[atlnq9]

Never paid much attention to him but when I read his comments on the 645D which are all wrong because he never even looked at more than a picture of it.

The bad news is that it's designed to appeal to hobbyists, meaning garbage features like 77-segment metering, wimpy, slow SD card media, stupid picture modes, live view, electronic level, 11-point AF — and gag me — multiple exposures and in-camera HDR, which have replaced the intelligent usability of simpler cameras designed for pros who know what they're doing.

Ok, not sure what he is talking about by picture modes, because it doesn't have a special landscape, portrait, night time, etc. mode for people who don't know how to choose their settings. Um, sorry there bud, but it doesn't have live view and I think nobody would complain if it did; its a real help in confirming focusing accuracy. Ok, in-camera HDR ya got got me; never gonna use it. It is probably just there because Pentax already had the software programed for it from the K5. And the useability of the camera is spectacular worlds better than the Canikons you rave about.

Do you know how many AF sensors the $43,000 Hasselblad CF-39 has? One. Do you know how many metering zones it has? One at a time, and it also has fewer pixels (39MP vs. 40).
Pros must know something Pentax doesn't.

Haven't heard anybody but this guy complain about too many focus points. If it is a problem for you then you can use the center one all the time. So all you are really doing is showing that the Pentax is more advanced than the Hassy at a cheaper price. Surprised this guy doesn't just use a handheld meter for everything and bash every camera made for having a built in meter. I think it is more Pentax knew something Hassy and Phase did not; that adding these features can be done and still keep cost low...

With this digital truncation, Pentax should call this the Pentax 433 not to be misleading.

Should Phase and Leaf do the same?

If Pentax added a digital back to the Pentax 645N, then we'd have something. The 645N is designed as a camera should be.

All I see is another confusing array of meaningless buttons that aren't going to help.

Ok, the 645N and 645NII are great cameras; but, so is the 645D. Much between the 645 N and D remain similar a few changes here and there with better guts and a digital sensor... And just so you know every digital back camera ends up with more buttons than before...

On the Pentax 645D, it looks like everything you actually need to do is only available via menus and stupid multi-function scroll wheels.

Um, yeah ok. Actually the dials are handy because I can change the shutter and aperture without removing my eye. Whoa, wait, did we just make a positive improvement? Nah, I don't know any photographers that want to spend more time looking at the top of their camera and less looking through it.

Designing cameras to appeal to unwitting feature-counters who aren't sufficiently experienced to discriminate between what's important, and what are merely degrading distractions, is the best way to make a bad camera.

Nobody spending this kind of money is buying it because they are a feature counter or hobbyist. They are either a very advanced amateur/semi pro or they earn their living with it.

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Last edited by atlnq9; 05-12-2012 at 12:46 AM.

[LaurenOE]

If Ken said those things about the 645D, then most definitely an idiot.

[GabrielFFontes]

Really?
He usually writes great things, and this article is just RIDICULOUS...
And it's not because its a Pentax.

[ismaelg]

You are doing EXACTLY what he wants you to do. Free publicity so he gets a lot of traffic so he can wow sponsors so he can make money.
He generates money, you generate an ulcer.
He is a GENIUS

[Yamanobori]

Not the most informative article about the 645D. But it does say a lot about the author. Of course, it might of been a better review if he had actually seen the camera. Writing reviews based on imagine is not a great approach.

[JohnBee]

Never paid much attention to him but when I read his comments on the 645D then I realized he is an idiot.

I can't count the number times I read that line over the years:
Anyways, I always got the impression that he got much of his momentum by appealing to the controversial side of things. You know, sort of like an older wiser version of

[atlnq9]

You are doing EXACTLY what he wants you to do. Free publicity so he gets a lot of traffic so he can wow sponsors so he can make money. He generates money, you generate an ulcer. He is a GENIUS

Ah, the number of people that go his site based on my post is meaningless.

Besides with any luck there are a few people here that will never return. I know I won't.

[aurele]

well, read the review about the 5Diii (ok, it's a Canon, but, all in all, it's a great camera i guess.), he's still complaining about metering ("multi metering is useless : my leica have one spot metering and is more accurate" ...).

This guy is just a moron who pretend to know better than anyone everything about photography.

[aurele]

I can't count the number times I read that line over the years:
Anyways, I always got the impression that he got much of his momentum by appealing to the controversial side of things. You know, sort of like an older wiser version of

AH AH AH !!!

[Pioneer]

He is a GENIUS

Well...I am not sure I would go quite that far but he is very good at generating controversy and that is his modus operandi. It is what generates hits and hits help him make money. You have to admit, he is quite successful. Just go to some of the various photography forums and do a search for Ken Rockwell. It is nothing short of amazing what pops up, usually because someone took exception to one of his reviews.

As for the Pentax 645D he provides a controversial alternative view that any serious potential buyer will balance against all the other great reviews out there for the 645D.

For me he proves the point that ANY information you gather doing research on the internet had better be taken with a very large grain of salt until you can validate it with a number of other independent sources. And independence is very tough to verify on the internet.

[dms]

While you don't have to agree with him--if he made the comment about almost any of the dslr's and said what he wants is the simplicity of the K1000 I suspect many would agree. If I owned/used any of the prior 645's I likely would thing along similar lines. Frankly I thing most of you just don't get it. It is a philosophy--that's all. And as for his "personality" you don't have to read his writing.

[atlnq9]

Frankly I thing most of you just don't get it.

The idiot wants a digital back with no added buttons. What does he want it to have, super intelligence linkage so it automatically knows how he wants the white balance set? Why doesn't he complain about his M9 having more buttons than the M7?

If I owned/used any of the prior 645's I likely would thing along similar lines.

And the Pentax 645D is the closest you can get. The ergonomics are great partly because the body and back are integrated. No other MFD besides Leica S2 has that.

The really problem is he tries to push his philosophy across with no common sense and without ever having touched the camera.

[Ryan Tischer]

When researching the 645D I did run across his article (the ONLY negative review of the 645D I found), but then dismissed it based on the fact he never even touched the camera and his unintelligent biases that showed through in his writing. I agree...he's an idiot.

[Todd Adamson]

Ismael has it right. Rockwell is a genius. He's also a troll, and he's also hilarious, and occasionally he even posts good information. But if you don't know what you're getting into when you go to his site, there's a reasonable chance you'll become upset, or possibly misinformed. So, basically, he's a pretty good sample of the internet.

[Yamanobori]

While you don't have to agree with him--if he made the comment about almost any of the dslr's and said what he wants is the simplicity of the K1000 I suspect many would agree. If I owned/used any of the prior 645's I likely would thing along similar lines. Frankly I thing most of you just don't get it. It is a philosophy--that's all. And as for his "personality" you don't have to read his writing.

But the 645D can be a simple as the K1000. Manual exposure, manual focus, center-weighted metering, preset WB, preset ISO, the works. Just because there are more features, you don't actually have to use them. Nor do they get in the way. So his argument is rather pointless.

But that really is not his argument. The 77-segment metering is neither here nor there. It is a background function. And why criticize a better why of measuring light? And as I said, you can turn the camera to center-weighted or spot metering and so you can ignore that technology if you wish.

His rant has nothing to do with any philosophy than simply being in a huff. It is rather a stupid review.