BlackFriday decisions

Looking at the first wave of pre-Christmas deals was enough to make the call between the G7 and LX100.

Sales on both cameras are in play - and the G7 is still almost $100 less.  Today's G7 Genuine Deal is an impressive one: $200 off + $100 store credit and bundle-now&save deals all at once!  So that's the current buying plan: silver G7 plus 14-42 II and maybe $50 more for the 25/1.7 'normal' lens bundle. The credit can go for a microphone ± spare battery or something else.   For a similar price one can have a "$250 value" stereo microphone in lieu of $100 gift card, which is also a great deal.
Sorry LX100 - the G7 price & features are too good to ignore.

Friday also featured a used-gear shop with lenses going for 30% off  and a Lumix 45-175 was available.  Two copies in fact, and thank goodness: I tried to buy the black one but no purchase button appeared, and when I returned to the lens page it was gone - apparently it sold 10 seconds before I could reach it!  So I selected the silver copy instead.  It won't quite match the G7 silver-grey shade, I suspect, but I'll survive.  A deal on the 7.5mm fisheye will expire Tuesday, so that will have to come later.

The G7 will go from 28-350mme stabilized in-lens, plus an adapter can let the Pentax lenses play on it out to 600mme with the Spiratone 300/5.6 and 800mm with the 400/6.3 Hanimar.  The original plan was to buy 14-42, 45-175, 300 Tokina and 7.5 fish-eye, plus maybe a prime in the 14-20mm range; so far so good with the first two plus a 300mm in Pentax mount.

Speaking of Pentax the DAL 50-200wr arrived today. The K·50 is now weather sealed from 27-300mme and sensor-stabilized.  This 50-200 seems sharper than previous copies and it's a nice tight fit; too bad it doesn't come in red!  The silver band and lack of focus distance scale mark it as DAL and not DA.

O what fun!

still sorting the options

A while back I mentioned having cooperative systems rather than competing ones.  That can mean many things depending on where one stands and how one squints!  I still like the Pentax / Lumix pairing but in a few ways the K50 and G7 are very similar devices.  But here's another angle..

The things I admire most about the G7:

1. more compact lenses/system
2. 4k video and stills therefrom
3. goodly 4:3 sensor
4. flippy touchscreen interface

trimmed image from pentaxforums.com

Another way to get most of these things in a similar but less-overlapping format is via the compact, rave-reviewed  Lumix LX100!

1. same 4/3 sensor as GX7
2. also same EVF, though no tilting
3. old-school lens controls for zoom/focus and aperture settings
4. big-pocket size with fast 24-7omme zoom

So all of steps 1-3 above except no lens changes.  If I want telephoto it's all up to Pentax, when compact size or top-notch video are big the LX100 takes over.  Less tromping on each other's turf as it were: Good!

No system has every feature - more precisely it's a fortunate shooter who finds a camera with their needs and wishes met entirely by one camera.

I would miss the tilting-touchscreen+AF but other than that the LX100 would be a great option.  I could bring the tip-touchscreen NX500 back into play.. but there I go again, unleashing two swap-lens systems to battle for my time.  No good!

So it's another item that I shall watch as the pre-Christmas specials go on display.  And probably in silver, though I prefer the dark-pewter G7 coloring myself.  As of right before Thanksgiving the G7 is actually $100 less, with slower lens but all those other nice features.. time will tell if the numbers slip a bit further in the coming weeks.

Speaking of options - My wife would really, really like a pink Q-s1 camera!  I could find her a closeout body, maybe find a body+06 tele somewhere for me & let the Q-classic bodies and any spare 02 zooms go.  No way this fills in for the LX100 though, other than choice 1 the Q cannot match up.
But maybe, just maybe she'll like the not-so-pink LX100 when it arrives.. or a pink GF7 and silver G7 team?

Double dealing (plus 1)

*1*

The best surprise is one that you give up on (some times).
My list of micro4:3 items includes the Tokina 300mm f/6.3 mirror lens. I've wanted a lens like this for a long time in Pentax mount but they are very rare and bids were too high. This Tokina is tiny and cheap ($90ish refurbished) so even if I don't like mirror lenses in the end it's not a big investment.

