GAS Dear Giary!

[The Electric Squirrel]

Luckily it's only buying cr@p I've had to put on hold currently. Time is limited, but I still get to do a couple of hours at least once a week if I only have the inspiration for it.

I actually thought I'd killed my GAS off completely a little while ago. I had no "wants". Then I happened to notice an RX100 III for cheap... So out went "no wants" and a few hundred euros...

 

[mike3996]

Some change-of-year GAS thoughts.

Should I get the great kit lens for Panasonic S1?

Pros

• Very good perf for value
• In absolute terms, not too expensive in the first place
• I have a body for it
• Would form a weather sealed pair for these rainy/snowy 1-2 hours strolls of mine

Cons

• The Panasonic S1 was purchased strictly with the intention that I wouldn't get native lenses for it.
• I have creeping fears that the autofocus of S1 will be much too similar to G9 in the dark conditions: quite bad. It would disappoint me greatly.

I'm kind of fantasizing about 3rd party adapters that had rubber gaskets for some sealing. Then I could get some beater lenses that I don't have to care about, and I could use them somewhat safely on the S1 even in rain. But no such adapters exist because there's no markets for it, understandably so.

Wonder if a simple tape or a rubber band contraption could offer some peace of mind, and then I could mount some €20 Nikkor on the camera?

 

[The Electric Squirrel]

Some change-of-year GAS thoughts.

Should I get the great kit lens for Panasonic S1?

Why not? There's even one in your local camera store: Käytetty Panasonic Lumix S 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 - Fotoman

And since you're stuck with the body anyhow, why not try some other L-mount lenses? I've understood that some of the Lumix L-mount thingies are actually quite stellar lenses.

 

[mike3996]

Why not? There's even one in your local camera store: Käytetty Panasonic Lumix S 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 - Fotoman

And since you're stuck with the body anyhow, why not try some other L-mount lenses? I've understood that some of the Lumix L-mount thingies are actually quite stellar lenses.

I've understood the same thing. They're stellar lenses. Somebody has the 50mm f/1.8 for sale. Probably one of the sharpest fifties money can buy, much like any prime that's been designed for FF mirrorless.

But I'd much rather shoot my Nikkor from the 1970s than an ultracorrected soulless lens!

I would first and foremost get such a prime for dark time rainy day beater-lens purposes. Then I would probably found out how its rendering has pleasant characteristics and I'd forget all about that soul rant. But 300 € is a lot for a beater lens...

 

[The Electric Squirrel]

I've understood the same thing. They're stellar lenses. Somebody has the 50mm f/1.8 for sale. Probably one of the sharpest fifties money can buy, much like any prime that's been designed for FF mirrorless.

But I'd much rather shoot my Nikkor from the 1970s than an ultracorrected soulless lens!

Meehhhh... I have the Zeiss Sonnar 55/1.8 and Samyang 45/1.8 for FE mount. Both quite modern and relatively well corrected other than for LoCA. Both relatively sharp. And neither of them I find in any way soulless. And I think there are many more even better ones. It might be the first generation of Sigma ART-series lenses that gave such a bad rap for modern lenses. Those, I agree, are a bit soulless.

But whether 300€ is much moneys for a beater lens is debatable and relative. I know I have no sense of what is sensible here, given that for me 300€ for a lens is pretty much nothing, but still. If a 300€ lens lasts you years and gives you a ton of nice images, and paying the 300€ doesn't force you to eat only uncooked rice for a month, it's cheap.

 

[mike3996]

Meehhhh... I have the Zeiss Sonnar 55/1.8 and Samyang 45/1.8 for FE mount. Both quite modern and relatively well corrected other than for LoCA. Both relatively sharp. And neither of them I find in any way soulless. And I think there are many more even better ones. It might be the first generation of Sigma ART-series lenses that gave such a bad rap for modern lenses. Those, I agree, are a bit soulless.

It's a mighty difficult term to be throwing around (yet I do it constantly, my bad 100%). It's so subjective a word, and can have some negative connotations, even misunderstood elitism to it. In reality it's much simpler. It's just a word for lack of a better one to describe a look that's technically good but not my immediate preference.

For example, the Voigtländer 50mm Heliar lens that I just announced is my GOAT lens, is kinda less characterful than many of my other lenses. In many ways it has a very accurate optical representation.

