Dream Pentax Kit...

I did only once wedding photos, it was for a good friend of mine, this is going back almost 45 years, about 6 rolls of 36. I did it with a Spotmatic SP and a 50mm lens, and he appreciated it very much as all the rolls turned out good, exterior with the SP meter and flash for interior.

No charges, the 6 rolls was my wedding present to him, I enjoyed it as a hobby. He did not get professional standards but he certainly had beautiful memories of his wedding

Oso

Many people use taks very successfully. You can shave the mirror, something I'd do on an old body, but possibly not on a brand new mk iii.

In an ideal world Pentax would bring out a native full frame, which I'd far rather have.

Wedding photos? Maybe for a friend, but wouldn't want to try and make money that way! I would like to learn and try studio portraits though. The lighting aspect seems interesting and creative. Good lighting seems far more important than the camera you use.

If I really had to spend the money on gear I'd wait and see what Pentax have up their sleeve to replace the K5.
If I didn't like what I saw I'd probably jump ship and go for a Nikon of some sort.
I wouldn't give up the day job (if I had one:wink to be come a pro of any sort though.

Well said, Don!

I wouldn't either. Taking photographs for money changes the bottom line as you're taking photographs primarily for someone else. I do it for for fun and it's liberating to not worry about whether the photos are worth money or not.

My lens suggestion would be a DA* 16-50mm 1:2.8, a DA* 50-135mm 1:2.8, and possibly a DA 12-24mm 1:4 or similar for the wide group shots. I doubt you'll need any thing wider or longer, but f2.8 might be a bit limiting in low light, like inside a church. In this case, a fast prime would be required if flash is not an option.

You'd also need a flash and diffuser. For those, I recommend the Pentax AF540FGZ flash fitted with a Stofen Omnibounce diffuser.

A spare body would be a must, as are extra batteries and memory cards.

I'll leave others to comment on studio gear because I have very little experience of it.

It's not about the gear (or what gear), it has to be good that's a given, but it's more about attitude and aptitude than a bag-ful of expensive lenses. You can do it with three prime lenses (wide-angle, standard & short tele), a decent flash and enough backups/contingency to deal with things failing.

Most of all you have to know what you're doing and be able to deliver the shots in a professional manner. Planning each shoot is at least as important as the gear, as is your workflow from capture to final output.

Couldn't agree more. The photographer makes (or breaks) the shot, the camera merely records it, but it helps if the camera can record it well, and that's where having appropriate gear comes in.

Like Gwyn, I'd take the money and go somewhere - I did wedding photographs a few years ago and to be honest glad to get out of it - mind you I was using a M645 and Z-1p, later the *ist D....We prefer to have the freedom to do what we chose....I won't want to photograph weddings again as the main tog...

with the £5-10000, get on the first plane to Tokyo, find a few dealers and get a few F*/FA* lenses - 200 macro, 300/400 f2.8 and 250-600 to get me started and then travel.......

these are my 'wants', I've got what I need for the time being

My dream Pentax kit would probably be all of it - I just like mucking around with stuff

Almost certainly it would be the Limited's and * lenses that would be favourites though

Then of course there is the 645D and it's lenses - roll on that lottery win

I would have no plans of jumping ship though.

I covered a wedding a few months ago for friends which made me realise how much easier it may have been with a K5 for the low light stuff

Pentaxophile wrote:
If I had a 5k windfall and had to spend it on gear, my problem would be deciding between the Nikon D700 or Canon 5d ii. Would prefer Nikon really but like the idea of using M42 and K lenses on a FF Canon.

Interesting.....this suggests that a low budget is the primary motivation for using a Pentax body. I also recently just started out with Pentax from scratch (K7 and 18-55WR, £499), in my view an absolute bargain compared feature by feature to the competition. Even though I had some decent Canon fit lenses (for a film system) it was still a no-brainer to switch to Pentax to set up a digital system.

But, honestly, even though the price tag caught my attention, I'd been trying numerous Canon examples, up to the 7D, and there was no doubt that the Pentax just instantly had that 'feels right' factor. I don't think that would change at all just because I had more money to play with.