A Question about the Q

Some of you may have read the earlier post about my personal project ideas for the following year. Owing to financial problems last year and not much better this year; I had to sell a lot of high end digital gear on here and on flea bay. As a result I ended up shooting a lot of stuff on 35mm and my Q.

When I was going through blurb books for my projects I thought to myself "surely the Q is of good enough quality to be used in a book?"

Has anyone tried printing big with the wee Q>?

As some have mentioned before the blown out highlights can be a bit of a peev but that is its charm in many respects.


Below is a photo that I took this morning on way for a doc appointment - I think it might be my "project camera" for 2017

Am I mad!?!?

Not at all mad. The Q is perfectly capable of an A3 print and I've had some very successful competition entries with it. Nobody has batted an eyelid as the pictures have been viewed alongside much bigger format cameras.

The content will be much more important.

A3? Excellent to hear. I agree john it's always about the content

I spent 3 years in Tanzania and used my (original) Q for most of my photos and have put many into a 'Blurb' book.......no problem.

We've had a big kit sort out this year, selling off an awful lot of crop gear and investing in a K-1 & D500.

Part of the sort out was 2x Q bodies that never got used and Fiona suggested that the Q's should be her kit and she hasn't looked back since. She now has a twin body kit and has been buying loads of cheap filters for 99p a pop off of ebay and actually having a lot of fun with her photography now.

We have printed some images from them, no bigger than A4 but they are perfectly fine and you'd never guess which camera they are from, so I say go for it!

Cheers guys! I love the Q

Due to health issues my only Pentax digital cameras are the Q, QS-1 and WD40..oops WG10 (knew it was waterproof). I had no hesitation in using the QS-1 to get some wedding shots the other week. A couple of them have been selected to be enlarged (well printed out then...) and displayed by various people

Thats a great recommendation! Weddings

I'm sure you will be happy printing A4 with a Q. If printing bigger is stretching it too far, consider the Q7 or QS1, both of which are frequently sold on ebay for approx £100. No need to buy additional lenses and you'll get the advantage of a wider angle of view with the bigger sensor, even if it is the same pixel count.

I do like my Q (for its body) and Q7 (for image quality), especially with the 01, 06, and 08 lenses. Someone should try cross dressing these two cameras (Q7 innards in a Q exoskeleton) - I really don't want to be the first!

Hoping the next incarnation of Q has an electronic viewfinder even if it means using a detachable flash (rather than vice versa).

Hi Ron

I am in the hunt for the Q7 or QS1 believe me! And I couldnt agree more about the Q body - its a marvelous piece of engineering. As regards the Q's future it doesnt look likely that it will continue; certainly in its current guise.