[BigMackCam]

Happy holidays, everyone! I hope you and your loved ones are well!

Thank you to all my fellow members for your friendship, teachings, help and advice throughout the year. This community means a lot to me, and I'm grateful to everyone here... Adam, the site staff, our moderators and every member (including the very few with whom I don't always see eye-to-eye ).

It's been another challenging year for us all, and in these troubling and uncertain times we're lucky to have a hobby that serves as such a rewarding diversion, wouldn't you agree?

Whilst the real joy surely comes from the act and craft of photography regardless of the equipment we use, we all enjoy adding a new piece of gear to our kit on occasion - something to help us to get better results, open up new creative possibilities, or simply make our activities that little bit easier or more efficient.

Were you fortunate enough to buy - or were you gifted - photographic equipment or software in 2021? If so, what was your favourite item - and why?

[I'll add my own favourite acquisition later in the thread, once I've given it some more thought! ]

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 12-25-2021 at 07:40 AM.

[Martin Stu]

Thank you for the congratulations!

[Paul the Sunman]

K3 iii, both because it's a great camera, but also because it prompted me to reconnect with many of my APS-C lenses. I had mostly been using a crop camera only for birding with the 150-450.

[microlight]

Merry Christmas all, and thanks to Mike for starting this thread. My favourite acquisition this year … is my only one! But what a piece of kit it is - the SMC FA100mm/f2.8 Macro.

[Cerebum]

Oh, this is quite easy. I bought an smc da 15mm limited, a 40mm limited, a 50mm f1.8 and an smc fa 35mm f2. All are hugely successful and will be with me forever, but the one that gave me the most joy was the 20-40mm limited I bought from @SandyHancock which is just fabulous.

[Oldbayrunner]

I'm happy to say I ended my LBA and didn't buy one piece of photographic gear this year, though recently I did spend $1000.00 upgrading my computer CPU for processing my photos. That doesn't mean I don't plan on acquiring 1 or 2 lens for my K1 mkll in the future.

[RobA_Oz]

I guess my favourite for 2021 would have to be the K-3iii. It’s raised the bar for Pentax DSLRs, and hopefully points the way forward for the next bodies. It’s a great camera to use through the eyepiece, although I have to say that, in spite of the work-arounds available, its usefulness for some of my work would be greatly enhanced by having a movable rear screen and an in-built GPS. If the next body has those, I’ll be first out of the gate to trade this one for it.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

There are two items for me: the KP-kit with the grip and the SMC 77mm. Brilliant (subjective!) results when combined.

[i_trax]

Yes naturally K-3III ( the best DSLR in 2021 ) but also Nikon Zfc , Love it!

[redpit]

Merry Christmas to you too Mike. As you said a very difficult year with seconds thoughts whether I should spent money on new gear, but the K-3iii I decided to buy sure worth the big expense. It is a wonderful and complete camera and the perfect addition to my K-1. It offers great flexibility and fills the gaps of the K-1 in terms of speed. I was afraid that after the K-1 IQ that I really admire I would feel the K-3iii as a step back and maybe I wouldn’t use it much. I was very wrong the IQ of the K-3iii is superb and I use one camera or the other simply according to my needs without second thoughts about loosing something with the APS-C. Still the K-1 is better in that sector but the K-3iii delivers and you won’t regret not using the K-1…

[macman24054]

Merry Christmas to you all. It was a light year for me as far as gear purchases. I will say that by far my favorite and most useful purchase is my Godox V1 flash system.

[jddwoods]

This year I did not upgrade any lenses or camera bodies (K-5 and K-3) or lenses (DA 16-85 all Limited Primes and 55-300 PLM) but instead upgraded what I view all my pictures on while traveling. I just bought a M1 Mac Book Air with a 512 GB SSD. It replaced my old Mac Book Pro from 2010. Now I have a computer with a display that is sharp enough that I can really see how sharp my pictures are. Perhaps 2022 will see a photography upgrade or new gear acquisition..

[AstroDave]

Not a camera, but my favorite acquisition is a little Ocean Optics USB2000 spectrometer. It's been great fun looking at the light spectra of all sorts of light bulbs (incandescents, CFLs, and LEDs) to see how they should work for taking pictures. Also, it's good for measuring the spectral transmission behavior of various lens filters. I hope to have something to show here before toooooo long on all this.

Not a purchase - but a friend of my wife's gave me a bunch of cameras (at least 6) and lenses (more than 10) that were her late husband's. This was all state-of-the-art stuff from 5-10 years ago. I got to play with various Sony and Canon cameras (measuring linearities and shutter speed accuracy) and all kinds of lenses, before I sold them off (with her explicit permission!) on eBay. I also got to make measurements with a friend's Nikon, so I now have data on just about all the major brands.

All this keeps me amused at home - good thing since we aren't going much of anywhere until the COVID plague is over!

[JPT]

Mine was an M1 MacBook Pro in January. It's been a great upgrade. Incredible to have a computer that never even gets warm.

Last year it was a DA 20-40 Limited, which I like a lot, but I've been sensible and stopped buying photo gear until I can travel freely again.

[ehrwien]

camera: K-3 III
lens: DA* 300/4
software: upgrade to DxO PhotoLab 5

Of the 3, the camera makes the most difference, coming from the K-S2. FPS, buffer, AF, viewfinder, buttons, tad more resolution, 14 bit files, noise performance... only thing the K-S2 has that the K-3 III has not: the fully articulating screen.
The lens is able to deliver sharper pictures than the DA 55-300 PLM, for the cost of flexibility (zoom), weight/size, AF speed and, well, cost.
The upgrade of PL had to be made to be able to convert K-3 III files. Only drawback is that there's no lens module for pictures made with the 1.4 converter and 300 (or any lens?).

At this point my LBA and/or GAS is cured, for now. Well, of course I'm still eyeing the 150-450 and other lenses, but I've not even set a price alarm yet...