We should perhaps brainstorm for a good alternative sometime.

But whether 300€ is much moneys for a beater lens is debatable and relative. I know I have no sense of what is sensible here, given that for me 300€ for a lens is pretty much nothing, but still. If a 300€ lens lasts you years and gives you a ton of nice images, and paying the 300€ doesn't force you to eat only uncooked rice for a month, it's cheap.

Two years ago around this time of year I didn't think twice about throwing 500 € at a carbon fiber tripod that I knew I would be using very seldomly, if at all!

My financial priorities have shifted a bit since. Not completely overhauled, but today I really want to be sure I'm not wasting money on a lens. I've started traveling again, both domestic and abroad, so there are new money pits. I'm also having longer-term dreams about moving and for that you need cash on hand to meet the bank's downpayment demands and so on. These things motivate me to be more careful and frugal with my gear purchases.

But other than that, my CC statement for December is looking kind of low.

Anything might happen?

 

[mike3996]

To accompany me to my errand run, I think the Panasonic S1 and the Nikkor 50 will be a good idea. I'll adapt the lens to the camera with a set of adapters (Nik F -> Leica M -> Leica L) and I hope it'll be sufficiently short so that the lens will behave.

I'll take another Nikkor 50 as a backup lens if it keeps misbehaving.

 

[mike3996]

To accompany me to my errand run, I think the Panasonic S1 and the Nikkor 50 will be a good idea. I'll adapt the lens to the camera with a set of adapters (Nik F -> Leica M -> Leica L) and I hope it'll be sufficiently short so that the lens will behave.

I'll take another Nikkor 50 as a backup lens if it keeps misbehaving.

First it looked promising. Focused to infinity and way beyond. No visible degradation. Then maybe 30-40 minutes into the walk I stashed the camera to free my hands for a little bit.

When I took the camera out 5 minutes later the lens's far sight had gone. So this adapter trick wasn't the surefire solution I hoped it'd be.

Oh well, I didn't lose many shots due to this ailment. Didn't bother changing to the other Nikkor 50mm.

 

[mike3996]

I think I have to scrap any plans to develop my S1 setup. The camera is still too large for my hands and my wrist and fingers get a stretching workout. Probably not a bad thing in the heat of the summer, but against cold winter air there are some troubling after effects. Don't want to develop RSI over a camera!

~

A (premature) retrospective of the year 2022

This year has been a great one for outside activities. My little reward model has for some reason got me out of the door more often than not. Several domestic trips, car travels, even a trip abroad.

I tend to only remember the bad phases, some select weeks during beautiful periods of summer and fall when it seemed to be prime shooting conditions out there, but I decided to hermit within my domicile. But my own reward journal produces hard figures for me: I've been out and about!

I don't exactly track this but my walks have also gained a little length and substance, based on my gut feeling.

Speaking of. I also have this gut feeling that I haven't been to my favorite city enough this year (Helsinki). Yet at the same time I've been there quite often and had had mild visual burnout about it. When I darken the streets of Töölö district in Helsinki I get the maddest longing, home sickness. But visually speaking, I am treating the scenery too casually and that usually means I can get better "photostroll" ROI elsewhere.

I neither visited my next-to favorite towns as often as I'd perhaps liked (Turku just once and Kuopio not even that). I've also been very superbly lazy about even visiting my neighboring towns that are 30 minutes away by train. There's the next year, I keep telling myself.

Good things right around the corner

My cash shortage situation is now giving up. January sees my balances back to their usual normal.

As the year changes, January marks other great news for me.

The Helsinki Region Transit authority is lowering ticket fares for those traveling from farther back, and this group includes me.

My fringe benefits will start to include new things: one notable of being an employer-subsidized meal benefit. It translates to around 6 € off of a cost of a meal. Which is something I don't have much use at home, but this benefit can be used on one's free time also! Say, for example when one is visiting a town and wants to have lunch while resting one's feet.

A bigger benefit yet is the introduction of a commuter benefit which is totally tax free benefit for me, thusly my transit expenses whenever I will visit Helsinki will be 0 €, flat. I suppose this will mean that I have to try to make use of all of the allocated benefit so that it doesn't go to waste.

We are not talking about huge four-digit savings here but my being a terrible cheapskate, lowering the step to visit Helsinki is a very, very welcome thing anytime. And free train rides will definitely feel like a nice thing to have.

