BurkPhoto:
Thanks for putting the monthly cost of a subscription service in comparison to the ultimate cost of photography. I don't own LR, but it is an interesting and valuable post.
I have the Pentax 18 -270 mm zoom lens. It is pretty nice. I only wish it were water resistant. Pentax use to have a 600 mm tele for full frame cameras. I don't know if it is still available, new or used.
Any Pentax body would work. However, a Spotmatic lens is pretty old. I wouldn't buy a camera around one lens. Do some research on various cameras that will suite your needs. I do like Pentax, though. They are very competitive -- quality, features and price.
I'm an amateur photographer, although I used to do hundreds of weddings and portraits for cash, using a medium format camera. I've been photographing since 1973, using Pentax equipment, for everyday use.
I started out with film cameras, of course, and took a while to get a digital camera. I looked at Canon, Nikon and others, but, decided on Pentax, because of price, features and that I could use all my old lenses, without adaptors. Even shake reduction works with old lenses because Pentax implemented that feature within its digital camera bodies. That's some of the things Pentax promotes. Yes, my old lenses are not automatic exposure (in a some cases), nor automatic focus, they are excellent lenses and I am happy with my decision.
I wasn't curious enough to care. I got the performance I needed by just changing a setting and deleting the old render files.
I have never said SSDs aren't fast nor did I say don't buy them. I have two -- one being my system drive. I boot up Window 10, to the login screen, in about 10 seconds. It shuts down in about 5 seconds. I was only expressing my experience in rendering video, using my software, on my system. That's all.
I use Pinnacle Studio 21. I've used this application ever since it was called Avid Studio. I use to use Avid Liquid, until it was discontinued and even Avid Media Composer, until the upgrades became too expensive. I loved Media Composer. I'm just an amateur, so I can't expense my expenses. I'm not sure why everyone is taking exception to my original post. I did criticize SSDs. The only thing I mentioned is that I didn't get the rendering performance out of my SSDs, on my system, and just reverted to one of my hard disk drives. No more and no less.
Sorry you don't believe my previous career. I specialised in Geographic Information Systems, databases, application design and programming. I don't do operating systems, networks, hardware or other computer system applications. Hence, I do what works and don't spend my time on hardware issues. I leave that to others, such as my son who works for a large systems integration firm. That's his job and he found the same thing I did. In fact, he helped me build my system, out of the highest performance components I could find locally. My system screams, except for the rendering of video using my SSDs. I wasn't bad-mouthing SSDs, I was describing my experience. I didn't think anyone would take offense to my post, as it appears some have. I stand by original post.
I'm a retired computer systems analyst. I only know what I have observed. I use that "render" SSD for other large files that are read and written with no noticeable issues. I first tried the OS SSD with the same slow results, before I went with the hard disk drive. It may be how my non-linear video editing software utilizes drives, but, as I said, that is what happened. I'm just giving my two cents to the discussion.
I built a new computer with two SSDs and two 2- terabyte hard disk drives. I installed the Windows OS on one of the SSD's. It is drive C:. It appears that it performs fast, with no problems. However, I used the second SSD for rendering video files. My video editing software was very slow. I changed the render disk to one of the hard disks and everything started to work much quicker. Hence, don't use an SSD for anything that requires a lot of heavy, intensive data manipulation, such as rendering video files.
I copy my photos to my computer, using a card reader. I, then, copy the photos to an external drive plus a DVD read/write disc and store the DVD disc to an off-site location. I never edit my photos before I store them, so I can get back to the originals, if I need to edit them differently, in the future.
I have had many Pentax cameras through the years and have had good luck with them. When I bought my first digital SLR (actually, not too long ago), I contemplated getting a different brand of camera, with the expense of buying new lenses. I decided to buy a new Pentax DSLR and use my old automatic exposure, but not auto focus, lenses. I bought a fully automatic zoom lens with my new camera and found it so convenient that I scrapped the idea of using my old, but excellent, lenses. You might want to consider the same thing for your dad, instead of adapting old lenses to a new camera. Good luck, either way.