Having recently purchased my shiny new Pentax K-5 (and loving it) and having a read through some recent blog posts about past cameras, I was having a think about previous cameras I have had.

It started with a completely impulsive purchase. I knew I wanted something better than a point’n’shoot, but had no idea what. I had never really been that "into" photography, but my late Father had been and so has/was a lot of my family. I wondered down to the local Good Guys and had a look at what they had. To keep it under $1000 the K100D seemed to offer the best bang-for-buck (going by the features listed on the little tickets). I also remembered vaguely that my Father used to have a Pentax film camera (no idea what mind you) so that was enough for me. I laid down my money and headed home with a K100D twin lens kit. But sadly I never really found the motivation to learn it properly. It got pulled out a few times to play with and got used to take photos at a couple of parties. But nothing ever exciting (or any good for that matter). That was about 4 years ago.

Then I was chatting to a mate of mine who turned out to be a Pentax user; OzAdr1an. He got me interested again so as a present to myself I found a very nice, low shutter count Samsung GX20 locally on eBay. The GX20 is the clone of the Pentax K20D, which Samsung and Pentax collaborated on.

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Just a few weeks ago, the Pentax MX-1 hit the shelves in the US.  This enthusiast compact camera is currently available for $499.

Today we're happy to be bringing you our in-depth review of this camera, which is our most thorough evaluation of a compact camera to date.  How does the MX-1 hold up against the competition?  Read the review to find out!

Continue to the Pentax MX-1 Review

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The theme for our third official photo contest of 2013 will be "Dreams"!  This open-ended yet tough theme is meant to push your creativity to its limits!

Submit your photo here for a chance to win B&H gift card prizes and more!  Like for all previous contents, you may only submit a single photo, and it must be within the size & dimension limits stated in the contest announcement.  And while we do allow non-Pentax photos on the forum, only photos taken with Pentax cameras will be eligible to participate in this contest. Good luck! 

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On the 17^th of February I had arranged to meet up with a group of lads from a band called "Less Than Sober". Less Than Sober are a Rock/Punk/Pop band from Saltcoats, Scotland who aim to take the music industry by storm in 2013 with their energetic sound and the release of their new album called "57 steps". They have also just recently released their promo single/video called "Wanted".

The Shoot

As I pulled up to the meeting point early in the morning the guys directed me to the street that wanted to use for some shots. As I unloaded my gear we got to talking and decided to play around with some ideas. The street itself posed a technical challenge: how to light five guys in bright sunshine with one 400w/s strobe.

Even though I had a bunch of lights with me, only one of my lights had the power to overcome this kind of situation, even then without any modifiers and in close proximity.

For me the best way to do this was to split the image up into multiple frames. This would let me move my light between frames and light the members of the band properly. It gave me the flexibility to capture them doing fun stuff like running and jumping so I could pick the best frames to merge later. The down side was that I couldn't move the camera between frames, and with it being in the middle of a road we, had cars to attend to (but luckily for us, it was relatively quiet).

The final shot, shown above, was made up of four frames:

1. Sandy on the floor with Ricardo jumping over him
2. Malcolm and Darren in the middle
3. Gok on the right
4. Extra sky

The camera settings were as follows: Pentax K-5 with DA* 16-50mm F2.8 @ 19mm, ISO 80, 1/180s, F14.

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After a week of voting and a couple of months of homepage postings, we're happy to announce the winners our 2-million post Pentax K-30 giveaway.  We'd like to congratulate forum members gnarelsek (1st place), Itzik (2nd place), athlantar (3rd place), and socrier, krp, ewig, sugantabanjeri, and northcoastgreg (4th place).  Below are their articles, for your enjoyment (click on any thumbnail to read on):

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Pentax has just announced a new firmware update (v1.03) for the K-30 and K-01 cameras, which fixes an issue introduced in firmware v1.02 which prevented lenses from autofocusing properly in movie mode.  All the latest firmware files can be downloaded directly from Pentax Japan's support web site.  Read on for easy-to-follow installation instructions!

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This may sound crazy, but we've found an interesting "Pay What You Want" deal on several educational photography products that's going to blow you away!  This is from the same web site that offered our members discounted photo e-books last month.

The products we're about share with you can be had for just $1 or if you like what the company has to offer, you can drop them a few more bucks. It’s up to you. Either way, you get the same quality product.

What type of photographer are these deals perfect for?

Anyone who wants to:

• Learn how to edit photos so they look more dynamic and appealing
• Increase the value and impact of their portraits without having to possess special graphic design skills
• Create high quality portrait photos using a variety of backgrounds without having to own expensive studio equipment

If you fall into any of those categories, read on!

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Today we're happy to share with you a review of a brand new, cool laser trigger device that aims to introduce you to the possibilities opened up by using a laser trigger for your photography!  The review  provides an initial evaluation of the Cactus LV5 laser trigger.  A laser trigger is a piece of equipment that triggers your camera's shutter when an object obstructs the laser beam, allowing you to capture capture action right as it happens.  We hope you enjoy the review!

Continue to the Cactus LV5 Review

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