Bigger travel destinations include Stockholm and most probably Tallinn for 2023.

Retrospective, gear-wise...

...will be concluded later. Not much to say on that front, though.

 

[mike3996]

Today was fantastic.

It was going to be the last clear, sunny day before Christmas. I knew where to go. I didn't even finish my morning coffee before I headed out. Filled a thermos with the good stuff and out I went.

Hyvinkää has this 6-7-acre natural park they call Terveysmetsä (lit. "Health forest") and maybe the title produces some placebo effects but it's indeed a woods where mind gets a rest. It was the first time I went there with all this snow. It was remarkable.

I decided to go with Pentax which I haven't used in a short while. The poor thing has now hit the pavement -- literally -- a few clumsy times but everything seems to be in working order. Today the camera took a dive in a snow bank but emerged intact.

(All times I've been clumsy with the camera, I've had the 21 ltd on the camera. Probably this minuscule package is causing some handling errors on my part?)

Ah, that camera is just the worst. I have the deepest hate towards it but then I love the low/mid fidelity images so.

I keep hoping I'd put the body for sale and maybe snatch me a K3 or a K5ii or something of that order. And who's stopping me?

 

[The Electric Squirrel]

I keep hoping I'd put the body for sale and maybe snatch me a K3 or a K5ii or something of that order. And who's stopping me?

K1? It does produce some gorgeous files, so why settle for less...

 

[mike3996]

K1? It does produce some gorgeous files, so why settle for less...

Frankly the camera does sound like a dream but for Pentax I'm looking for compact and casual. And less pricey. So many aspects of KP have been such a failure that my trust on their cameras is super low at the moment. In all likelihood my next Pentax is probably be a battery-powered CCD camera if I can find one for 70 € or less. Wouldn't like to spend big bucks on another piece of shit camera.

 

[mike3996]

My topmost frustrations with Pentax KP:

• KP's autofocus is unsure at best
  • point the camera to a well-lit, contrasty spot (where there are contrasty lines in all directions) and autofocus on it three times and get back three different distances
• KP's power management is very bad
  • battery levels range from 4/5 to 1/5 to 4/5 wildly
• KP's ergonomics are a mess
• The lenses are broken garbage and can't be finetuned because KP's autofocus is hot garbage
  • Granted, everything I bought was second-handed and was probably priced accordingly.
  • I have one that is in perfect sync with KP, which paints me a picture how things should be. But the rest...
• KP's service network is a tire fire
  • I'm not going to send my camera to goddamn Sweden just to have it looked at
• KP's mandatory noise reduction is the worst
  • hot goddamn garbage. I want my whole grain, not this shitty precooked oatmeal.

I hope I've let it all out. This has been waiting to be vented out.

I haven't bought much in 2022 but Pentax is still the worst thing ever.

The worst thing is that the pictures have something to them and they mostly turn out just fine even though you can't expect the IQ to be on Leica level.


My idea is to get a reasonably priced Pentax body, as low as 6 megapixels? And perhaps the lenses will look better in the same way one uses a soft filter in a portrait shooting of an older woman.

 

[mike3996]

And now I am looking at the selection over at eBay.

• Pentax K200D
  • 116 € shipped from Italy, with lens (an F 35-70mm lens)
  • 140 € from Germany, 12 months of warranty
• Pentax K10D
  • 114 € shipped from Germany, 12 months of warranty (with batteries)
• Pentax K100D
  • Poor availability/excessive asks
• Pentax K3
  • (I know this isn't CCD)
  • abt 4 times the ask of the CCD models

I guess I will order the Italian one right now because it's not expensive and the lens might be interesting also on my Panasonic S1! Some minor sacrifice to the gear gods at the end of the frugal-ish year.

My only reservation would be: is this camera possibly also cheap because it's somehow faulty and the seller has adjusted the ask accordingly but won't disclose the faults.

 

[agentlossing]

My topmost frustrations with Pentax KP:

• KP's autofocus is unsure at best
  • point the camera to a well-lit, contrasty spot (where there are contrasty lines in all directions) and autofocus on it three times and get back three different distances
• KP's power management is very bad
  • battery levels range from 4/5 to 1/5 to 4/5 wildly
• KP's ergonomics are a mess
• The lenses are broken garbage and can't be finetuned because KP's autofocus is hot garbage
  • Granted, everything I bought was second-handed and was probably priced accordingly.
  • I have one that is in perfect sync with KP, which paints me a picture how things should be. But the rest...
• KP's service network is a tire fire
  • I'm not going to send my camera to goddamn Sweden just to have it looked at
• KP's mandatory noise reduction is the worst
  • hot goddamn garbage. I want my whole grain, not this shitty precooked oatmeal.

