Hi, all. I'm happy to join the Pentax forum.
I've got a K20d and I love it. When I bought it I looked at all the competitors. I don't know how any reasonable person doing a rational comparison could have chosen any other brand. The quality of the build, the features, the price and more had me sold. Weathersealing! In-camera, post-shooting processing of RAW files! Sv and TAv! So many customization features! And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not trading my K20d for any other brand, though I'd be happy to trade it for a K-5 II.
I had an Pentax A40 compact. It was a terrific camera from the 2008-2009 era but the screen on back cracked and became unusable. The screen was not covered by the warranty and repair was more expensive than a new camera. A friend gave me an old Panasonic Lumix hand-me-down, which was a fine small camera. I then found my dream compact: a Ricoh GX100. Well, it's not really a compact, but what a camera! I got it on Ebay and was lucky that it worked perfectly and was exactly as described. It came loaded with all the extras: external flash, 2 lenses, electronic eye-level viewfinder, etc. The thing that's great is that one of the lenses is equivalent of a 17mm on a 35mm camera, which is great for street photography. The camera is slow, especially when saving RAW files, but I learned how to work with that. Now that Pentax = Ricoh and Ricoh = Pentax, I can wear this proudly around my neck! Most recently I got as a gift the amazing Sony RX100, which has an incredible lens, amazing sensor and plenty of control.
Ok, Ok. I know that half of my compacts are not Pentax but in my defense (1) Pentax got out of that business, (2) as I said, Ricoh = Pentax and (3) there's not a Nikon or Canon among them.
When I see a Pentaxian on the street we always seem to find each other, talk about how great our cameras are, trade hints and personal techniques, and make fun of non-Pentaxians.
My first love of Pentax goes back to my junior high camera club when I was in 8th grade. The teacher had a Pentax Spotmatic and I really, really wanted that camera. But when could an 8th grader afford a camera, adjusted for inflation, over $1000? Happy to say, along came eBay and I now own that Spotmatic that I so desperately wanted. And for less than $50!
At this point, I have two wishes.
First, I would want less expensive lenses without sacrificing quality; Pentax should never sacrifice quality of their lenses.
Second, I want a successful future for this company and for their products. I wish a lot more people bought Pentaxes. I wish I saw more Pentaxians walking the streets. I wish the product and it's quality were better known and were better promoted. In a super-competitive camera world, Pentax can't be the exclusive brand for smart photographers. It seems that they dropped the K-m --> K-x --> K-r entry-level line in the US, which implies that they are giving up on this market. Not good. If people start with other models, they will want to keep and use the lenses that came with the other models. This worries me.
So there you have it - my equipment, my love of the products, my childhood memory and my wishes for the future. Now I'm going out to take some pictures.
Pentax forever!
Steven aka Hermytwo
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