Greetings Pentaxians Surfacing for a spell, haven’t looked at the list in months!
Been a while, that’s for sure. Plenty of work (good) but it keeps getting in the way of boat work (bad), but Catch22 as without the work I can’t afford to work on the boat (ambivalent). Well, I came up with a nice solution to a problem I was having the other day, thanks entirely to Pentax. A few months ago I transitioned to mirrorless cameras for work. Previously I had been using big old broadcast shoulder cameras - expensive and heavy. The trend in broadcast video is toward smaller mirrorless equipment, and the gear of choice in the UK is Sony A7Siii which is full frame. Panasonic also offer FF gear, but also (still!) micro four thirds cameras. Now that the GH7 is out, GH6 prices are falling and I picked up a new one for about 1100 (GBP) whereas the GH7 is closer to twice that. The Sonys are silly expensive with sucky IBIS (image stabilsation) and crap menu sructures. They also don’t record interlaced video internally which the Panasonics do - broadcast TV still transmits interlaced in the UK (and the USA for that matter). Doesn’t seem to be a problem as progressive footage on an interlaced timeline can spoof the servers... Anyway, my kit is based on MFT (GH6) and I have some Nikkor glass I use (all manually) along with a Fuji MK18-55 T2.9 cine lens. My wide general purpose lens is a Nikkor AF-S 12-24/4 with manual iris adapter but this soon to be replaced with a Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f/1.7 (big ouch = it’s well over a grand GBP). I tested it out in London versus a DZOFilm Linglung 10-24mm cine lens which was far too heavy (1100grams v the Panny under 700g), but I digress. What with a cage, external EVF, XLR audio box and camera mic, it starts mounting in weight - although mercifully nowhere near the weight of a broadcast shoulder camera and lens! Typically I have a strap attached, one I got from Amazon years ago, a 20mm wide leather strap with fabric/nylon 10mm wide straps sewn into the ends. These fabric parts loop through the attaching points in the Smallrig cage, but the fabric had frayed and was in danger of failing, so I went hunting for something better. I want as narrow as possible because the strap is permanently mounted for simplicity and I can’t have big wide shoulder pads or wide webbing bouncing about getting in the way. I know some of you are already thinking what it took me a little longer to think! I could not find a narrow, good quality strap anywhere. Then I remembered the straps I used to have with my MX cameras when I got them new. They would be perfect! But I have none left as time and tide take their toll. But what about eBay? Sure enough, within a few minutes I had located a brand new black Pentax strap, unused and stored for decades in its bag - and at the ridiculously princely sum of 12 GBP ! I couldn’t hit the Buy-It-Now button fast enough! It arrived yesterday and it was fitted immediately - and perfectly. Those little steel locking clips took me right back to 1980!! Complete with Pentax branding on them, as well as the black plastic strap tidies. What pure joy. Absolutely delighted that I now carry around with me a little bit of Pentax history for the couple of days a week I work on average. Naturally I have an eBay search out for any more which I will be hoovering up so I have a few in stock. I occasionally shoot some stills for pleasure and inside my Domke satchel is an Olympus OM-D (EM-1 mark 2) with Samyang 12/2, Nikkor 28-70/2.8, Pentax 50/1.4 and Pentax A*85/1.4 and what a joy to use those last two. The Oly is only marginally larger than the Pentax MX, so feels very familiar. Great little camera. Well, there you have it. Some actual Pentax content from me :-) Hope everyone is well. I’ll be taking some steps towards retirement in spring 2026, so who knows - I might just be able to shoot some proper stills and post to the list again. That would be a pleasure. Meanwhile, in case you don’t do Facebook, here’s a link to a video I did recently, one I’m quite proud of about a UK charity that helps veterans back in civvy street go sailing. I didn’t do the dronework or the sailing shots, but I shot everything else on the Panny GH6 with either the Nik 12-24 or the interviews on the Fuji MK18-55. LOVE that lens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RljdyxdEC4w Cheers, Cotty -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
