Gear

It's been a hot time for new gear. In a few days I'll pass my Grand Climacteric, midway between Brave New World's expiry age of sixty and the biblical threescore and ten, so I'm treating myself to lenses and cameras. Carpe diem, for tomorrow, or the day after that, we die.

My faithful reader (I think I have one) will recall that after trying this and that nostrum to replace the wonderful Zeiss-G glass I sold when I moved entirely to digital, I settled on the Pentax "Limited" lenses, and bought some Pentax DSLR's to go with them. For the record, at the moment I have on hand the DA21/3.4, FA31/1.8, DA40/2.8, FA50/1.4 and DA70/2.4. I bought the entry-level K100D for (my wife) Chris (with the 16-45 and 50-200 zooms) and a DL for myself. Pentax doesn't currently make pro equipment, but a few days back I took delivery of one of their first 10D's, currently their flagship DSLR. This is all meant to be for handheld black-and-white mostly. (I also picked up a new Canon 60/2.8 EF-S macro for studio work with the 20D.)

The Pentax choice was a good one, I think. Of the lenses I bought, the 40/2.8 is probably the least exciting, but it seduced me the a kitten will, it's so damned cute. Image quality is very good, but the other lenses are better than that. The 21, 31 and 70 seem exceptional to me, though the 21 has AF problems – it focuses a bit long on all three bodies.

Albums for September through November are full of lens tests and sample shots, and I'll say no more about the Pentax kit here. I'm pleased with it and that's that.