 Today I was buzzing through eBay to check on the status of a refund. My mind and mouse wandered a bit.. and here's a Spiratone 300mm f/5.6 in K mount for a very similar price. It's a T-mount lens so K and m4:3 can each adapt to work with it. The Tokina is an all-manual lens anyway so why not get the K/T/m43 all at once? This will be 450 mmme on the K-50 (and stabilized!), 600 mme on the G7: watch out birds here I come! The speed difference is small but many focus sensors begin to fail above f/5.6 so that's another point in the old lens' favor.

In fact all 300mm mirror lenses  are small for the amount of telephoto they offer, so this will be full-frame-film compatible with a bit of a bulk penalty.  I was happy to seek it a few months ago without success, so forsaking the smaller Tokina won't be a major bummer.  Now to learn if I can tolerate 'donut bokeh' in my images!

*2*

The SD/Flucard sold this afternoon, and now interest in the 55-300 is growing. The general idea is to get a WR replacement for it at some point. What to do in the meantime though? Prices are decent on both the 50-200 & 55-300wr but the budget is.. about what I got for the Flucard. Anything else?

 Yep. 
Shopgoodwill was dumping a Sigma 100-300 with no bids and 4 minutes left. PK mount yes, so Sold!

Yes, it's that lens again.  It always battles the 55-300 for a spot in my bag since it focuses far faster.  The range of the Pentax and brighter telephoto keep the seesaw in motion.  This has always been my favorite $35 telephoto option, but this time it's my $10 option! OK add $22 shipping and handling.. Still a silly/good deal that is sufficient for filling in the tele space right now.

 So along with the 300mm Spiratone that's two fine deals today on 36×24 telephotos!

*3*

Make it three deals: I just won a dirt-cheap bid on a DAL 50-200wr.  
I'd prefer the 55-300 but again, the budget cannot do that just now.
Now the rain can return.. and of course it will do so, in about 10 hours...

why do they bother?

Yet another shipping misfire - this time with camera battery & charger.
Why do companies bother posting this stuff?

USPS assured me on Monday that they would deliver the battery/charger on Thursday.  When the mail came, no package was evident.  I went online with my phone and the mobile site was now saying Saturday delivery.  Tonight I see it's in Portland, so it will likely arrive on Friday - but the computer website still says it's coming today. At 9 PM I'm willing to say NO WAY.

In the meantime UPS is shipping the camera itself.  It was nice to hear on Monday that it would arrive on Friday, after the battery had a day to charge - well, so much for that.  Their website has no updates in two days, when it left Illinois.  They still believe it will arrive tomorrow, so at least they've been consistent.  But do I have any evidence that it's getting close?  Nope.

 Get it right or get these wild semi-educated guesses off the web, folks!

Update: the race is on
Both packages are at the nearby delivery sites, so both could arrive today.  Which one first, we wonders?

Update II - camera beat the power supply by about an hour!

moving up and settling down

I owned a K-50 last year, but only briefly.  I was shifting from the K-5 setup to a newer but less complex body style, and I missed the K-5 features that I could control on the body (e.g. metering mode).  While the Info screen makes it a pretty easy change I couldn't get comfortable.. and soon I moved on.


This time around I'm coming off a few months of K-r and K-s1 experience before picking up a red-hot K-50.  The K-s1 is definitely a step ahead for many features, but the ergonomics are no improvement.  Its selling point is compactness - and less buttons is generally good when you have fewer places to put them!

The K-r was a classic K-5 feature set in a body with fewer external controls - and really so is the K-50.  So this time I'm moving forward in the same 'enthusiast' category instead of down from a higher grade of body.  Therefore it's no surprise it feels like I'm taking a step forward in pretty much every way.  I have my weather seals back, and an AFs / AFc setting on the body - a feature I really liked even though the latest Pentax bodies have removed it!

