Right, no one is making them anymore. Or practically no one.

And certainly not Pentax, which has shifted its focus, so to speak, over to making nothing but cropped-sensor digital bodies and lenses.

But one of the great attractions of the Pentax system is, and has long been, all those lenses, going back practically to prehistoric times. And that is where I think Pentax is missing a bet.

First off, they need to design and manufacture a full-frame digital camera, one that embodies the Pentax philosophy of pleasing design, tight construction and a stripped down feature set. Practically every Pentax shooter dreams of such a camera, and I’ll leave that delicious fantasy for others to work out (at least for now).

What I would love to see is a new (gasp!) film camera from Pentax. A film camera for the new millennium.

What would it be? Ideally, a blend of the best features of Pentax’ two best cameras of the past, the LX and the MZ-S. It would be a basic, small, tough, weatherproof autofocus camera that would also play well with old manual-focus lenses. It would have a spacious, bright viewfinder, a moderate frame rate, and offer spot metering as well as mirror lockup. It could work, as did the MZ-S and current digital bodies, as a wireless flash controller for Pentax flashes. It might record or imprint EXIF data. And it would use the basic interface of the K20D, which derived from the PZ-1P, a camera that was in many ways ahead of its time (or, at least,  ahead of its market).

(In fact, in an essay that can be found on the web, Pentax designers explain their thinking behind the curious hybrid controls of the MZ-S, which tried to act like an old mechanical camera and so doesn’t work well with lenses that lack aperture rings. The public didn’t like the PZ-1P controls. Now, of course, such a design interface is standard.)

Anyway, I’d buy that camera in a heartbeat. So would, I suspect, a lot of other photographers who could use it for occasional pleasant forays into film even if that wasn’t their primary medium.

If the new film body was matched stylistically and functionally with a full frame digital body, so much the better.

Ned Bunnell, are you listening?

Alas, for it is in so many ways a sweet little camera. But a couple days using it divulged some critical flaws:

First and foremost, it eats batteries. It burned through a set of expensive CR2s in the first four rolls. So I put in a new set, different brand — and they went dead in the middle of the third roll. Minimal flash use, autofocus, reasonably warm weather. Nothing strenuous. I could get a battery grip and use AAs, but then the camera loses one of its great charms: Its small size.

Next, the exposure data imprinting feature doesn’t really work with Tri-X. The numbers are there, on the film margins, but they are so overexposed that they can barely be read, if at all, with a magnifying glass and a great effort. Apparently the feature doesn’t work for all films, as the manual notes.

Finally, the fact that the MZ-S doesn’t deal well with current lenses that don’t have aperture rings was more irritating than I expected. You can use the 70/2.4 Limited, for example, but only in program mode or shutter priority mode. Weird. What you want with that lens is aperture priority.

So I’m back to square one on the impossible dream: To reduce the amount of camera gear I own to a bare but productive minimum.

Here’s what I would like in a single system. The ability to shoot film as well as digital with the same lenses. That essentially means full frame digital. I thought Pentax, with its broad lens compatibility, would be a good approximation, even though they don’t have FF. But to have the lens coverage I want with Pentax really just means two sets of lenses. That’s what I’m trying to get away from.

The cost, though, is high to move to full frame because the bodies are so expensive. I probably don’t need a 5D or D700, as much as I might enjoy them. And they’re heavy.

But there is a certain attraction to the idea of a basic system with a 5D/EOS3 or D700/F100 and a small set of lenses useful on both bodies.

What I hope to do is get back to taking pictures and not think about any of this for six months.

It’s very little! Even by Pentax standards. The body is so tiny and light it’s almost, but not quite, too small for my small hands.

It’s quiet. The sound of the shutter is refined but not explosive.

The autofocus works better than any Pentax camera I’ve ever handled. It’s fast and sure. More on this later.

It works well with M lenses. Focus confirmation seems dead on.

It has an elegant personality. Figure that one out! Almost as good as the LX.

I like it — even though it’s not as exquisitely built as the Nikon F-100 I just tried out. (Too big and heavy, too likely to cost me all kinds of money starting up a new lens set.)

