[Undot]

Greetings fellow Pentaxians,

I'm located in Munich, Germany. Alas with some connections to Philadelphia, where I first got into contact with photography by acting as mule for a lady majoring in it. Carrying her medium and full format equipment I cannot say it was love at first sight. Fully analog and heavy as hell in those bygone days.

I've been lurking around these forums for a while, ever since considering the K3. Now, that I went for it, I figured it's time to join you lightshaping folks. My tentative start into DSLR photography was with the Samsung GX-10, which I mainly got to do reference photos for post production work. So it was far from an artistic approach, just getting texture maps and such. Recently I had to take some shots during a darkly overcast day and was horrified by the grainy results I ended up with. So I was looking for a better lens... I just wanted a new lens... and ended up with the lens and a Pentax K3. Curse you, Amazon!

Buying the Samsung I tried to save a few bucks and regretted it very soon and very deeply. Yes, it was almost identical to its Pentax sibling. But there was no support, hardly a firmware update to get new functions... it just wasn't the same. I believe I've learned my lesson, that trying to be cheap will bite you in the behind. Quickly and vigorously.

Now I've been playing around with my new precious for a few weeks and am loving it. It also helped a great deal, that I got a book along with it, to explain the K3s capabilities and how to best use them. Only reading the manual just isn't too helpful, and I suppose I could've made much better use with the Samsung GX-10 if I'd have had some more guidance. Uh well, bridge, water, no polarizing filter ...

So here I am and hello to you.


To make some use of this first post of mine, and in case you made it this far, I already have a question to ask. I dug up an old lens, leftovers from this aforementioned lady, which I forgot about as I figured it'd be of no real use anymore. It's a Vivitar Series 1 135mm f/2.3 K/AR and I was wondering if it would be worth the $40 for the Fotodiox mount adapter to resurrect it. It has a nice aperture, enough flaws (which some might call character) but is supposedly well-built and I only have the kit zoom at this focal length.
What do you think?

[savoche]

Welcome , and thanks for the intro! Quite a leap to male going from a GX10 to a K-3

Can't really help on that Vivitar other than it sounds like a fun lens to play with. I wouldn't think there has been made a lot of bad fast 135mm lenses...

[robthebloke]

It's possibly worth the adapter, but then again, possibly not. After a quick look on eBay I can see one in Konica mount for sale at £150 ish (although whether they sell at that price is a different issue).

Personally I'd sell it and put the money towards a da 100 wr, but that's just me (smaller, sharper, wr, autofocus, macro, and better flare control)

It doesn't look to be a bad lens, so if it's in good nick, it might be worth the adapter. Just kept the packaging incase you decide to fleabay it at a later date ...

I suspect though it'll just end up being a short term novelty, rather than a long term workhorse...

[Kerrowdown]

Welcome aboard, enjoy that K3 and I'm looking forward to seeing some of your imagery in due course.

[Undot]

Thank you kindly for the welcome.

I just realised how many members there are on these forums. Either Pentax is way more popular than I thought or every single user must be registered here. Some kind of mandatory thing? Underdogs banding together?

Quite a leap to male going from a GX10 to a K-3

That was actually my justification, hah. I was so virtuously sticking to my old gear over the years, that I might as well go all out and get me something really pretty after all this time.

I suspect though it'll just end up being a short term novelty, rather than a long term workhorse...

My budget is a bit blown right now, so I guess I'll just go with the adapter for a lens I already own. The Vivitar is heavy but that old chunk of metal and glass does have a great feel to it. Good idea about keeping the packaging, though, as you're probably right about it not being a thing to last.
The da 100 wr does look great, especially with the macro option. Just a bit out of reach for me atm.

[Undot]

It saddens me deeply, but I must say my experience with this forum has been horribly bad so far. It's rather shocking, really.
I truly don't know just how you folks can stand being here. Not for any amount of time. Nor any money in the world.
Errr... which, actually, might somewhat correlate with my complaint...

I was perfectly happy with my K3! We had a truly joyous relationship, a perfect coexistence... until I started browsing the boards a tad more vigorously. Now I already had to get a DA* 300 f4. It was inevitable. But that wouldn't satisy the forums' monster now, would it? This modern disguise of Pandora's cookie jar!

Of course I had to read more, which now resulted in me ordering the DA 35mm f2.4 for a wedding I'm attending. My 50mm just wouldn't do for such an occasion. Obviously. Then there's putting the 100mm macro and a Raynox adapter lens on my wishlist, which I can barely resist to check out. There's hunting ebay for a used lens to put on my reverse ring, as the 18-135 WR just doesn't feel comfy with its behind out in the open.
And I won't even get into the variety of accessorial tidbits that suddenly appeared on the horizon like long lost family members, whom I didn't even know about but are now demanding a place in my bag.

I can hear my camera crying, yearningly, when I try falling asleep.
What have I turned into because of Pentaxforums? Because of you lot?!
(thank you)

[Kerrowdown]

It's good to see that both mistresses LBA and CBA, have got their respect claws well and truly into you at an early stage.

[Jean Poitiers]

Bonjour from France and welcome to PF, Undot ... Hope to see some images soon. Salut, J