I hope I've let it all out. This has been waiting to be vented out.

I haven't bought much in 2022 but Pentax is still the worst thing ever.

The worst thing is that the pictures have something to them and they mostly turn out just fine even though you can't expect the IQ to be on Leica level.


My idea is to get a reasonably priced Pentax body, as low as 6 megapixels? And perhaps the lenses will look better in the same way one uses a soft filter in a portrait shooting of an older woman.

This hot take is... too hot for me to handle. I'm going to let it alone.

 

[mike3996]

This hot take is... too hot for me to handle. I'm going to let it alone.

It's probably for the best! I wouldn't expect a very good conversation to follow if people followed my vent with level-headed arguments... and even worse if people followed it with pitching in some more hot takes!

Yeah. Don't approach the raving lunatic at the bus bench.


I think/wish there's something off with the camera but I don't want to pay the shipping to service abroad to have me told it's working fine?

 

[mike3996]

I hope that with the very act of scouting new Pentax gear for myself is a signal that while I may have frustrations with KP, I'm not giving up on Pentax yet.

I want to make a safe experiment/comparison next, hence no expensive purchases.



I scouted MPB also (all the other outlets are void of Pentax). To my delight, they stock currently:

• K5 for 209 € (not bad)
• K1 bodies starting from 1119 € (not bad)

But for now, it's down to either K10D or K200D. They're in the same price range. Most people seem to adore K10D more. It's got the better viewfinder, at the expense of extra 100g in weight.

 

[agentlossing]

Maybe you could rent a K1 somewhere, along with a decent prime lens? I think just getting a feel for the operation and performance of the camera could help you judge whether your KP is having issues, or if these cameras just don't suit you. You could also try a K3 III or whatever else might be available.

 

[mike3996]

Maybe you could rent a K1 somewhere, along with a decent prime lens? I think just getting a feel for the operation and performance of the camera could help you judge whether your KP is having issues, or if these cameras just don't suit you. You could also try a K3 III or whatever else might be available.

That would be a decent enough idea. Sadly the online markets have driven local Finnish dealers into tight margins and there's not much room for open-box trials on their part.

Real rental places exist here but they have a limited focus on mainstream professional stuff. We don't have anything that's anywhere near the excellent LensRentals.com where they probably could get me a camera-lens combo that is known to work.

The closest we have is to abuse the legally mandated 14-day return, as long one can find the interesting cameras to try... then again, MPB also has this 14-day no-questions-asked return period that they are likely to offer voluntarily so I could always try that too. But it means the entire money up front and a bias to keep it if everything works tiptop.

 

[agentlossing]

I wondered about whether renting was an option or not in Finland. I think the MPB idea is a good one, it's a fairly safe bet and you don't have to worry about returning the gear in 'unused' condition like nearly every retailer of new products. If you can purchase with a credit card you won't be out the money while you trial it.

I didn't ultimately take to the KP myself, but I never felt like it was malfunctioning or performing badly. In fact it whetted my appetite for more of the Pentax methodology in cameras, which is why I ended up with the K1 II. I do still think the menus on Pentax are wonky, but they're a holdover from older DSLRs and not directly influenced as much by modern (mostly mirrorless/live view) camera menus. From what I understand the K3 III has been brought closer to conformity with what are considered modern menu systems (a bit more like the excellent GRIII menus). Focusing is very lens-dependent, and while I never felt like the KP would misfocus, I did have an intermittent issues with the DA 21mm Limited lens not wanting to focus to infinity (it would just stop short of it, like there was internal resistance, and indicate that it had not obtained focus).

The K1 satisfies me in almost every way. It's just a great camera with great files, is easy to use and superb build. The only true issue is the weight (more so than the size, though it's also somewhat large). You have to be intentional with this camera... but I also really like the intentionality which using it creates. Totally different from carrying a GR, or even a small M4/3 camera, where you can pocket or pouch it and then just use it when the moment hits.