It's funny how the same camera can feel so very different depending on where you've been in the recent past! And oh my is it red.  Curiously that depends very much on the image one sees, and the settings used on the camera that shot it.  White balance, exposure, Custom Image setting all do their part, so online images show everything from an orange-red to a deep crimson.  If it looks like the image above, I'll be quite pleased.. but please don't be orange-red!

out with the black, in with the red

The latest postal estimates say the red K-50 should arrive this weekend, along with batteries and charger (in this case, sold separately).  I bumped into a Wanted post online for a K-r or newer camera - hmmm just what was I going to do with that black K-r body once the K-50 arrives?  After a few quick messages the K-r is off to Canada!  It was an amazing deal when I bought it, so the savings went along as well.  Everybody wins!

The healthy DAL 18-55 will travel with the camera, and the white one with broken mount should probably be disposed of.  Just maybe though.. some parts might be worth keeping in case of trouble.

Other sales (of things that I was actually trying to sell!) have been slow.  The K24 has departed but the M100/2.8 remains.*  I won a bid I don't remember placing on an smc.A50/1.7 with 2x teleconverter for about $16, and the lens is in great shape.  Some day I'll get around to trying the TC as well..

* no sooner said then gone: the M100 sale is imminent SOLD!
Today's gear = Q, A50, DAL55-300 and a few manual-focus zooms.
Coming soon = K50, 18-55wr
Coming later = G7, 14-42 then Sam7.5, Tok300 and a Lumix telezoom.

Red, hot K-50 deal

I found a fine price for a cheerful, red K-50 with WR kit lens (yes, it's red too).  Its price with lens was very low due to having no battery or charger; I never liked the Pentax charger anyway so yippee!  And in case of  any other issues the 14-day return policy is a good thing to have.  Two generic batteries and charger were about $17 so this didn't hurt much.. sure hope it tests out well.

Here's the grip, which I always found 

to make a fairly happy face!

And yet I still make plans..

Plans of all sorts have failed on multiple levels in the recent past, but I continue to make them anyway.  Here is what I hope to acquire in the coming six weeks..

I will be watching for deals on Pentax' K-s2 with the 18-50re lens and the Lumix G7 in several possible kits with the 14-42 II.  Depending on what deal works best I shall make my move.

• The easy choice is to stay with Pentax and whatever lenses remain in hand.  If the 55-300 goes I would add the WR version and be in fine shape.  If a few primes don't sell so much the better!
• If the G7 deal is irresistible it would likely include the 14-42ii and the 45-150mm.  I would then add the Samyang 7.5 and Tokina 300/6.3 baby mirror lens.  If the best deal has only the 14-42 then I will add a PK adapter for the 55-300 for now, and save for the 35-100.  Maybe at some point I would add the 100-300.. but the 300 cat is still a tiny convenience.

Either way I will have a fine new camera and a few great lenses!

image from petapixel

First Revision: rather than have competing systems how about I go with complementary ones?  
With that in mind I find myself inclined to grab the last K-50 off the shelf for wet-weather imaging, and go with the G7 as the clear tech champion.  I can find the body only or 18-55wr kit (even the 50-200 kit if that price is amazing) which frees up more money for a more complete Lumix kit.  Just, maybe.

Still bleeding Pentax red

As delays continue to plague our refi, the last easy options for generating cash have begun to play out.  I now have nearly every piece of my Pentax gear for sale - and not for lack of interest or enjoyment.  So it must be; I accept and move on.  Ironically I shall be picking up my newish A50/1.7 on Tuesday, so if everything sells that is curently posted, I will own K-r, 50mm and an 18-55 kit zoom.

It is not explicitly a sign but I will move forward with a Lumix G7 kit when the financial ice finally melts.  I foresee an ultimate kit consisting of the 14-42, manual primes of 7.5 fisheye and 300, and either the 45-150 or preferably 35-100 f/2.8 depending on the best sale I can find.  In mme* that's 28-200(300) with zooms plus 15 and 600 via primes.. and such cute little primes they are!  Tokina's 300mm mirror lens is a fraction of the Samyang 500's size and reviews are better too.  The Samyang fisheye also gathers fine praise - and both are real bargains.

* By the way, mme is mm equivalent focal length with 35mm film.  Pentax 200mm = four/thirds 150mm = 300mme.