More later…

photo: Trinity Alps, 2009

Actually, it’s been a little more than a year. I bought the K20D and a handful of Pentax lenses at the end of 2008, shifting over from Canon, and here it is the beginning of 2010 already.

Inspired, in part, by a recent post at Photo.net, “Life with a D300,” I thought I might jot down some of the pluses and minuses of shooting with Pentax over the relatively long haul. Too many reviews are written by people who use a camera for a few days or weeks, very part time. I’ll try to bring the perspective of someone who has used the camera, and system, full time for more than a year.

First off: Fun matters

Pentax is as different from Canon as an old Jaguar is from a Ford Taurus. Both cars will get you to where you are going, at least most of the time. But the Jaguar is cooler, more fun — and slightly less reliable than the Ford.

This is a big part of why most professionals don’t choose Pentax. There are just too many bumps in that road. Canon is boring but gets you there on time.

I am not a journalist or wedding photographer who absolutely has to get the shot. I’m a fine art photographer who gets to have fun. I don’t care so much if the autofocus gets confused or if I can’t rent a 600/4 bird lens or even find one to buy.

Pentax is fun.

What gear do I use?

Here’s a list:

• K20D digital body
• LX film body

• 16-50/2.8 DA*
• 12-24/4 DA
• 21/3.2 Ltd
• 70/2.4 Ltd
• 28/2.8 M
• 50/1.4 M
• 135/3.5 M
• 200/4 M
• 300/4 645 A* with 1.4 and 2x teleconverters (with Kmount adapter)

• 280T flash, Vivitar 285HV flash, Vivitar 2600 flash, and optical slave triggers.

(I still also have a Canon EOS3 and 20D along with two L zooms: the 100-400 and 20-35. I rarely use them.)

So how do I use it all?

Depends on where I’m going and what I’m shooting.

Let’s start with color digital on the K20D.

If I’m headed out in the evening to shoot during the local art walk — or vacationing in a city, say, or going to a party that I want to photograph — I’ll put one of the Limited lenses on the K20D and the other in a pocket. These two, the 21 and 70, are a great combination for street shooting. The 70/2.4, especially, renders gorgeous images. They’re tiny, unobtrusive, and you won’t be mistaken for a professional photographer. (That’s a good thing. I don’t want to be.)

Backpacking/hiking, especially in rotten weather or dusty conditions: the K20D with the weather-sealed 16-50. Good mid range, fast lens, and tough.

photo: Yellow-headed blackbird, 2009

Birding from the car, and elsewhere: The big 645 lens on either camera, set on a windowsill beanbag. Image quality is every bit as a good as the Canon 100-400 L zoom. Bird shots need manual focusing half the time anyway because of distracting branches. Do I shoot birds in flight? Rarely. But it can be done.

Then there’s black and white — which is most of my photography these days. And certainly all that I sell.

For shooting BW, I take the LX, with the 28 mounted, and the 135 and 50, along with a few rolls of film, spare batteries and business cards, all in a tiny LowePro Orion Mini belt pack (try that with your D300 and three lenses!). The LX may be 30+ years old, but it’s a jewel of a camera, precision machined and a joy to use.

All the Pentax gear above, less the 645 telephoto, fits nicely into a LowePro Mini Trekker for stuffing into the car for trips or hauling up a mountain trail.

What do I think of the K20D?

First off, it’s impossible to separate the camera from the Pentax lenses. The lenses are sweet: better and more interesting than anything I’ve used from Canon. The Limiteds, especially, are unmatched by any other manufacturer. They, alone, are a reason to go with and stay with Pentax.

The 16-50 zoom is dead sharp, tough and weatherproof. No complaints.

And I love the K20D. It’s well designed and intuitive. The HyperProgram and Hyper Manual modes are brilliant. No other manufacturer offers anything like them.

Except…

Pentax autofocus sucks. Period. It’s slow. It hunts. It’s noisy. Pentax fans all over the web torture reality to try to convince themselves this isn’t so. Canon, they say, is fast but inaccurate. That’s ridiculous. Pentax simply lacks competitive autofocus on its cameras.

Is this a problem for me? Occasionally. The other night while shooting photos of a lecturer at an art gallery, the camera hunted noisily back and forth so much I finally shut off autofocus and focussed manually. It worked.

