Begginer SLR question on reddit.

[nixcamic]

Just noticed this on reddit Photography reddit, if you do'nt mind my asking, what is a good SLR camera for someone with middling experience to purchase? : photography don't anyone get rabidly zealous or anything, and don't flood it with "PENTAX IS TEH SHIZ". but if anyone feels like posting some calm intelligent stuff about why pentax is a good brand to go with it would be cool.

[stevebrot]

Ummm...this is a Pentax forum, so I guess most of the answers would be biased towards Pentax. Consumer Reports gave thumbs up to the K200D based on performance, features, and value.

Beyond that, I would suggest that you spend some time to determine the kind of shooting you do and your needs as far as features are concerned. After that, try and find a retail outlet where you can actually handle the cameras that float to the top of your list. Camera handling is pretty important as is build quality. You might also want to tally up the system cost when you add in a few lenses.

For Pentax the short story is:

• Great build quality
• Moisture/Dust seals
• In-body shake reduction
• Good backwards compatibility to the used lens market
• Competitive pricing for bodies and lenses
• Better than average optical/build quality for consumer-level lenses
• Excellent optical/build quality for pro-level lenses

On the negative side:

• Fairly slow frames per second
• Few options for long glass
• Relatively poor image quality for in-camera JPEG using default settings (RAW, by comparison, is best in class)

Steve

[nixcamic]

Perhaps I wasnt exactly clear, I already have a GX-10 and love it. This is someone else asking the question on another site, unless you were posting a list of stuff for me to tell them.