Hello Larry, Good to have you aboard. John is a great guy. I met him many years ago at a NorCal PDML meeting at Muir Woods, I think.
I am in Sacramento - so could possibly help your friend. Which body is she interested in? -- Best regards, Bruce Tuesday, January 27, 2009, 10:56:44 PM, you wrote: LC> Howdy folks, LC> I joined the list this afternoon, after meeting John Francis at a LC> photo-meetup lunch I instigated. Some of you may know me as "ellarsee" LC> on the dpreview pentax forum. Ellarsee is just a funny way of spelling LC> LRC, my initials (and part of my destiny to be an Electrical Engineer, LC> but I digress, often). LC> My involvement with photography seems to be a very common profile. In LC> 1973, when I was 12, Dad got a Spotmatic II and taught me some of the LC> basics. I'd frequently play with the camera, setting up shots, LC> exposure etc. but rarely actually taking any shots. Someplace, there's LC> a print of my first photograph, but I haven't seen it in a while. The LC> following summer, I took photography in summer school and learned the LC> basics of darkroom work. My first camera was an Argus C3, which I LC> still have. That September I got a used Minolta SRT-101. Sometime LC> around then, Dad and I set up a darkroom which I spent a lot of time LC> in over the next several years, until my folks got divorced and Mom LC> rented out the downstairs apartment. LC> I had intermittent darkroom access in college, but after I lost access LC> to a darkroom, photography became something I did, but not LC> seriously. Lest this post rival a Norse saga in length, I'll skip LC> forward to November 2007 when I bought my K100D super. I almost got a LC> Nikon D40 but when I found out about the Pentax, came to the LC> conclusion that even if Pentax didn't have any offerings at the top LC> end, what they did offer gave a lot more for the money than Nikon. I'm LC> afraid that I've never shot a Canon SLR that "felt good in my LC> hands". The plan was that the K100 and kitlens should be enough to LC> last me a couple years until the performance that I wanted was LC> "affordable". My favorite lens on 35 had been the Vivitar 28-105 and LC> the kit lens was not too far from the equivalent range. LC> One of my key reasons for getting a DSLR rather than replacing my LC> stolen FZ50 was low light performance. The following weekend, I LC> determined that the kit lens just simply was not fast enough. Cutting LC> to the chase, the next week I spent more than I had on my camera and LC> kit lens on an FA 31 limited. LC> The past year has been a pretty typical one of spending stupid amounts LC> of money on toys. A few very nice lenses, and quite a few inexpensive LC> used ones. My latest gear acquisition is a katzeye focusing screen LC> which to someone who grew up with manual focus, is like growning an LC> arm back. When I'm not exhibiting fiscal irresponsibility, I'm working LC> on the theory that the best way to learn from your mistakes is to make LC> sure that you make a lot of them. So, I've been shooting a lot of LC> photos, basically whenever I can find a few minutes to play with my LC> camera, and 40,000 frames later probably have almost a dozen that I LC> don't need to ashamed of. LC> I've been posting pictures on my flickr account: LC> http://flickr.com/ellarsee LC> Since I do a lot of blues dancing ( http://fridaynightblues.com ) and LC> nobody else has much luck shooting dancers in the ridiculously low LC> light environment, I've been working on that, experimenting with both LC> IR flash with my K100 and an FZ20 I had converted to IR. LC> I tend to keep my 18-250 on the camera as my "Ready for anything LC> lens", but when I can I prefer to shoot with a prime. I'm currently LC> toying with getting a DA40 to see how close to a "carry in a coat LC> pocket" sized camera I can get. I've also toyed with the idea of the LC> 43 or the 21, but while the 40 is just over my threshold of financial LC> pain, the other two are quite a bit over. LC> I was wondering if anyone in the San Jose/Santa Cruz/Bay Area had any LC> of those lenses and would be interested in getting together so I could LC> try them out before spending money on one. LC> Another Pentax related question is that I have a friend who lives in LC> Sacramento who is very interested in the K2000, but who would much LC> rather try one out before buying it. Does anyone know of any stores LC> in her area where she could check one out? LC> Larry -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
