2008 Pentaxian Award

While not as prestigious as the Nobel Peace Prize (smile), we decided to honor a special Pentax photographer with the 2008 Pentaxian Award. It gives me great pleasure to give this first Pentaxian award to Lance Blackburn of Australia.

Lance first coined the phrase "LBA" or Lens Buying Addiction in November 2004. As quite a few of us in marketing at Pentax USA are very active in monitoring photography forums, we really loved this phrase and have referred to it in many of our print and web campaigns for the past year. For anyone that's interested in seeing the origin of this acronym, here's the link to Lance's original post:

Lance's "LBA" Post

As Lance explained to me, he first referred to this affliction many of us have about acquiring more lenses as "Pentax Lens Buyers Anonymous" and later shortened or refined the term to simply be "Lens Buying Addiction"

In recognition of Lance's contribution, we've given him a new K20D, as pictured above. And to help ease the pain of his own struggle with "LBA", we'll be sending him the new DA* 300mm f/4.0 lens as soon as it ships.

Lance, thanks for your creativity, your passion for photography and being a true Pentaxian!

DA 200mm Casual Portraits

Morning in Ikebukuro

16-50mm Portraits

Images were shot with K10D at ISO 200. RAW files processed in PhotoLab 3.1. Focal lengths: portraits shot at 35mm and 50mm. Aperture for all photos: f/3.5. Click on these small images to see larger (2MB) file.

Snapshots from Weekend

We went back this weekend to New England to check-up on our elderly parents. We were relaxing Saturday afternoon on my mother's patio, and I had a chance to walk around her property to capture a few photos with the 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Note about last image: As my mother was just given an award for her efforts to promote the arts in her community, we decided a photo of the "artist in her studio" was appropriate. I switched to the 31mm lens for this photo.