I bought my Pentax LX in 1981 while living in Bahrain and back then the weathersealing of the LX was revolutionary. I took it out shooting in the dusty, windy desert and in pouring rain, which it stood up to brilliantly producing excellent and very consistent results, and with its state of the art off-the-film metering, you couldn't go wrong, whatever the conditions. Somehow I assumed all SLRs were made that way. I feel the K7 is the digital successor to the LX in that 'go-anywhere' tradition, only we now know for sure that all DSLRs are NOT made this way.
Get up. Check it’s there. Little ME Super’s Arm reaches to me. Leave tent, wife, And make route. Farmer’s dogs bark. See broken silhouetted Castle hulking. Shore. Not yet little camera. Enter the innards. Capture the Spirit Of the Dunstan ruins. Twirl clockwork friend Upon a tripod’s screw, Wait for light’s rush. Paint the ancient stone. Sunrise: cloud cloaked But keep winding, In case ME sees art Where me can’t. Film GONE – light break! Honeys the land, Sinew of a hare kicks Awkward legs into light. I reach for ghost-filled Pentax and take a picture that Isn’t there.
I own a 20 year old Pentax SF7. I was in Spain. Recently I visited a small village up in the mountains. The villagers were celebrating the battle between the Moors versus the Christians. As I was taking some shots, one villager stood beside me and fired a blunderbus. The shock from this gun jammed the mirror in my camera as I was taking a picture. I thought the camera was a right off, but I carefully removed the lens and jolted the mirror back into the correct position. Was I relieved that the camera was still functioning.
As a long-haired student in Ottawa, Canada, I shot my first images (mostly girls) with a borrowed K1000, for our high school yearbook and newspaper. Eventually I bought a PZ1 which I used while travelling, and working as a geologist in the Rocky Mountains. I captured some amazing scenery, weather and wildlife shots while learning the craft. Now, almost bald, I have a wonderful K20D, I received for my fiftieth, which I use almost daily. Recently, a small group of us have used K1000s again for a black and white exhibit capturing our Yorkshire village. Full circle with Pentax.
My Dad bought his pentax ME Super for a family wedding in the USA and years later gave it to me when I developed an interest in air displays - it became a joke that the camera couldn't take a picture unless it was an aircraft: when I wore that out, I purchased an MZ60 which I use for studies and landscapes, however as film approaches extinction, I'm wanting to keep to the Pentax brand whilst moving into the 21st century. I love to dabble with cameras and love Pentax for ease of use and reliability - my favourite!
I was never the sportiest boy at school. Other kids left me for dust at sports day, and I wouldn't be one of the first picked for a team. Yet one day, a trip by our school photo society up Mount Snowdon appeared to change all that. Whilst other boys laboured their way up the slopes, cursing and wheezing, I was far ahead. At the summit, I produced my secret weapon: the Pentax ME Super, and photographed the others still on their way up. Since then, the cameras have got heavier without doing much more. I'll never forget my Pentax!
Alan and I hadn't seen each other for several years so we were looking forward to our trip up the Pacific Rim Highway to Tofino, BC. I had my trusted PZ1 to take photos across the mountains and of the giant redwoods. The sea was calm as we walked along the beach but the air was thick with salt. It confused the contacts of my Pentax somewhat but it survived and is still going. Unfortunately my son had my camera the next time I visited Alan but the walks were short as he was recovering from heart surgery.
I've been creating with Pentax since age 8, when my Dad gave me his KX, 50mm f1.7, and a 70-210 zoom. Assuming manual focus and exposure was simply how all cameras worked, I eagerly took my gear to the airshow during Seattle's "Seafair" festival to shoot the Navy's Blue Angels demonstration team. Year after year, I remember my Dad holding his coat over our heads while I changed rolls of film, jets screaming overhead, and often so excited I'd foget to advance the film. Still using that 50mm prime today, there isn't anything I'd rather be doing than taking photographs.
A Pentax Spotmatic was the first SLR I ever held and I was completely hooked. Although until I'd been to college, joined the RAF, got married and had first child that I could afford one (and even that involved staging through Hong Kong). It was a Pentax ME and it still living with us and earning its keep, although I admit my days of home wet film processing in the bathroom are now long over (a sacrifice to matrimonial harmony). So the chance to get digital Pentax where the only mess is on the computer is to good to miss.
My mother gave me an Pentax SP1000 when I was a teenager. I also began to carry a notebook with me most of the time. Though my teachers had mostly given up on me in those days, I wrote and photographed my way through my adolescence. It was all a matter of capturing moments - a black and white photograph of a fox pulling a bit of scrap meat off a moose kill in the southern Yukon - a poem about a girl who thought less of me than I did of her. Captured - all of it - forever.
My first Pentax MX travelled the offshore islands of Britain with me from 1981 to 1986; bought with an f1.7 50mm lens just before a camping holiday to Lundy Island where I fed it with Agfa CT18. In succeeding years (augmented by a used autowinder and sometimes an S1 and ME Super), it was my invaluable companion on a Kodachromed American holiday and a three year pilgrimage up and down the Hebrides; Butt of Lewis to Mingulay. This awesome camera died and rusted in a wave which drenched me on the Isles of Scilly ferry, Good Friday '86 - gutted!
As soon as they became available I got a Pentax *istD. Interested in photography since I was at school, I already owned several Pentax SLR film cameras, lenses and a flashgun; as well as several compact digital cameras including a Pentax Optio 550. But with the Pentax *istD my photographic world came together at last. Already a digital convert, I relished the ability to produce my own images from start to finish. With the Pentax *ist I got back to the familiar delights of SLR photography and could use all my old lenses again. Heaven!