Happy Birthday!
It's my birthday today and my present is a Pentax K7 SLR. The first SLR I owned was a Pentax P30 T. It was fully manual (no auto-focus) and I bought it in duty-free in Belfast International Airport just after I had graduated. I took some reasonable photos with it but never got round to getting lens beyond the kits lens. A few years later I bought a Yashica T4 as we were making a trip out from Alberquerque around the South Western states. The Yashica shamed the Pentax - as I was using it, at least. It took lovely photos with it's fast fixed 35mm Zeiss lens. Sadly I lost the Yashica on a trip to New York a few years later:( I replaced it with a Yashica T4 Zoom as the fixed lens model went out of production, but it was never as good. My first digital camera was bought sometime around that time as well and was a big disappointment after the lovely Yashica. When it came round to our wedding and honeymoon in 2006 I considered buying an SLR, but I didn't think I had long enough to learn how to use it before driving off around Namibia. So I got a Canon superzoom point and shoot instead. The S3 IS did everything that I hoped it would do as some of these pictures show. Unfortunately I lost it in Peru a few years later (recurring theme?). I was still hoping to find a camera that I would love as much as the Yashica and after lots of careful research decided that a Panasonic LX3 might be a good choice. I have not been disappointed. It continues to take some lovely shots. In fact I enjoyed picture-taking in Italy so much a few weeks ago that I decided to look into buying an SLR. I haven't lost the LX3 yet -despite some exceptional effort! And maybe it was because that first SLR was a Pentax that I decided to look at what they were making now.
This first set of pictures are all taken using the kit 18-55mm lens on the 'green' fully auto-settings. The camera has some built-in digital filters and a few use these. Some people are very dismissive of a serious camera having these on board but I think they are fun. (And disappointingly, despite downloading the latest version I can't get the software that came with the camera to stop crashing on this PC). I don't have photo-shop but have made a few adjustments and crops in Picasa to a few as well. I have a lot to learn! So I thought I might try and blog my improvements.
