[Ausdevil]

Hello,
my name is Chris. Born German and 3 years ago moved to Australia. With the move many good things came back!
Started fishing again, camping in the bush... but there was something I hadn't done for a looong time and that screamed in my brain!
"You need a camera again look around you!"
I had a Minolta when I was young, one with these long straps in it, some of you might remember that.
Picture taken was picture taken, expensive one paid a lot for experience! That is really better today!
Wombats, Roohs, Wallabies, Emus, Nature.....
So, after a look around in the market, reading reviews, I bought a K-S 1 (yesterday) to find my way back into it.

That's it for a start
cheers Chris

[C_Jones]

Welcome to the forums Chris. You should really have a lot of opportunity with your new Pentax. Sounds like an abundance of wildlife, and most likely a lot of landscape to get images of. Looks like you have a lot to look forward to.

Casey

[wtlwdwgn]

Welcome to the forum Chris! Looking forward to seeing some of your images.

[Tas]

G'Day Chris,

No doubt you've been noticing a lack of white christmas action since you arrived, but clearly there's an upside to that too.

Good to have you aboard mate, enjoy the camera and the forum, I hope we start seeing what you capture soon. The images not the fish, unless it's a photo of a fish of course.

Hooroo for now,

Tas

[Kerrowdown]

Welcome to the forum and also welcome back to photography too.

[Unregistered User 8]

Hi Chris. Welcome aboard the forum mate.

[southlander]

Hiya Chris. Lots of Aussies lurking about the Pentax Forums.

[Des]

Welcome Chris. Yes lots of photogenic wildlife in Oz.

And I agree about digital photography being cheap compared to the old film days. I must have spent three times as much on getting films developed as I did in buying my old Canon AE-1 Program and two lenses.

You'll need to think about a suitable lens for capturing the wildlife, if you didn't already get one with your camera. For a good budget option, I'd recommend a Pentax DA 55-300. They come in three flavours (optically identical): DA-L (plastic mount, no lens hood, no manual focus override), DA (metal mount, lens hood, quick shift) and DA WR (same features as DA, but nicer build, new coatings and weather resistance). Since your K-S1 is not weather sealed, you might as well look for a used DA or DA-L - generally around $150-$250 on Gumtree or ebay au - rather than pay $450+ (new) for the WR version. There are cheaper Sigma and Tamron 70-300 lenses, but the Pentax is regarded as significantly better. Also, with the Pentax you can set the camera to adjust jpg images for distortion, vignetting and chromatic aberration from that lens; you can't do that with third party lenses.

If you want something more advanced or longer than the 55-300, you will need to spend a lot more and be prepared to carry a lot more weight.

Enjoy your new gear, and don't be afraid to ask questions here.

[eaglem]

Welcome to the forum, good to have you on board.

[BigMackCam]

Welcome, Chris. Glad to hear you're getting back into photography, and great choice with the K-S1

[beachgardener]

G'day mate and welcome to the forum

[wizofoz]

G'day Chris. Welcome, both to Oz, and to the PF pages. As someone said there are plenty of Aussies on here so familiar accents should be common

Its a friendly and very helpful place. If you have a question, someone here will be falling over themselves to try to answer.

[Ausdevil]

Thank's to everyone for the warm welcome!

And a thank you for the advice on lences!
It is like fishing gear, you have a,b and c and looking already for d and e.
Currently I am running around with my Pentax and learning, taking pictures...
But already thought about a bigger zoom lens. I would have liked to buy the K-S2 because of the weatherproofing but I actually like the K-S1 so far! Only little downer is the Grip that could be a bit bigger. For somebody that hadn't so much contact to digital slr (Nikon for work reasons in youth social work) the Pentax makes it really easy once you got the principles.
Thanks to all again! Cheers Chris