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!

aaaaaaaand we're back

Now that internet has been added to our new estate, I can tell you what's new!  

Well -- we moved.
 That's it really, all our energy has gone there. 

In other news,  the 18-55WR was sitting on the porch when we arrived; also, the SMC 30mm arrived from Great Britain.  So that's it for a while for inbound gear. Well not quite: while we were away I won a bid on a telescope platform that lets just about anything track the stars, so that's kinda nice. Actually it nearly renders the O-GPS1 redundant as an Astro-Tracer, and at about the same price! We shall see how that all plays out. In the meantime, back to unpacking.

Oh yes, the view. Very nice in the daytime (Rainier, Goat Rocks, St.Helens, trees) and very nice at night (Milky Way &c &c).  In a couple of years the mountains will be a memory as the trees stubbornly insist on getting taller... but some will shed and allow peeking in the winter.
Peace and quiet abound, unless you count bird songs as annoying; we don't.

1 for the road

Reporting from our camp trailer via tablet --

Deals come and go, and almost by definition they come at a 'bad' time.  This rule was evident as I found deals on two Pentax lenses: an original mid-'70s k-mount 30mm f2.8 (from England!) and a newish foulweather 18.55wr!  These deals decisively close my wheeling & dealing window for the forseeable future (for me that's maybe 2 weeks).

Oh yes, also picked up an OGPS1 attachment for my K-5: not because I care about where I am to within 10' but so I can image the stars while the module tells the camera's sensor to compensate for Earth's rotation.  Cool!

Primes: k17 a24 k30 40Ltd a50macro m85 tak105, m200, tak300 (all Pentax), hanimar 400 
Zooms: 18'55, 18'250, 100'300 plus a few others..

good news all around

• The SMC 17mm Fish-Eye has arrived, and its condition is if anything a bit better than the last copy.  Both take excellent images judging from my first efforts: decently sharp, colors and contrast excellent, and the size is so nice for a lens that won't be my most-used.  (Update - turns out this is the 1st-edition 17mm fish-eye, labeled 1:4 17mm not 1:4/17mm.  Also no cute case.  This is no big deal to me, but others have reported the second iteration as the better of the two by a slim margin.)

• The 18-250 Sigma has also arrived, and it too shows great results from early tests.  Good and sharp, far better control of color fringing than the DA18-135, closeups between 1:3 and 1:2, and all in a (relatively) small and light package.  I always liked the first 18-200 from Sigma, and this one is easily as good and has the HSM silent focus.  The DA18-135 seems to focus more confidently while the Sigma double checks itself, but these are very quick tests so that may be situational.  In any case this will serve me better, and I'll shoot with more confidence with the 18-250.

• The home sale is so close I can almost feel it after photos were taken this week.  Gosh it will be nice to pay off medical, car and other pre-retirement debts (and yes I confess, a few pay-later photo buys are out there too).

This post originally included a great deal on an 18-55WR from amazon - alas, the affiliated company sent me an 18-55 non-WR.  Even more surprising it was a version-1 18-55, replaced many years ago by an improved optical formula.  That was not good news, but the refund and return shipment went smoothly enough so no harm done to me.  Now will they get it labeled properly for the next person, that's what I would really like to know.

salve for my disappointment

Several new Pentax products have been announced for the CP+ trade show: a 1.7x teleconverter, some medium-format updates, compact cameras (now labeled Ricoh not Pentax, as expected).  No 17-85± or 130-380± zooms - although a new 70-200± was placed on the list of future items.  I had hoped that one or two future lenses would become imminent ones.

Given no 17-85 option is forthcoming, I have picked up another copy of the DA 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 - my third.   Recent shots in snowstorms demonstrated the value of a wider weather-friendly zoom, and since I really don't want to change lenses at ~50mm any more this is the answer for now (i.e. this coming week).  It's not that it's a poor lens, but shooting at the long end revealed color fringing beyond my tolerance, and my unwillingness to engage the in-cam corrections led to many results that left me dissatisfied.  If I stop before 100mm and stop down more at the long end, this should be satisfactory.


I have felt that the 18-135 lens has been overpriced since its inception, but this used copy was 'properly' priced at about 3x the 18-55WR.  Quiet, WR and good range; just remember to go to f/8 above 80mm and you'll love it, I keep telling myself.  It's the doing that matters though!

turnovers!

What an interesting few days.  The 50-150 is sold and the funds mutate into the DAs 21/3.2 Limited and Sigma 105/2.8 macro, and the DA16-45 is converted to a DA50 f/1.8!  It's clear from the number of 18-55 and 16-45 lenses in my history that I find these two interchangeable, especially with a good sensor whose ISO talents can compensate for the slower 18-55.

Deals have been too complicated to tell if a net $ gain or loss occurred on all the above, but more gear will depart in the next few months, once the K-5 comes home from the service trip I have planned for it.  The SMC-A 24mm is definitely out of work now that the DA21 is coming to town.


So here is the latest scoreboard:

• primes: 8 fisheye, 21, 50, 70, 105 macro, 400 (8 & 400mm both manual focus)
• zooms: 18-55 + 50-200 WR, 28-90 1:2 macro, 100-300 f/4.5-6.7 (latter two full-frame)
• bodies: κ-5ii, K-01 (white with white 18-55 DAL), K-5 (injured reserve)