Photo Day at Fanshawe Pioneer Village

After taking a year off in 2025, Camera Canada hosted another (almost totally annual) Photo Day at Fanshawe Pioneer Village, within London’s Fanshawe Conservation Area.  They invite all major (and some minor) gear manufacturers, such as Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax, Panasonic, Tamron and Sigma, to bring cameras and lenses for people to try out.  Professionals, enthusiasts and casual photographers are invited to attend.  For a very reasonable $20 fee, attendees are provided lunch, a chance to interact with other photographers, and take photos of the Pioneer Village, as well as models hired to be available in various scenic settings.  A special treat is the show presented by the Canadian Raptor Conservency, located immediately north of Long Point, Ontario.  Great horned owls, golden and bald eagles, Harris’s hawks, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and other birds of prey are shown, and flown, for entertainment and opportunities to test equipment.

This year, when I arrived, I was disappointed to learn that the Pentax rep had decided not to bring any lenses.  Odd, you say.  Yes, I thought so too, but there was a reason.  You can read the story at the end of the gallery below.  Suffice to say, I was a little upset.  I wandered around feeling miserable for myself.  Woe is me.  I contemplated asking for my money back and going home.  That lasted about ten minutes, after which I smacked myself in the face, and said get over it.

The weather was gorgeous, with clear blue skies.  I strolled around the village, taking photos of the various buildings.  I walked the entire village, and never saw a model, but got some good landscape shots anyway.  I did, after that, see one model posing for pictures in an evening gown by a restored vintage car near the entrance, and another one arriving two hours late and heading to the washroom to change.

The bird of prey show was definitely worth sticking around for.  I successfully verified that it is very challenging to take good birds in flight photos with my Pentax cameras, as the autofocus isn’t always spot on, or fast enough.  They are very capable cameras in many other respects, however, including astrophotography and landscapes, and action when you have time to nail the focus.  The shots of stationary birds were much better.

Afterwards, I drove a bit deeper into the Fanshawe Conservation Area, and went for a short stroll.  I was rewarded by the sight of several double-crested cormorants by the lake’s edge, including this juvenile, who sat still for me for quite some time.

It was a good day, and should the weather be favourable again next year, I’d recommend it.  I’m going to enquire about the lenses next time, though.

Regarding the lack of Pentax lenses to try at the event:  Over the past year or so, Pentax has gradually been discontinuing all of their DSLRs, the K70 (which I own), the K3iii Monochrome (which I want), the KF (a K70 clone with a slight tweak), the K3iii (a pretty great camera, but not worth the $2200 price tag for me), and finally, just a couple of months ago, their full frame flag ship K1ii (which I also own, and got a great deal on used.)  The lenses were slowly being discontinued through this same period.  This, of course, had a lot of Pentax users very worried.  Pentax used to be king of SLR cameras, but slowly lost ground through the 80s and 90s, and made some poor choices when digital started to take over.  They still made great cameras, but they have lost their edge, and now very much cater to a small but enthusiastic corner of the market.  One thing that did set them apart is that they announced about ten years ago that they were dedicated to keeping with DSLR models, rather than mirrorless.  I will debate successfully with anyone who wants to try to tell me that mirrorless cameras are the way to go, so bring it on.

The strong speculation within the Pentax community was that they simply ran out of parts suppliers, and couldn’t keep making the current models.  However, they remained very tight lipped about their future.  The cameras in stock have mostly sold out, and there is a dwindling supply of new lenses.  Thankfully, just before the Photo Day event, they announced that they were rededicating themselves to DSLRs, but that the design and production of new models of cameras and matching lenses would take some time,

So, it seems that the Pentax rep at the event thought that since there were no current models of cameras or lenses, there was no point in bringing any.  (What were they even doing there, then, you ask?  Pentax is owned by Ricoh Imaging, and the Ricoh G IV line of compact cameras is a world-wide best seller, so he had a few of those to let people test.)  What it seems he forgot to factor in was that there were still new Pentax lenses available to purchase, especially at Camera Canada, who stocked up every time it was announced that another lens was being removed from the line up.  There were a number of disappointed Pentax users besides myself, and the owner and staff of Camera Canada were also pretty baffled by the rep’s decision.  I tend to buy my lenses used, but really like to test them out first.  What can you do?