Everything's Relative

or, never take your Pentax for granted.

Hi everyone! Just one of my silly rants.....

I've been shooting with 3 Spotties (SP, SPII and F) and Don's Super Program for about three years now. I've amassed a modest collection of Tak, Super Tak and SMC lenses as well, with tubes and bellows for macro play and a fantastic AF280T flash. I really liked the whole Pentax experience and it got my passion for photography reawakened.

Over this past weekend, I had the opportunity to use a friend's Minolta Maxxum 3000i with an AF 35-70 zoom and a tiny dedicated flash to shoot a surprise B'day party. It was such a surprise that the host didn't want me to arrive with any gear - "Would give it away".

Besides the flimsyness and lack of substance of this kit (it is so light I had to keep opening the camera bag to see if I hadn't left it somewhere), it is FULLY automatic - esentially a point-and-shoot masquerading as an SLR.

The only option I had was AF or manual focus on a viewing screen without a split or frosted center. I had to use "manual" for every shot other than the simplest ones as the AF was usually confused and gave up after repeated and noisy searches. (How very annoying to loose this much time for both posed and candid shots).

I had no D.O.F. preview, had no idea of shutter speed or aperture nor any way of controlling same, thus no chance of bracketing or overexposing backlit shots (heck, even my little pocket Pentax can open an extra 1.5 f!).

The dedicated D314i flash is little more than a wink light and virtually useless on wide angle shots (hot spot) or 70mm (16ft max). It has the further "advantage" of using the camera's power supply, and has no batteries of its own. Brilliant! The camera's lithium battery goes for about 15 dollars a pop and rechargeables are a no-no.

OK, you rightly ask, what's your point, Mac?

Remember I said I really liked my Pentax gear?

Well, now I absolutely LOVE it!

Perhaps it is unfair to stack this low-cost camera up against the fine products from Pentax, but I was taking a lot of the features, control and creative freedom for granted and am very glad this opportunity came along when it did. My reality check!

Auto stuff is fine, but only if it can be overridden. Pentax has done a supurb job of blending the two as it moves forward.

I'm born again!

Have a great day everyone