If Mr. Claus was Fully Employed in 2009...

Let's imagine the various agents (titans and minions alike) that run (and are run by) our financial empire were able to control their greed, perspective and the genie that was let out of the regulatory bottle. Let's suppose the Great Recession didn't happen and the fully and gainly employed numbers were increased by just one. Let's pretend that money is (almost) no object and that Santa was feeling especially generous this Christmas. Let my imagination run amok and daydream about what would be most cool to find under the tree tomorrow? Yes, photo gear no doubt would rate highly.


Being an avid Pentax user (are there any more of us out there?) I would love to find a K-7 waiting for me, especially now that Mrs. Claus can buy it at a reduced price at B&H Photo. Based on what I've read, this body is a significant improvement in a number of ways on the K20 which was a quantum jump over the previous K10. I own both of the latter but would like to have both of my primary shooters as similar in resolution as the K7 and K20 are (both 14.6 mp).




I have a pretty complete flight of lens for my Pentaxes but there are a few gaps that are begging to be filled. One of those is a fast, "normal," auto-focus prime lens that is a super portrait performer and allows creative opportunities for compositional and bokeh wing-stretching. Either the Pentax 55mm f/1.4 or the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 would make this photo-camper oh so happy. Another lens I have been eying for some time is Sigma's 10-20 f/3.5. Yes, I know I have Sigma's 12-24mm and it is a very nice lens with an incredible sweep of perspective. But the 10-20 is faster with a fixed aperture and importantly permits the use of filters on the end of the objective. All good reasons for Santa to drop one under my drooping tree.




I would also love a lens to cover the range 18-135mm or even 18-250mm. For Pentax photographers the choices are pretty much relegated to Sigma: either the 18-125mm f/3.8-5.6 or perhaps the 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3. Either of these lens -- and especially the latter -- would allow me to walk-about with one one or two less lenses. That counts when traveling abroad or hiking in the desert.




There is finally a point-and-shoot for photographers: the Leica D-Lux 4 and yes, it is high on my list. It's not cheap, but it is a Leica and based on everything I have seen and read, it is a mighty tiny camera.
















Of course any digital photographer these days needs post-processing power. I drum my fingers waiting for my old (last year's model) PC running XP to process my 40MB HDR files, not to mention my 120MB TIFF scans. So, yes, I would also like an Apple Mac Pro...preferably the 3GHz 8-core model with 12GB RAM...please...oh and maybe the 30" Apple Cinema Monitor?




















I think I just tipped the balance with that last request and I don't want to be on Santa's Bad Karma list. It's easy to daydream but some of the above will indeed creep into my kit bags. For this Christmas I'll make due just fine with my current gear and computers and the lot and just settle for one little old thing under the tree...