Say hello to Mr Q (The Q experiment, part 1)

I have decided to challenge myself in my street photography (as if it wasn’t hard enough). For the next month (November) I will only do street shooting with my Pentax Q together with the Pentax-01 standard prime, which is a 8.5 mm, f/1.9 lens. In 35mm equivalent terms this is translated to about 47,6 mm (5,6x crop factor). So in terms of aperture equivalent, this translates to about f/10.6 (f/1.9x5.6) which means there are plenty of resources in the depth of field department. This is a good thing as the lens peak performance is at f/2.8, and this is the aperture I will be at most of the time when I am using Mr Q. The Pentax Q is equipped with a 12 Mpixel (4000x3000 px) sensor-shift stabilized 1/2.3” back illuminated sensor.

    The Pentax Q on top of the Fujifilm X100.

The Pentax Q is the world’s smallest and lightest system camera and it weighs only 180 grams; add to that the 01 standard prime lens at 36 grams and this combo weighs in at only 216 grams. This is less than half the weight of my Fuji X100. The Q is a fantastic build, sturdy and tough, with a magnesium alloy body and separate battery and SD-card slots on each site of the camera (not the cheap way Fuji has chosen where the card sits together with the battery on the bottom of the camera). This camera is built like a professional tool, you notice that the instant you pick it up and hold it in your hand. The rubberized grip is surprisingly good for a camera of this size.

The 36 grams light Pentax 01 standard prime (8,5mm f/1.9) In 35mm equivalent terms about 47 mm.

The camera lacks a viewfinder but sports a quite good 3 inch LCD screen. The ISO ranges from 125 to 6400, but ISO above 1600 is not really usable. I rarely go above ISO 400 with this camera, but this should be enough for daytime street shooting, considering that I can shoot at f/1.9-2.8.

Here are some street photos from the last weeks.

Moulin rouge

[untitled]

Red walkers