What camera are you carrying RIGHT NOW?

Polaroid SX-70 loaded with Impossible PX-70 Silver Shade film.

Expensive but wonderful ... from this morning on the way to work, copied with iPhone so I could post them. ;-)

impossible-2x.jpg
 
I'm carting around a new-to-me Pentax K200D, picked up cheaply, with SMC Pentax 50/1.4 (75mm EFOV) and SMC Pentax-M 28/2.8 (42mm EFOV). So it's all manual focus and stop-down metering. I do like the way Pentax has implemented the latter: in manual mode, press the "green button" and the diaphram closes, metering is done and the shutter speed is set to the metered value. With the camera at eye-level, this turns into a two finger, two button operation: meter then shutter release. In preliminary practice I've found it easy enough to achieve good manual focus - easier than with my Canon DSLRs (they're not being replaced; I'm just experimenting), so I'm guessing the Pentax focus screen is better set up for manual focus (though using lenses actually designed for manual focus no doubt helps). The finder does suffer a bit by comparison with my 5D and film SLRs - but it's not bad by comparison with other APS-C cameras.

Don't know whether I'll like this combination or not, but I like the field of view from those two lenses so it seems worth giving it a go. The 50mm seems highly thought of and I've liked it with film, so I want to see how it goes with digital. If I don't like things, I'll on-sell the camera without taking much of a loss and go back to using the lenses with film.

...Mike
 
I've been shooting my Pentax K200D with manual lenses for a couple of years now. I have the S-M-C 50/1.4 plus A and M 50/2s. (The K200D with an M 50/2 is a very underrated combination.) I also have the S-M-C 28/3.5, which is very sharp. I've been wanting a 50mm-equivalent Pentax lens, and just today I received a Super-Takumar 35/3.5 in near-perfect condition that I'm looking forward to using as an everyday lens. It's not as fine a lens as the 28 or the 50s, but it's still a very good piece of glass.

Soon after I started using manual-focus lenses seriously, I bought a third-party split-prism focusing screen (Katzeye), and it makes a world of difference in being able to hit focus with the K200D's viewfinder. I still miss a film SLR's viewfinder brightness, but the ease of focusing is definitely better than it was with the stock screen.
 
nparsons13 said:
I've been shooting my Pentax K200D with manual lenses for a couple of years now.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your comments. Perhaps I'm not completely nuts after all! I'll see how I go with the stock focus screen before I think about a replacement. It is worth knowing that the option is out there and that it works well for you.

...Mike
 
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