davesexton

About davesexton

Thank you for taking the time to visit my Flickr Profile. I am an amateur photographer only. This is something I do for recreation and the sheer joy of it; nothing else  I haven’t settled into any one genre of photography and shoot pretty well what opportunity present to me. However, I like architectural, urban/street and landscape. I have a lot to learn, but that’s a big part of the fun! If every image came off the camera a masterpiece, where would the challenge be?

I came to photography as a hobby somewhat accidentally. A few years back I started to do astrophotography using a telescope and an equatorial mount as I had a keen interest in Astronomy. There are many frustrations with this type of imaging (not least of all the UK weather!) so I decided, on a whim, to buy a Pentax K-r and found that I enjoyed regular photography. The added bonus was that ‘normal’ photography was a lot less frustrating than astrophotography!

I dabbled for a while but lost interest until I purchased a Sony A7 in 2014 which re-ignited my interest. I bought the A7 because it's full frame and because it's a good platform for various other lenses via a suitable adapter. I travel on business a lot and wanted a camera that was serious while not being too bulky. I use fully manual primes and love the sense of involvement that this brings. However, The A7 isn't perfect. In fact it’s a somewhat frustrating collection of compelling pros mixed in with some rather unforgivable cons. It also has very questionable ergonomics. What I have learned from the A7 though is that I have a sustained interest in photography and that a full frame sensor is worth the investment. One of the unforgivable cons of the A7 is the presence of very nasty ‘internal reflection’ type artefacts (this is well documented on the Internet). Because I like night photography, this is something I cannot live with.

Just as I was thinking of looking at the Sony A7R II (which largely fixes these problem; though not completely), the long awaited Pentax K-1 was announced. I make no secret of the fact that I have a thing for Pentax cameras. Compared with other brands they feel more robust and purposeful. Their handling is better in my eyes, thanks to a well thought out user interface. Moreover, they always seem to offer compelling features such as full weather sealing at a lower price point than other brands. Fortunately for me, as I was building my collection of primes, I purchased Pentax K-mount versions as I had it in the back of my mind that I might jump back to Pentax when they eventually released a full frame camera.