Feb 2005

First Shots with the Pentax *ist DS

I picked up a Pentax *istDS recently. It so happens I also won an ebay auction for an MEF just now. So I'm still committed to the wet stuff (and I still have a tub of film in the fridge).

But the DS is an eye opener. My last new-ish Pentax was an MZ-5. Lovely camera, but the shutter always sounded like a toy, and the AF was, to put it politely, less than fulfilling. The venerable PZ-1 is still a workhorse, partly because of the grunty AF motor, but mostly because of the wonderful grip strap. Technology moves on.

The AF on the *istDS is wonderful. Now I don't shoot too much motor sport and am really more comfortable manually focusing what I want in focus, but the 11 selectable AF zones are a heap of fun. I don't think this has been written about too much, but the focus zones are also pretty finely "focused". I had no problems locking onto spidey here...

and this was just a grab shot (when the web caught me in the face).

It is also my first experience with being able to play with a RAW file. I suppose you could also scan negs at 16-bit and muck around, but the Adobe RAW is so much easier to get a natural looking balance. Lovely Baileys here was bathed in tungsten light, which would take a while to dial out with a neg scan. But with the nifty Adobe Camera RAW 2.4 beta) it is a matter of tweaking three sliders to get a proper shot.

The 1.5 crop factor is more of a plus for me than anything. I generally shoot narrowish FOV, and I also like macro shots. The effective magnification means I don't need to carry around the bulky FA100 macro too much any more.

I've only had the camera for a weekend, so I really need to take more portrait shots (my favourite thing), but I know this is going to be fun. This shot of my friend Megan, taken with the 43mm LTD was just too easy. The lens is low-key. The AF quiet and selectable. The exposure spot on.

And to finish the gushing, love the big, clear viewfinder (less tunnel vision than the Fujifilm S2). Love the sound of the shutter; that is the business. Love the feel of the grip (the S2 always feels like it is about to drop out of my hands). If they made a grip strap like the PZ-1, I'd be in heaven. I don't have a problem with the SD card eject like Steve (from Steve's Digicam) does, but then I know that it can eject purposefully. Better that than to have to prise it out.

And, I only just started reading the manual this afternoon after shooting with it for a couple of days with no problems. Says to me, "intuitive design".

What don't I really like about it? I'd like a vertical grip (most of my shots are in portrait mode). The non-A lens incompatibility business seems disappointing (although I can understand the design thinking behind it, and trying out my non-A lenses on it, the AE-L method will probably work fine). It would be nice to have Hyperprogram mode (something I use all the time on the PZ-1, and available on the *istD) And it is annoying they changed the design of the remote cable release again. But I suppose it won't be too hard to make an adapter.

For me it already feels like my main squeeze, so to speak. I'll see how much film I shoot from now on.

Derby