Guy Stuff at Guys Clubhouse

I’m finally finding the time to get out there and do some testing with the K-7.  This post I’d like to discuss price. I ordered the camera from B&H Photo Video out of the the US.  I ordered it with the 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL WR lens. More on the lens later.  Living in Canada, I of course tried to order here first. Vistec, a Toronto based retailer and a very large and good one, was selling the kit for $1529.00 before tax. I turned to B&H (click add to cart to see the price. It’s ok, you don’t have to buy it. lol ) and they were charging $990.00. The duty was $128.00. That’s a total of $1118.00.  People, I saved $411.00 and that is not including the tax that would be added to my Canadian purchase!! How do our Canadian companies compete? Let me say, I want to support Canadian companies. If the difference in price was a hundred bucks, I would have ordered it from Vistec. But $400.00! Really, I’d be stupid wouldn’t I. It even arrived within 48 hours.  I feel bad for our Canadian distributors if thats the best they can do. They must be in real trouble. And don’t give me the “better customer service” thing, because the American company B&H has been great.

Jan and I went biking this week, I thought I’d give my $10 set of wheels a good run. We had a great time traveling along the bay and up to Saint Marie stopping at the Martyrs  Shrine.  Quite a nice trip. About 35 minutes from  home I could feel something going wrong with my gears. I said to Jan ” I think my bike is breaking down”. Sure enough, a minute later I was unable to peddle the thing. Turns out one of the small wheels on the gear system had departed for good never to be seen again. Well, I don’t often go hiking and biking in the same day, but fortunately it was a sunny  fn afternoon and I had a new pair of shoes on. Arriving home, I assessed the situation and basically, I was screwed. I did have Jans old bike, “Blister”, in the back shed though, perhaps I’d save some bucks and be able to swap the gear system. I was in luck. Blister had been Lady driven and the Shamano gears were in great shape. Off they came and good news, the system works like a charm on my bike! I felt bad making Blister non-ridable, but sacrifices must be made. I put her back in the shed and realized,  having a parts bike is the way to go.

After ordering the Pentax from B&H Photo out of New York, I was thrilled when it showed up here in Canada 48 hours later. Quite fast I thought.  I haven’t had a lot of time to test it properly, but I have dug up my old lenses, dusted and cleaned them up to try.  Well, what a thrill that turned out to be. After all these years, they work perfect on the K-7. This is my old wedding portraiture rig. A Pentax 50 mm f 1.7, Tamron sp 90 mm f 2.5 ( best lens ever made I think ) and a Sigma 135 mm f 2.8.  These 3 lenses made me quite a bit of  money over the years and I missed them. All manual focus prime lenses. Zoom lenses were fun then but just not quite as sharp and reliable.  I was worried about the manual focus and my vision as I’m in my mid 40’s now,  but the K-7 has a “capture on focus” function. Just hold your finger down on the shutter button and focus. When it’s focused, it takes the shot.  Really cool! I think my point here is, the K-7 has put me back in the comfort zone.  I even packed my camera bag  like I did when I was going on a shoot 15 years ago!