Boots vs Pentax

My daughter and I took two cameras to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Yorkshire. I gave her the Boots 350 AutoFocus, loaded with Kentmere Pan 400 and I used the Pentax MX with SMC 50mm f1.4 lens, loaded with Ilford XP2. When the photographs came back and I discovered we’d taken the same photographs, I had to look at them side-by-side.

Dolly and friends

See Emley play

He lives in a house, a very big house in the country

The Boots 350AF has a 29mm lens and creates a significant vignette in the photographs (left). The Pentax MX (right) is so much clearer, and the 50mm lens gives much more detail. The Kentmere Pan 400 seems to have more grain than the Ilford XP2, but there are so many variables that this wouldn’t be a good comparison – even if that had been my original intention. I think the cheap Boots camera still has a lot going for it, and I tend to put it in my jersey pocket when cycling, however if I had a nicer point-and-shoot I wouldn’t use the Boots camera much more.