Originally posted by dshombert I don't see why you need to defend it at all, but here's what I'd say:
"I'm happy with it. Why does it matter to you?"
I agree with dshombert.
I learned proper photography using Pentax equipment (35 years ago). I went to school and got a degree in photojournalism. I was surrounded by Nikon users (Canon had barely penetrated the photojournalism world at that point). There was no way I could afford to switch to Nikon at the time. The funny thing is, the Nikon shooters all treated me just fine, though they were a little curious why I was shooting with small-ish lenses mounted on a tiny camera (MX). They certainly weren't judgmental or anything -- just curious.
But I was still intimidated, especially at sports events.
I can remember standing in the press box at a Kansas City Royals game in the mid 1980s with my two MX's with winders (who could have afforded the real motor drives for those things?). I had discovered this interesting effect where, if you held down on the camera's shutter release while also depressing the winder's release button, the winder clicked along extremely fast (though not really advancing the film, of course) and made it sound like I was shooting something in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 frames per second. Man I got some attention from the Nikon guys from that! They looked at one another and at me and then asked, "What are you shooting with?" I'd say smugly, "Ilford HP-5." (LOL) They'd say, "No -- what camera?" Just as smugly as before, I'd say, "A Pentax MX." Having no idea what that was, they'd look at one another and nod and say approvingly, "Cool!"
At one point along the way, I won an award for a hard-news picture and took the cash I received from that and used it (along with a trade-in of all my Pentax gear) to buy a Nikon FM-2n body and motor drive and a couple of lenses. I steadily built up my array of Nikon lenses; I was no longer the guy with the odd camera brand. But that's when I discovered something else -- the camera brand didn't matter. My pictures didn't improve. I was no better at all for having switched to Nikon (except for the NPS membership, which was nice).
In fact, only within the last couple of years have I discovered the fact that the best images I had in all my photojournalism years were actually taken with Pentax equipment. Sometimes it is subtle, sometimes not, but I can frequently see the very clear superiority of Pentax glass over Nikon glass in many of my images. That discovery was enough to make me decide to sell off all my Nikon equipment and return to the Pentax fold.
It's been a great life lesson, though not a cheap one.