[SouthernGothic]

I have been a lurker for quite some time.
Now I realize it has been years.

There was a time when I was unstoppable and carried my Canon AE-1 everywhere. I was an artist and the camera captured my imagination.

About the time everything in life fell apart, film began to disappear from the shelves and then Wolf Camera in Atlanta closed.

That was 20 years ago.

I survived on a point and shoot, then my phone.

Now I am back. The Pentax K70 calls to my soul and the K lens system offers everything I strived for with my old AE-1. Thingify, Lomography Achromat, stereoscope lens, macro lens, etc.

I have been photographing the countless fungi in my yard for several years now and have found a new passion with that.

Suddenly I feel that drive again I had when I was young and adventurous.

I owe much oblige to the older members on here that I have learned from. Their shared information and posts that have directed me into the Pentax world have been invaluable.

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my K-70 and the new adventures it will accompany me on!

[Unregistered User 8]

Welcome from Australia.

[SouthernGothic]

Welcome from Australia.

Thank you. My best friend lives in Hamilton, VIC!

[Michail_P]

Welcome to the forums! I love my K-70, it really gave me a thrust to get out and capture my world. It's a lovely companion. Hope you enjoy your photographic journey. Greetings from Greece!

[Cerebum]

Welcome from NW England look into vintage lenses. They all have genuine character. They're all manual which won't be a problem for you and are cheap and addictive welcome to the best community out there

[microlight]

Another welcome, from the south of England!

[brainwave]

A grand welcome from India. You made the perfect choice with the K-70. You will love the image quality, low light performance, and satisfying ergonomics of Pentax bodies. I LOVE the cameras, the menus, and most of all - the image quality, especially in blue hour. Most of all, I love the Pnetax community. It is really like one big family. A warm welcome.

[Kerrowdown]

Welcome to the forum from the Highlands of Scotland

[C_Jones]

Welcome to Pentax Forums.

[Sgrim]

Welcome from Maine! Looking forward to your contributions.

[SouthernGothic]

Welcome from Maine! Looking forward to your contributions.

Thank you sir. My adoptive mother is in Maine right now. She spends every summer there in Alfred!

[SouthernGothic]

@SouthernGothic: Having used the Canon AE-1 for years, myself and eventually heading over to Pentax, I'll tell you the one thing that drove me nuts with Pentax: the thing you used to use to manually focus a lens, at that time called a "focusing screen", does not really exist in the DSLR world. It's now called a "fresnel" (pronounced, "freh-nell"), because that's what it is, a Fresnel lens (named after its French inventor).
That's because of autofocus. The split screen circle in the center of the image is gone because that space is used to channel light to the autofocus sensor located below the prism. I had (am still having) a lot of "cognitive dissonance" in my adaptation to modern cameras' autofocus characteristics.

There is a company that sells Canon split-screen focusing screens that have been machined to the dimensions of the Pentax "fresnels", at least as to height and width (but no change as to thickness, which can cause a problem in some cameras), but those interfere with the autofocus function, so if you use one, you're pretty much stuck with manual focus all the time.

Thank you for the heads up. For my application, I will not be using auto focus so I may have some issues as well in adapting.

[SouthernGothic]

That being the case, take a look at this:
Focusing Screen

Cool! Thank you.

[Denver]

Welcome from Denver

[jello7654]

Welcome from Central Texas, I myself am rather new to Pentax as well . Love the build quality and images that I have been able to produce so far ( K3 and K5 bodies)