Originally posted by leeak As I said, I am very happy with my Pentax setup. However I do shoot my 7-month old indoor a lot and I try to avoid flash it I can and so I don't really mind a camera with a little better AF and ISO performance.
I rarely do radical cropping or print larger than 24x36" either.
If the requirement is low light portraits, then I'll definitely recommend the 5D over the K20: the camera was quasi made for that and is very good up to ISO 1600 and still very decent at 3200. Be aware that ISO 3200 can show some horizontal banding in underexposed parts of the image on both cameras.
Choice of (relatively) cheap lenses, depending on how you like your portraits:
35f2 (around 250€): small and not USM but nice IQ;
50f1.8 (less than 90€!): cheap plastic lens with surprisingly good IQ of course no USM;
50f1.4 USM (around 330€): not that sharp at f1.4-f2 but nice bokeh and good contrast;
85f1.8 USM (around 350€): sharp and fast, a classic.
100f2 USM (around 450€): a bit more expensive and very well rated also.
From the 5D, you get around 1-1.5 stop less noise at ISO 800+ than the K20 but more importantly IMO, you also get a boost in DR at high ISO (around 1-2 stops at ISO 800).
Low light without flash portraiture is my primary useage of this camera and I have been very happy with it.
Note: I am a 100% raw shooter so the details about color rendering are pretty moot for me as I can pretty much get any kind of color rendering I like from both cameras. For jpegs, I like the Pentax natural rendering very much.
An example of a quick grab: 5D+24-105f4, ISO 1250, 1/20s, f5.6: