photos were by my father, who was identified as "TLH".

On my photos, the older ones were taken with one of two Pentax 35mm cameras, unless they were very, very old in which case they may have been taken with a variety of other 35mm cameras.  When I went to a digital camera, I went to the Pentax, which is an excellent camera with excellent glass.  It's an all weather DSLR with backwards comparability, so you can keep using your old lenses.  Frankly, it's such a good camera that I remain amazed that Canon's dominate the market, but they do. 

Anyhow, because I was mostly taking the photos, I didn't bother to identify what camera I was taking them with at any point.  My father's were taken almost always with a Zeiss 35mm, although I have photos with a Yashikaflex which I haven't uploaded as of yet.

Having said all of that, as I travel around for work a fair amount, quite a few photos on this site were taken with a Canon digital camera that belongs to DJH, and which has been supplanted after years and years of hard use by a second Canon compact camera.  I don't prefer the Canons by any means, but these are compact cameras and I lack a Pentax compact, or any compact myself.

I've also supplanted the Pentax K-x with a Pentax K-3, which is an advanced professional DSLR.  It's a super camera, and it'll do a lot more than I can do with it.  Indeed, the K-x would do a lot more than I could do with it.  I know that, as I gave the K-x to my son, MKTH, and he's already figured out how to do more with it than I ever could.

MKTH and PTH, photo by AGH.

My daughter also has started taking photographs, suggesting that taking photos is a genetic thing.  Unlike my son and I, who shoot Pentax cameras, and my wife, who likes Canon compacts, she shoots a Nikon Coolpix, a nice little solid state digital DSLR.

The long and the short of it is that I now have the situation that I wish I had identified the actual cameras I was using when I took a photo, and I wish I'd always identified the photographer.  I'll start doing that now, but it's a bit late to go back and do it for the old photos.  Be that as it may, there will also be more of a variety of photos up here now, I suspect, as there are more photographers to add to the library here.

Experimenting with the manual settings

I only switched over to a digital SLR relatively recently, and haven't really learned how to use all the features that are on the camera. When I made the switch, I made sure to buy a Pentax, as my old film cameras were Pentax cameras, and I had a few lenses I didn't want to have to re-buy.

Every one told me not to do that, that I would really be able to use my old lenses, but the Pentax information indicated the contrary. And Pentax is correct.

It's taken me a long time to figure out how to do it, but you can indeed use the old, fully manual, lenses. Some would regard it as a bit of a chore, but in actuality, it's very similar to the method I first learned when I first started shooting 35 mm film, except the settings are entered through the electronic camera's settings. You set the speed electronically, and then the F Stop manually.

I hadn't operated a camera in this fashion for years and years. Both of my old 35 mm Pentax cameras were semi automatic, in that I did not have to previously set the Aperture speed, although I had learned to that with other cameras. And I found myself consulting, for the first time in over 30 years, a light meter, although a light meter that was downloaded as an Application for my Ipod. In this fashion, I can now use my old big Vivitar telephoto lens.

The zoom lens that came with my last Pentax 35 mm camera (which my wife bought me after I badly damaged the aforementioned camera) has an Automatic setting and it requires much less effort. You just affix the lens and camera is ready to go, but you have to manually focus it.

Anyhow, this has been a neat experience. I really love the new digital Pentax, but I have a lot to learn to use it. And I still feel that the first of the two 35mm Pentax cameras I had took the best pictures of the three, but it's very nice not to have to be aware of how close to 25 photographs I am at any one time, and frankly it's cheaper not to have to develop all that film. Chances are, once I get fully rolling on it, the new digital camera will prove as good of camera as the first 35 mm did, and I'm sure taking a lot of photographs with it, as this blog generally shows (although there's a few 35mm shots on here, to be sure).

Anyhow, this is just a shot of a corner of the backyard, the first successful shot with my old Vivitar telephoto lens.