Autofocus works better in trying situations if you pre focus by hand. You can adapt. But it’s irritating.

Otherwise I have few complaints and much praise for the camera.  Image files are great. I shoot RAW and process in Lightroom, which handles the Pentax files very well. Photos from the K20D have more richness and depth than shots of the same scene made on the Canon 20D, or even the 5D I owned for a brief while. (I am not an image quality freak. Pixel peeping just makes you blind and crazy. Prints from all three cameras, at 12×18, are more or less identical in quality, though the Pentax color is richer. At 20×30, you might find a difference with a magnifying glass. Who cares?)

Dust removal, via the vibrating sensor, is great and should be required by law on all digital SLRs. My 20D used to get so dirty so fast I didn’t want to shoot photos with it. The K20D sensor is always clean.

The weather sealing really works. I live in Oregon. I take the camera out in the rain all the time.

The K20D uses SD cards. That means I can slip them out of the camera and right into the built-in SD slot on my laptop. I like that.

Battery life is OK. I get about 300 shots on a charge, with plenty of chimping but not much onboard flash use. I wish the charger had a flip-out plug instead of a cord.

I haven’t used the wireless flash controller feature as I don’t own a modern Pentax flash. Sadly, there is no way to disable the preflash fired by the onboard flash, making it impossible to use to fire optical slaves unless you fork over more money for one that screens the preflash out.

I love using old Pentax lenses on the K20D. Metering is a little erratic with M lenses unless you shoot them wide open or nearly so. I almost always do, but don’t mind adjusting a bit if I stop down.

The M 50/1.4 is a great portrait lens wide open. The M 135/3.5 has a beautiful 3D look and, as a bonus, is dead cheap on the used market.

But, speaking of money…

Everything Pentax has gotten more expensive lately. Too expensive. Something to do with the Yen and with the fact more people are buying Pentax cameras and then shopping for Pentax lenses on the used market. As a result it’s really hard to find the wonderful FA and FA* lenses that were easily available 10 years ago, and when you can find them they’re ridiculously expensive.

And there are few long lenses available.

This has begun to bug me. You can’t count on being able to find, say, a 35/2 autofocus lens for Pentax without a long hunt. Since I still shoot film, I have been thinking of buying an MZ-S. But there are few lenses for it anymore.

The cheap manual lenses now are from Nikon….

The development of new technology regularly leads to new forms of art. The invention of metal paint tubes in the 19th century, for example, helped artists to carry their paints into the field, fueling the explosion of plein air painting and Impressionism. The invention of the electric guitar spawned rock ‘n roll.

But sometimes the technology takes over, funneling art into narrower and narrower directions.

That’s exactly what has happened in the last 30 years in nature photography.

Time was — and I mean a time when photographers shot on slow speed slide film and used manual focus lenses — it was just plain tough to get a picture of a bird in flight. It’s not easy today but it’s a whale of a lot easier than it used to be.

Back before effective autofocus and good quality high ISO digital cameras that were affordable to the masses, a lot of nature photographers wanted desperately to get those shots.

Now they can. And now they do: Over, and over, and over again. Magazines are full of them. Flickr is full of them. Nature websites are full of them. And they all look alike.

What is all this got to do with kitsch?

I am not entirely sure, but I sense that there is a relationship between the clichéd state of current nature photography and the increasing amount of nature kitsch, such as the leaping wolf photograph that was recently disqualified from the competition it had won not because it’s such a bad photo (it is) but because the Spanish photographer apparently used a tame wolf in a wildlife park for the shot.

What is kitsch, anyway? There many definitions, but an essential ingredient is always an element of pretense. Kitsch is bad art that pretends to be important.

Our more detailed level, of course, kitsch plays to the crowd, always. It’s the gaudy sunset shot. It’s the baby in a floppy hat.

And (here’s the connection to wildlife photography) it’s the perfect eagle, soaring perfectly in a perfect sky, as opposed to the actual eagle, whose wing feathers are tattered and whose right leg is sprouting an ugly fungus.

Nature photography has lost touch, in a fundamental way, with nature; and driven by the rat race of technological improvement, it’s turned itself into a close cousin of paintings on velvet.

photo: The birdcracker, 2009