[fedfireman]

Hello all,

I have been an iPhone/P&S/Bridge shooter for a while now but I now need to step my game up. My wife has gotten back into modeling and has really hit the ground running. So I decided to dig a Canon AE-1 Program I acquired out of the closet and try my hand at SLR photography. As it turns out the lens I had was busted so the one roll I processed looked terrible but I had sooo much fun manual focusing and composing shots I knew it was something I wanted to do.

My goals with photography are to eventually become a semi-pro (ie. part-time professional).

The types of photography I enjoy/want to get into are:

-Glamour, fashion, pin-up, and boudoir.
-Automotive (Car modeling not sports coverage)
-Urban landscape (I really like finding interesting features of buildings) (pics like this http://nstroudchs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/urban-71.jpg and http://designm.ag/images/0209/urban/18.jpg )
-Street photography (Again just really like finding interesting compositions randomly.)

With all that said, I have decided on the Pentax K5. I have been researching for the last couple months and I really don't see a better option for the money. I have had many people tell me I should get a canikon for lenses, but I don't have the money to spend on the "limited" selection of K-mount lenses so why do I need more to choose from? Also I plan on buying up a variety of old M glass and I love the backward compatibility of the Pentax systems. IMHO an old manual focus lens on the K5 with catch-in focus SHOULD the best way to learn and an awesome way to get great shots. I am one who believes it better to figure out what works than try to imitate auto settings anyways.

Also, one of the photographers I made friends with shoots a K7 and let me play around with it. I loved it! Conversely, I played with a canon 5DmkII, 40D, and T3i, and a Nikon D3100 and D5100. I was much less impressed with those, the canons felt fat and the Nikons felt cheap (as compared to the K7). I also had a much harder time adjusting settings on the canon as I did on the K7, the Nikon I shot on the same settings the photographer was using so I don't really know how I feel about that.

Anyways, sorry for the super long intro!

[eaglem]

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for the interesting introduction.

[fedfireman]

Thank you. I had been lurking on a few other forums for a while and finally decided to come here. I thought I might get nothing but biased opinions from a forum with Pentax in the name but quickly found out the other forums might as well have had canon and nikon in their names.

[Ex Finn.]

You already tried the K7 so ergonomics will not surprise you, get ready for the sensor performance, that is on a different level.
And yes, welcome to the forums.

[fedfireman]

Well I mean I only played with it for maybe an hour. And I only know how one of my shots really turned out, the rest I only got to see on the display.

But, I really just felt good with it. Thank you for the welcomes everyone.