[Pepe Le Pew]

The last canon user I ran into, I was holding an umbrella to keep his camera from getting wet, all while teasing him that he should have bought a Pentax. He said he wanted a Nikon, there is no helping some people.

My Dad bought a Nikon D90 (good camera) 5 months before I bought my K-30. He wants to use my camera on his next vacation, which seems to rain every time he goes on one ( with my mother of course ).

Dont even get me started on how he wants to use my camera case

[Arjay Bee]

Travelling professional portrait photographer came to me earlier this week wanting to borrow a battery charger as his was back at base several hundred kilometers away. He had asked about and heard that I had a lot of gear. He uses Canon.
Assumption one - I must use Canon
When I said no "Oh too bad - you must use Nikon then"
Assumption two - there are only two camer brands in the world.
No I use Pentax - here I'll show you - and plumped the new K3 Prestige on the table. He uses a 60D
He was a bit flumoxed.
Do you know anyone in town that uses Canon?
No I talked them all into buying Pentaxes - except for the holdouts with Nikons.

Pointed him to a colleague or two - but was surprised that he'd managed to leave himself high and dry so far from base.
With the grip at least there is the option to use double AAs if something similar were to happen.

[sherrvonne]

When other photography enthusiasts see my K3 I usually get the blank stare, due to their lack of knowledge of the brand, followed by a look of admiration and the statement ..."that looks like one serious camera" then the effect of everyone being afraid to even touch it. Some People in public dodge and hide, one person ask if I was a reporter, lol, and most people I know are used to it.

[TER-OR]

Ooh, the K3 prestige looks great. If I had the budget I'd get one...

[GibbyTheMole]

In addition to being a good photographic tool, Pentax is also a good tool for weeding out the photographically ignorant.

[TER-OR]

In addition to being a good photographic tool, Pentax is also a good tool for weeding out the photographically ignorant.

I'm sure it's confirmation bias, but we do seem to be a more technical lot. I know a lot of people here hail from the manual film camera days, and those exposure rules are pretty firmly entrenched. The general public knows brands from advertising and peer recommendations. All we can do is attempt to push their technical literacy a bit. A hobby won't be satisfying unless you're improving your skills, photography is no different. This is what clubs are supposed to be doing, not just daisy-chain back-slapping.

I always ask if someone has taken their camera out of full-auto mode. Play around, learn that thing - be smarter than the machine.

This is why I suggest anyone who is in that situation immediately talks technical - how well does that big lens perform wide-open, is there a difference wide close vs. wide far etc. Where is its sweet spot at distance? I've been in those situations along the riverbank walking the dogs and suddenly there are guys with $8,000 kits looking at the ducks. First- what's there? Second, get any good shots? Third, I'll have to look at my shots from yesterday before you guys were here, spooking the ducks. Third, let me get these dogs out of here so they don't spook the ducks...

And yes,I had some great shots of the Barrow's Goldeneye from the day before - male and female. With my little 55-300.

[normhead]

A hobby won't be satisfying unless you're improving your skills, photography is no different. This is what clubs are supposed to be doing, not just daisy-chain back-slapping.

The great thing about this place is, if your technical understanding is a bit shaky, people will correct you real quick...

[micromacro]

My canon son, who's been laughing at me for buying "junk", finally paid attention to my Pentax, and after playing with it told "well, it feels like real thing, cool!"
Now he plans to play with my old junk lenses...better not.

[magkelly]

That usually does happen when the dawning of comprehension occurs. :P All of a sudden your gear isn't nearly so unpopular and you have people trying to swipe your "old" lenses to put on their non-Pentax bodies. I have lent some of my old Sears lenses to the kids in my family, in fact I just gave them like 5 of them outright, but anyone else around here can just forget it. No one puts their hands on my camera or my lenses but me unless it's one of my teachers or something like that, someone where I know they really value Pentax gear and know how to use it properly. I'm protective of my gear, maybe too much so, but I don't care. I'd rather not hand a lens or a camera to someone who doesn't have a clue...

[GibbyTheMole]

I know a lot of people here hail from the manual film camera days, and those exposure rules are pretty firmly entrenched.

Yep... I'm one of 'em. For many years I shot with mechanical, all-manual 35mm rangefinders & SLRs. A few of them didn't even have the luxury of a built-in meter. Granted, I do like to use Av mode quite a bit, and AF is a very nice convenience, but I don't have to have that stuff to make the picture I want.

I switched from Nikon 35mm to Pentax digital, and I considered all brands before settling on Pentax. The reasons I went with Pentax, is because of backward-compatibility with old lenses, AA battery capability, and to me they seemed at the time like a better quality camera for the money. If I didn't have Pentax, I'd have Nikon. Some of the Canons feel cheap to me.

[John-TO]

Someone told me that they could probably tell me how old someone is based on what camera they're shooting with. My first camera was a Nikon F601. (How old am I?) I loved it. I got away from photography for a while and gave that camera away. When I went shopping this time I, of course, started out looking at Nikon—I thought I was a Nikon guy. But, in the price range I was searching in, Pentax offered better features for the money. (In a non-Pentax forum I might have listed them but you all know!) So much for my Nikon brand attachment. Sorry Nikon. So here I am, a new Pentax owner. I'll probably go back to Nikon some day, but for now, I'm very happy with my Pentax K-50. To re-learn and build my skills I've kept it mostly on "M" and already have some OK shots. Lots to learn and loving it!

[Ex Finn.]

They are complete garbage.

Co-worker (Canon guy) told me that about 7 years ago... Nat-Geo used one of my images some time ago, shot with a Pentax.
His soccer shots of his kids were not too bad.