Originally posted by timh It's not Pentax folk, it's forum folk. Same everywhere, not just cameras either.
Really? Because I have frequented a lot of forums on a LOT of subjects. Yes, there are always more noisy unhappy people than noisy happy people. That's normal. But outside of photography blogs, I have NEVER seen a group of people as obsessed and impossible to please as photography forum dwellers.
Seriously, it's the same thing time and time again. It starts off with overly grandios visions of some revolution in picture taking as the next model. Then a bunch of people get all pissy when the rumors and leaks are much more realistic. Then you have the infighting between that group and those who still think it will be awesome. That goes on until you get near the release date and real information starts hitting the internet, at which point you get the crowd that insists that this is the last straw and they will finally take their toys and go home for real this time. Then it comes out and you have the crowd that proclaims it is indeed the awesomest thing ever. They then proceed to fight with the people who are very disappointed that attention has been taken away from their announcing the end of the world. A third crowd develops who didn't buy the last one, didn't buy this one, and must start speculating immediately if the NEXT one will be the one true camera body they will finally buy to replace their current one. Then inevitably, the less than perfect reality of releasing a complex product on 18 month cycles or less rears it's ugly had and some real flaws are found. Then there is the wailing and gnashing of teeth as the doomsayers say doom is upon us, the procrastinaters decides this definitely means they will have to wait for the next one, and the previously happy people grumble at how long new firmware is taking to come out or how inventory it tight on a new product making it hard to get exchanges.
Seriously. Every photography forum has about 50% non photography bickering, 20% speculating about the next revision of cameras, 20% angry people saying the end is nigh or something equally negative, and about 10% of the people taking pictures. Of those 10% about half might be taking stuff interesting to talk about, of that half, about 1/4 do.
That's for pretty much any brand, we just amplify the negative here because Pentax is not one of the big two, or a giant electronics company that can toss truckloads of cash at a product hoping for market share like Sony or Panasonic can.
Honestly, I think the only area of interest that has bigger drama queens that whine about stuff more than photography are froums dedicated to audio equipment.