No LX2

Time passes. Things change. I canceled my order for a Lumix LX2. My quest for a black-and-white box has taken a turn, maybe because of my pal Stu's going-away party at Murphy's.

Stu changed jobs, which is a whole 'nother story, good for him but sad for me. Many of us turned out to give him the usual sendoff at a local watering hole, and as usual I officiated as photographer, using the LX1, which I carry in my briefcase.

Places named Murphy's tend to be dimly lit, and I saw that without using ISO 400 I wasn't going to get any pictures at all. So I dialed 400 and went to it, asking myself: How noisy can it be?

Well...think "boiler factory," then think of your favorite colors. (It helps if you suffer from synesthesia.) In sum, though the LX1 does a good job at ISO 80, and image stabilization helps make 80 useful handheld, using it is a tour de force. I need a better black-and-white box.

After some thought and much reading of online opinions, I decided to try not a new camera but a new lens, the Pentax 31/1.8 "Limited." Quite a few reviewers, some with serious test equipment, seem to think it's one of the best lenses now on the market. Pentax is an eccentric outfit (31mm, I ask you), which has always endeared them to me, and their best lenses have been praised as having subtle qualities of luminosity and microcontrast that go beyond lines-per-millimeter. The Holy Name is often invoked; I've heard Pentax called "the poor man's Leica."

Never had a Leica, but I did have a Contax G2 kit, which I sold when I gave up on film. I've been missing the snap, crackle and pop of its Zeiss G lenses. Ever hopeful, and resigned by now to my own spendthrift ways, I bought a Pentax 31/1.8 from B&H and put it on the DL I gave Chris on her birthday. I've had two days to play with it, and the news is good. It's delivering just what I hoped for. The DL's multiplier of 1.5X makes it the equivalent of a 45mm normal lens, and I honestly believe it's giving me the look and feel I got from my beloved Zeiss Planar 45.

Of course there's a downside – there's a downside to everything, even death. The bad news is that the 31/1.8's like my Planar in more ways than image quality. It's intentionally retro, with a manual aperture ring and a noisy, slow, mechanical autofocus mechanism. It's open to the elements, with the usual Pentax-A cutout showing focal distance. True, unlike the Planar it can be focused by hand (and has good focusing feel); but in autofocus mode it has a rotating barrel which I keep fouling. In other words, though it's nicely turned out and looks good on the camera, it's mechanically miles behind any Canon USM.

No doubt that'll change. I'm supposed to get a rebate of $100 on the lens, nature's way of telling us that Pentax wants to clear the shelves for new models. Their just-announced DSLR is guaranteed to support future Pentax designs that use a focusing motor along the lines of USM, and rumor says such lenses are only a few months down the road.

So for the nonce I'm putting up with the 31/1.8's annoying shortcomings in exchange for some wonderful optics and the chance to recapture that Leica/Zeiss look. I may even buy more "Limited" lenses; all I want, really, is something as wide as my old Contax/Zeiss 28 and something as long as the C/Z 90. For very wide or very long shots, or the convenience of zoom, or for macro or studio work, I have the Canon 20D.