Pentax Pentax KP

AFAIK Pentax is the only one who offers a 43mm lens FF lens, and it is a holdover from the film days. Fuji offers a 27mm (41mm FOV). Nikon used to have a 45mm. Voigtlander produces 40mm lenses for rangefinder and SLR/ DSLR. Haven't really followed any of the other brands.
 
I'm still stuck between rocks and hard places with regard to my Pentax gear.. I keep wanting a KP but I have decided I don't like a tilt screen, I prefer variable angle so thats going to be a K70. Then, I realise that I still like what I have. So... no new purchase (except I would like some more recent WR lenses). My favourite FoVs seem to be 35 and 55. I had the FA43 and just didn't really bond with it.

The good news about the K-70 is ... relatively speaking, the prices of K-70's, used but in excellent condition, have been coming down lately. Significantly, I believe.

I understand the problem of not needing or wanting to purchase newer cameras...because the older ones that one has are so fine. I pretty much felt the same way about my old Pentax K200d's (both of them). But, for my own purposes, the KP which I bought (on sale, admittedly, after a big price reduction more than a year ago), wound up doing everything I really loved about my K200d's....but, for my tastes and purposes, a little better. The newer sensor - and the newer (and fairly remarkable) high ISO capabilities, were what really sealed the deal, so to speak.

But K-70's are getting more and more reasonable by the day, so as they say, hope springs eternal in a Pentaxian's heart ;)
 
Speaking of the 40mm focal length - which let's not forget is technically a classic 60mm Field-of-View - I keep being surprised by its versatility. Portraits. Check. Available light. Check. And much to my surprise: Landscapes (in a manner of speaking). Check.

This was taken at sunset, in Oregon City, Oregon.

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Of course, I couldn't help thinking of Jean-Paul Sartre's classic play: No Exit.
 
Another Halloween image, this one taken with that weird-but-cool Pentax fisheye zoom lens, the DA 10-17mm, closer to the fisheye end --

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My former fisheye, a Rokinon which I used on micro 4/3 bodies, was clinically sharp - but this lens, coupled with the KP's excellent sensor, has some interesting qualities to it.
 
Cool. Fisheyes can be a blast.

I'm seriously considering the new version with the removable hood for use at 10mm on my K1.

If I didn't already have this version (the SMC non-HD older one), I would be seriously tempted by the newer one as well. The cool thing about the design is that it becomes much much more rectilinear at the 17mm end, whereas at the wide end it is much more of a fisheye. I don't shoot with it that much, but every time I do, I get surprising images - and keep telling myself I need to use it more :)
 
If I didn't already have this version (the SMC non-HD older one), I would be seriously tempted by the newer one as well. The cool thing about the design is that it becomes much much more rectilinear at the 17mm end, whereas at the wide end it is much more of a fisheye. I don't shoot with it that much, but every time I do, I get surprising images - and keep telling myself I need to use it more :)

Agreed - I think it would get mostly used at 10mm for the lensball effect, unless I end up with a Pentax APC-C then it will get used throughout the range.

It's obvious you're enjoying the KP. :D
 
And the Halloween beat goes on. And Día de los Muertos - the Mexican Day of the Dead - is almost upon us. The day when, as tradition has it, we are visited by the spirits of family members and loved ones we have lost. Who have died. As the novelist John Green points out, philosophically, "There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us." Somehow, when you say it in Spanish, with Día de los Muertos just around the corner, it sounds even better: “Llegará un día en que todos nosotros estaremos muertos dije. Todos nosotros."

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I must admit that I completely missed the release of KP even though I like Pentax cameras and even more the look of Pentax images. I guess it's more because I stopped following the DSLR news, passing to mirrorless completely. But I found about it via one of the videos by Mattias Burling, a photographer whose YT channel I follow:


You seem to enjoy the KP for the similar reasons and with equal passion :) It can be seen in your images and comments, I enjoy browsing them.

BTW, maybe because it's your personal focus, or maybe because there really are skulls in every house and skeletons in every yard, but your smallish town in Oregon seems to be the world capital of macabre :) I guess it's the former reason; similarly somebody looking at my photos could imagine that nobody lives here in Zemun except me, as I tend to shoot solitary images :)
 
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