Hi all, I got a Pentax X5 Bridge camera because I think it's the best value on the market today for someone who's reluctant to go back to all the "fun" I used to have with the $3000+ I spent on my 35mm SLR Canon A1 35 years ago. I've been using Digital still cameras of the point and shoot kind for about 16 years now migrating from a brand X asian camera of 1 MP up thru a 2MP, 4MP, and 8MP set of Canon A series Powershots. When I looked at upgrading again at the beginning of December I was torn between buying a body and lens system from Canon or Nikon with an entry fee of minimum $500 for the body plus lenses and accessories - or looking at this new class of camera (or at least new to me) called a bridge camera. And when I compared the entry fee for a good bridge camera to the cost of starting another body, lens, accessories trip into camera addiction I decided to save my money. If a bridge camera turned out to be inadequate in some way then I already know the price league for doing better - and at about $250 for 26X Zoom and 16 MP - and 1080p video - the X5 looked hard to beat. I've been using it for 3 weeks now and am generally pleased - the one weakness would seem to be the inability to employ any filters on the lens. My Canon A-series Powershots have all had the ability to employ filters and I like to put a 1A ND filter on all my lenses to protect the glass, let alone employ polarizing or softening filters for some kinds of work. But I'm strictly not a professional - I shoot more to record than to be artistic.
So far I'm pretty impressed with the camera. It likes light - meaning that it gets a little soft and pixelated in low light - but overall for my purposes it's great. It's a complete system that covers a wide range of uses - none perfectly but all I've tried so far quite adequately.
One of the things that struck me was a moon shot. On the 30th full moon I took a series of shots of the moon from a tripod using manual exposure and shot from 1/30th to 1/125th in 6 steps - and everyone of the pictures was relatively clear with great detail of the face of the moon and at maximum zoom. Although the moon looked small on the original when I used an old version of photoshop to crop it and the look at the actual pixels I was impressed with all the detail in the picture. As far as I can tell the upfront glass is pretty good.
Most of my shooting is recording landscapes shot from the deck of my house of sunrises, sunsets, snow storms, Pike Peak, Grand Colorado Vistas, and then the usual family events and pet shots - and I continue to be impressed with all the things the camera wants to do automatically for my - like recognizing faces, recognizing favorite pets, telling me where it wants to focus, and so on - I'm still exploring but overall a pretty impressive package.
I like the more traditional way of shooting using a viewfinder and that really works well for me since a lot of my shooting is outdoors in strong light - but the ability to view what you've just shot on the nice 3" tiltable display is another plus that sold me on the Pentax X5. Right now I think it's a tremendous value - and to hear it compared to some other Bridge cameras favorably when those others carry price tags twice what I paid for the X5 says a lot about what Pentax has done in making the various trades to compete in this market niche!!
Anyway - hi to all - and Happy New Year to you all!
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