Today marked the end of the four day photo exhibition put on by the local photo club I joined at the beginning of the year. I submitted one photo for a show a few months ago put on jointly by all the photo clubs in the area, but this was the first one with just our group of 30 members. The show went very well and was well attended, having a total of somewhere around 700 or 800 visitors over the course of the four days.
My group of three photos were all done with the K20D and the SMC Takumar 55/1.8 and all were done in Strobist style, using off-camera flash. As best I could tell, mine were the only photos submitted that used a flash at all.
The K20D garnered quite a bit of interest among some of the club members. Any question about what it is capable of was amply answered by the three A3 photos hanging on the wall. There was no shortage of people who assumed the images were shot on film, with some assuming they were from a medium format camera. 14.6 megapixels and Takumars play very nicely together.
Some club members were doing some snapshots during the show, using their built-in flashes. I decided I would grab my camera out of the car and take some photos myself. Got some odd looks when I came in and set up an umbrella and remote control flashes. People were really taken with the vastly improved look from moving the flash off-camera and the soft shadows produced by the umbrella.
The Flash Waves were a point of conversation, and one member was very interested in obtaining a set. He was also interested in the old Pentax flashes I used, with their simple sliding switch controls. It seems that navigating through the electronic menu on his regular flash annoys him.
Anyway, the thing is over until next year. Here are the photos I had on the wall. Sometime soon I will be removing the prints from the frames and donating them to the temple where I took the photos.
All
Pentax K20D
SMC Takumar 55/1.8
Oh, I must add that it gave me no end of satisfaction having taken the photos with a $10 flash and a $10 lens. And I was proud to get out there and "represent" on behalf of Pentax in general and brothers and sisters (Hi, Mel!) of the Takumar Club in particular.