We actually had really low expectations for the K-01. When we started getting shots with the DA 40mm XS in our house the night the camera came we got really excited. The AF was acceptable and the image quality was K5-like. My wife really enjoyed using the cam and loved how it looked. The camera's clear interface and manual controls also won her over.
Last Sunday we hit the
The Turkey Hill Experience | Home Page in Lancaster, Pa. This place is a photographer's dream! Abundant natural light with colorful objects to shoot. Again, with the 40mm XS the K-01 performed admirably. We got lots of keepers and our excitement grew for the camera.
Later that day we hit the playground and attached the 17-70. I bought this lens for my wife last Christmas to use as a walkaround lens. The K-01 had a real difficult time locking focus with this lens even in broad daylight. North of 50-55mm performance was especially dreadful. Having read about the 17-70's reputation for AF fussiness I didn't get too concerned. I was dissapointed but chalked up the issue to the 17-70 having some sort of inherent design flaw that the K-01 couldn't overcome. Keep in mind that we also had problems with the 35mm macro. This was now the second lens in our bag that didn't play nice with the K-01.
My wife was hoping to use the 18-55mm as a crutch lens with the K-01 when travelling light. We captured a few images using this lens in our house to see how it performed. Our experience (with this lens) has been well documented. To make a long story short the K5 in LV mode was able to achieve focus lock more frequently than the K-01.
Originally posted by monochrome Early adopters like you and me always suffer from disappointments when we first use our new products. Part of the cause is expecation inflation (we imagine that it will be better than was ever real;ly claimed by the manufacturer) part of the Cause is manufacturer business practice (they use the early adopters as Beta testers; then they use the cash flow from early sales to correct identified issues to attract the early followers) and sometimes part of the cause is plain product design flaws.
The critical business exercise for amanufacturer is to properly weight the 3 issues and make add-on investments accordingly.