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Forum: Post Your Photos!
09-14-2014, 09:12 AM
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This picture was clicked on 14th January of this year, on the day of Uttarayan, the annual Kite Festival here in Ahmedabad, India. It is one of my favourite festivals and a nice opportunity to test my Pentax K-5. The sky is usually full of colourful kites but you don't see them here because as the dusk settles on, kites give way to 'Tukkals', the sky lanterns. For this particular picture light was very low as the sun had already set, but even with high ISO (3200 in this case) I got decent results. Since then my photography has somewhat improved, still this one remains my favourite click. Though I wish I had carried a tripod and could have captured my friend's eyes properly.
I got K-5 last year during Black Friday sale, and it's my first DSLR. I am still learning the ropes, I've got two lenses, Pentax 50-200 WR and an old lens Pentax-M 50mm 1.4. This one was taken with the 50mm prime. I love shooting with the prime. The zoom is great, weather resistant and all, but the prime adds a different feel to pictures that clearly sets them apart from my pictures taken with point-n-shoot or cell phones. My next purchase would be a second hand Tamron 17-50 2.8 as I want something little wider than what I currently have, but after that I want to collect mostly primes as and when my budget permits. I hope I win this contest, so I can finally try my hands (and eyes) on a prime with autofocus.
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
12-30-2013, 10:24 PM
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Thanks, everyone. Right, I am interested in old film era lenses and manual photography. I've gone through the reviews and some of those lenses produce absolutely stunning pictures. Also, in India, you can get old lenses cheaper than other places, but they are hard to find. Very few people sell their old stuff on ebay.
Bhairavp, where did you find that A50/1.2? I might visit Mumbai in the next month or so, do let me know where to find Pentax stuff there. :)
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
12-28-2013, 10:50 PM
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Thanks, OchidJulie and Nanhi! The serial number is 4383456, I believe it's a Ricoh model as the sticker underneath says Pentax Ricoh. About the lenses, I'm just starting with my career and photography is still just a hobby. So my budget was much constrained. Since I chose Pentax over other brands, I wanted to make sure I could use the full benefits of its excellent WR. No point in getting a WR body with a non WR lens. I wish I could have bought a 55-300 WR, but I don't regret my decision. 50-200 is good enough for a beginner like me. Next, I am saving up for Pentax-DA 70mm F2.4 and a short wide zoom. Do you think it's the right way to go? I haven't bought any spare batteries. It just skipped my mind, but I think JJMehta in Mumbai has started selling Pentax stuff. So next time I am there, will buy some additional accessories.
Btw, what did you mean by that last sentence? Is there a way to avoid customs duty in India? (I'd prefer to pay them, were they not so astronomically high. And they don't count the purchase value either. They decide the value of an item as they seem fit. E.g. If I had had my K-5 shipped directly, they wouldn't have charged me on its purchase value of $424, but it's MRP here in India, which, I think, is around $1100. Now that's insane!) The only good alternative is to have a friend coming home to carry it for you. And that's what I did.
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
12-28-2013, 06:31 AM
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Hello from the land of Canikons. (In India, even Sony NEXs or SLTs are a rare sight. Presumably, Canon and Nikon have the 99% prosumer market covered.) Though Ricoh has entered the scene, Pentax equipment is nowhere to be seen on any online shopping sites like Amazon India, Flipkart, or on the shelves of photography stores. Hopefully, that will change soon as Ricoh gets time to build their network here. Meanwhile, new Pentaxians like myself have no choice, but to order our stuff from the US. After much contemplating I had decided to buy a Canon 600D as my first DSLR since it was priced aggressively at INR 35K ($575) including two lenses 18-55 and 50-250 IS zooms. I thought that was a sweet deal. In my budget, the only other choice at that time was Canon 60D, and while going through YouTube reviews of the same, I came across a sort of a comparison review where the guy was talking about a Pentax K-5. Further research led me to change my initial decision, and I decided upon K-50 since the weather-sealing as well as the limited lenses seem a great trade-up from the boring EF-S line up. I was all set to buy a K-50 on Black Friday when K-5 II prices were slashed down to $599, and I was again put into a dilemma. :confused: :confused:
Finally, I decided to take the plunge and buy a K-5 II from B&H and would you believe it? They refused to accept my credit card! (It was Visa, buy maybe they don't accept cards from some countries.) I was so mad at missing out on the Black Friday deal. I couldn't believe this was happening to me after months of researching for that perfect first DSLR. As I was cursing my luck and scurrying over Amazon deals at 1 in the night, I noticed a K-5 listed as Warehouse Deals for $424. I was really very confused at this point. I wasn't sure what to do, going with K-5 was investigating in a 3-years-old model. Also, a Warehouse deal meant that it was a second-hand or an open-box returned item. Either that or I could go with my previous choice K-50. But I was never into video much, I was more drawn to still photography. And I was anyway not going to get a warranty here in India, so I was willing to take more risk. Bought the K-5 for 424 bucks, plus 50-200 WR to go with it. A friend flying back to India for holidays brought it for me a week later. After having discovered that it was almost brand-new with shutter count only 12 and everything working smoothly, I was overjoyed. The risk had paid off. I recently got a 50mm Pentax-M f1.4 for cheap, and I'm going to explore other manual lenses as I save up for Limiteds. Enjoying every moment of shooting with K-5.
I hope that wasn't very long, couldn't help not sharing it with fellow Pentaxians. ;) I have been regularly visiting this forum for a month now and have learned many things from you guys, reading all these amazing posts and reviews. Many thanks. And, happy holidays! :) :)
~ Buzz
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