Pachinko Alley

Squinty reader

My street

The fish market brothers

Tokyo street saloon

Sit, rest, recharge

This man is holding a sign to guild members of the Takahashi family to the funeral hall. He looked very sad, so I feel bad about having taken his photo on such a sad day... I should have left him his privacy...

Cigarette ad

Bike parking guard

Mating dance

This is cheap! Really!

Run the guantlet

We are coolio

Security lady, stand here all day and she is in her late 60s.... hard life

Colours of the streets of Tokyo

Street reader, better light?

Dead students, I think

Shopping district of Kichijoji

I picked up a new camera last night the Pentax K-01 with 3 lenses. A 40mm, f2.8 tiny pancake lens that comes as a kit with the camera, a Tamron 25-75mm f2.8 zoom lens which is very bright, and a Pentax Limited 70mm f2.4 lens. The Limited was only 30,000yen as it was second hand but came with 6 month warranty from the shop. 

I had originally planned on buying either the Olympus OM-D E-M5 or the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 camera. I had actually played with the K-01 in the shop and was somehow not impressed with it. I thought it was ugly, badly designed, and was not too impressed with the images I saw on the web. However, I had the opportunity for a day to borrow a K-01 with the 70mm f2.4 lens from a friend, and wow.... I completely changed my feelings about this camera! I went from finding it at the bottom of my wish list, to the camera I needed.... NOW! So, I rush ordered it on Amazon Japan and got it the next day :) 

Today, well, this evening actually, was my first time out with my own K-01 and I found that I actually had fun using my camera. The strange shape has actually grown on me and I now found it easier to hold and more comfortable than other cameras. The image quality is extremely satisfying, even hand-held shots at 1/8th and at 1600-3200 ISO. 

I chose this shot of a businessman taking a break on the street benches. He looked exhausted as I saw him holding his head as I approached him. I sat near him, put the K-01 on my lap, aimed and took the shot while pretending to be checking my iPhone for mail in the other hand. 

So, long blog post, but in the end, I just wanted to say that I had misjudged a camera before getting to know it well. I hope I have not done this to someone, and thus may have lost the chance to make a great friend before even knowing them.