UK photographer John Hallett uses Pentax

About me

My interest in photography was awoken during my early teens (way, way back in the 1970's) by my Grandmother who kindly gave me her Zenit B 35mm SLR camera.

The Zenit had, by todays standards, a rather primitive light meter mounted directly above the lens which took an average reading of the entire light source in front of the camera. A scale of apertures and related shutter-speeds could then be consulted which were then manually selected on the camera before the shutter could finally be depressed. At first, of course, it was a rather 'hit-and-miss' affair, especially since instant film developing was still a thing of the future and each film had to be posted away for developing, not returning for a couple of weeks.However, experience was soon gained and (in hindsight) it was an extremely valuable experience which taught me the basic principles of exposure and 'reading the light'. Also, changing the aperture setting was a manual operation which darkened the image in the viewfinder but, again, it gave a valuable experience of depth-of-field. I used this camera for many years.

Eventually I upgraded to a Pentax ME Super, a well thought-of camera at the time, and I purchased a small range of lenses and accessories. I joined camera clubs and had a few pictures published in books but somehow during my 20's other priorities came into my life and, without even realising it, my camera started collecting dust in the bottom of a cupboard.

It was during the early part of 2008 when my brother-in-law sent me a camera magazine that he had been given. Reading through it one night I realised that the buzz was still there. I read and re-read the magazine and then went and bought some more. It was not long before a bigger sum of money was spent - on my new digital SLR.

So now I try and fit photography into my life inbetween a full-time job, a large garden and family commitments.

My camera gear

The reason for the list of photographic gear is not to join the "look at the size of my lens" gang or even the "look at which Canon/Nikon I can afford" set - but to show that reasonable photographs can be taken with a budget set-up.

My current gear consists of:

Pentax K200D
Pentax DA 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL
Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO DG Macro
Metz 48 AF-1 flashgun
Sto-fen diffuser
Kood 5-in-1 reflector
Remote release cable switch
Velbon Sherpa tripod
Monopod
Gorillapod
Cokin filters (mainly using polariser & ND Grads)
Hot-shoe mounted spirit level
Rocket blower
2 x 4Gb Extreme III SD cards
4 x 2Gb SD cards

Post-production software:

Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Photoshop
FastStone photo resizer (Link)
Web album generator (Link)
Argentum backup (Link)

Web authoring software:

Adobe Dreamweaver

Web-host:

Host Papa (Link)

Pentax used by UK photographer John Hallett