On 19/10/13, Jens, discombobulated, unleashed: (some complex questions!)
>How would you convince a beginner to get a Pentax? That's a tricky one. If the beginner was a person who wanted to make better pictures in an amateur capacity, I would have no trouble recommending Pentax as a brand for them. In fact this happens regularly to me and I regularly do recommend Pentax. Especially for the DSLRs, which obviously have better features for the price points than Nikon and Canon. For a student with the desire to enter photography professionally though, I would urge them to think carefully about what they invest their very hard-earned cash in. The ability to later build on a system that proliferates in the professional environment should be a large consideration, especially where they build a collection of lenses in what would be considered a 'professional' capacity. I'm thinking f/2.8 zooms, advanced flash systems, 36X24 bodies. That said, I have yet to find anyone in the second category who hasn't already decided on a system, and invariably there are either Canon or Nikon. >What would you buy, if you were a beginner? I think that's an impossible question to answer. One already has the knowledge built up over years of hardware experience and making pics so if I had a 'mind wipe' how could I know without asking the advice of a series of people into photography? As an aside, I'm in the market for buying a chainsaw. I have no experience of chainsaws other than borrowing one once a few years ago. All I remember is it was noisy and smelly, spat oil everywhere but reduced a few branches to burnable logs in zero time. Now, I want to do the same on a regular basis in one spot in my garden. Where do I start? Assuming an electric one (which I decided upon due to nature of jobs with it and location)..... 'Which' recommended several models. I looked at the reviews of those on Amazon. Interesting as a lot of unhappy owners complained of poor mechanical defects like cheap shit adjustment bolts that warp and break. So I looked at reviews for all the types of electric chainsaws on Amazon and was surprised to find a few that didn't have these problems - at least not as reported by reviewers anyway. You'd think brand plays a part here -and it does. The Bosch came recommended by 'Which' but Amazonians thought it pretty rubbish. Well, it's bargain segment of the market, so poor assembly and cheap components are bound to prevail. The Ryobi was recommended too, and Amazonians liked it better. Then I went to where the professional tree cutter hang out and read a few dozen forum posts there. All preferred petrol chainsaws, but then again, they spend there days hanging 40 feet up doing battle for money. They spend hundreds on their equipment, and rightly so. I could shoot video using kit costing just a few thousand quid but to do it properly you need to spend 4 times that. Some useful tidbits though, like if you don't need to cut down mature 400 foot Redwood, then a shorter bar (the bit that holds the chain) is fine and will produce less 'kickback' if things go wrong. I take this to mean there's a better chance of my hands staying attached to my arms. #like So not a 16" bar then - back to the drawing board. More research on (say) 14 inchers. etc. One thing I was surprised about is that branding played so little part in my decision. The pros boasted about their Husqvarnas with impunity but I couldn't care less what's written on the side! I want some reliability at reasonable cost - and of course to cut up tree branches for the fire. Like when I decided to buy some Fuji gear. I really didn't care about what was written on the front - they started making the sort of gear I wanted to buy. I would have loved that gear to have Pentax emblazoned on it, but really I would have bought the same cameras if they had been called Zenits! They are doing exactly what I want. Long answer, sorry. Short answer to 2nd question: DUNNO!!! Hope you're all having (or had) a good saturday evening :) -- Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ Broadcast, Corporate, || (O) | Web Video Production ---------- <www.seeingeye.tv> _____________________________ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
