[ogl]

The weakest thing is all the moaning before anyone has even gotten their hands on it.

Dear friends, stop bashing me...I see that K-5 is good upgrade of K-7. No doubt.
But...too expensive...

I hope that such discussion could help Pentax to make new firmware for K-5.

[philippe]

For me the main issue is price...

So, overall there's one really bigg issue for me: PRICE.

Be careful about that, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys...

[Fogel70]

The main weakness of K-5 is the "Pentax" logo. With a Canon or Nikon logo it would have been viewed as as much better camera.

Price do not seems to be a big issue of K-5 on EU market right now, where street price is pretty much the same as 60D and D7000. K-5 with 18-55mm WR kit lens is a little cheaper than D7000 with 18-105mm VR kit lens (both cheapest kits sold). Pentax K-5 has same price as Canon 60D body only, with Nikon D7000 less than 10% cheaper.

Prices taken from a Swedish shop that has price on all.

[creampuff]

The weakest thing is all the moaning before anyone has even gotten their hands on it.

All that moaning is because the new cameras reveal just how inferior the older Pentax DSLRs were... and because their respective owners just don't have the means to buy the new cameras and lenses.
So to make themselves feel better, they use the familiar tactic of being negative...

[JohnBee]

The weaknesses of K-5 - what do you think?
What could be better?

1. no 12/14 bit RAW mode ?
2. small buffer size ?
3. weak video control ?
4. no AF in video ?
5. price? higher than 60D and D7000
6. still 1/180 x-sync
7. ridiculous speed modes - 7 fps and 1.6 fps. K-7 has 5.2 and 3.3 fps modes (and it's logical)

What is your impressions, thoughts, feelings???

1. Hands-on previews would indicate that there is a 12/14bit option.
2. Not sure how much impact this has if 12bit RAW is available(17 RAW).
3. Not sure how important this actually is. But it's possible.
4. I agree. But there is always hope of FW update.
5. Depends on location. In Sweeden and Japan, the K-5 is equal or even cheaper than...
6. Agree.
7. DPreview spec sheet shows 7 and 3.3 FPS options....

[stanleyk]

Wrong IMO.
Pentax has had a history of making gear for enthusiasts and not tech-geeks - and as such do not tend to push the boundaries of rival brands in order to prove they can do it better or stay afloat. This line of thinking is typically consumerist, which is clearly not Pentax's prime market in its flagship models (much more so in the K-x and K-r).

Exactly. While right now I don't plan on buying the K5 I definitely would if I didn't have a K7.

Pentax is what it is and it's not Nikon or Canon. It's never going to be. That said. I do have a good laugh at ad nauseam on this forum.

But to end on a positive note (a rarity in these parts), here's a quote from Mike of The Online Photographer re: the K5 (who I think knows cameras as well anyone on this forum, if not much, much better):

"I'm glad they didn't change the K-7 form factor. Besides for being dashingly handsome—which it indubitably is, in the plain but rugged way that has distinguished better Pentaxes since the earliest days—the K-7/K-5 is ergonomically very good: I love the size, shape, hand-fit, and operability. The viewfinder needs to be seen in person, for evaluation, by those who wear eyeglasses all the time, but for those who don't the 100% coverage is a plus.

Like its immediate antecedent, the K-5 is weatherproof and has body-integral image stabilization, which Pentax calls "SR" for shake reduction.

Overall: To all appearances, Pentax has taken a very good camera and made it unambiguously better. That theory awaits confirmation, but don't bet against it.

Any problems? Just one. The announced price of $1600 seems stiff (although that number might only survive until the depletion of existing K-7 stock. Just guessing). Assuming the camera can hold its own with its competition (we haven't seen one yet), we'd hate for a too-high price to be the rogue wind blast that makes this home run shot fall a foot inside the park."

[ogl]

1. Hands-on previews would indicate that there is a 12/14bit option.
2. Not sure how much impact this has if 12bit RAW is available(17 RAW).

7. DPreview spec sheet shows 7 and 3.3 FPS options....

It seems to me it's mistakes...
7 fps and 1.6 fps at pentax.jp.
no 12 bit RAW

[JohnBee]

It seems to me it's mistakes...
7 fps and 1.6 fps at pentax.jp.
no 12 bit RAW

Okay thanks, I will keep looking at this.
It matters to me because I use continuous shooting alot for my own work. I would be very unhappy if the camera kludged at 8 frames every time.

Then again... I wonder how much performance improvements we will see with the new SDxC cards in this area? If a buffer write is cut in half, I guess I could live with that. (or maybe shoot slow FPS).

Obviously there are many questions left unanswered... :ugh:

[Aristophanes]

The weaknesses of K-5 - what do you think?
What could be better?

1. no 12/14 bit RAW mode ?
2. small buffer size ?
3. weak video control ?
4. no AF in video ?
5. price? higher than 60D and D7000
6. still 1/180 x-sync
7. ridiculous speed modes - 7 fps and 1.6 fps. K-7 has 5.2 and 3.3 fps modes (and it's logical)

What is your impressions, thoughts, feelings???

AF video is an issue for power, noise, and accuracy, and is not easy to resolve. It may require dedicated lenses to be quality effective.

Price is an issue. No doubt. It deserves to be higher than the aforementioned models, but maybe by US$100 only. It's a mid-tier body in the absence of an FF alternative.

Flash sync is tied to shutter speed issues and 1/180 will cover 99.99999% of all situations. If you need faster, there are other brands, and you'd be going there for other flash requirements regardless.

Buffer and RAW are still good value for the price point.

Biggest weakness = price, but the high Yen has a lot to do with that.

[Agnostic]

Very primitive proposition.
I never bought DSLR with price above $1000. I have camera and lenses. I never planned to buy K-5.

I'd like to undestand why Hoya has so weak marketing department.

And I'd like to know different opinions of Pentaxian.

How can BRAND launch top-camera with real weaknesses? Didn't they know about it?

It may come as a surprise but every camera ever released has some relative weaknesses and strenghts. Never stopped any good photographer from making great photos.

Every camera brand has to make compromises to be able to offer a competitive product at a competitive price. They have to evaluate the cost of introducing features vs. the amount of customers for whom that may be a decisive selling point. For Pentax that's harder than for canikon because they sell in lower volumes and have a different brand perception. Pentax selling points are in body SR, ergonomics, weather sealing and backward lens compatibility. Nikon has been very smart with the D7000 by introducing backward lens compatibility, no doubt because they have evaluated how succesful that strategy has been for Pentax.

You just have to decide what is most important to your style of shooting. Pentax' major relative weakness is well known: AF for action shooting. If they significantly improved that with the new SAFOX version and manage to start getting rid of that image they will start carving their way into a whole new market segment just like Nikon is doing with backward lens compatibility.

I agree that the marketing department at Pentax/Hoya has been a bit sloppy in their information. Though that may not be smart business practice, personally I find that kind of charming, it shows that they are still more focussed on producing and designing good cameras than at focussing on perception. I also have the impression that part of the confusion was caused because they waited till the last moment in finalising their specs and the D7000 gave the people at Pentax a scare. Also under Hoya ownership there must have been some restructuring in the organisation which always creates the risk of communications breakdown and decreased effectiveness in parts of an organisation.

Anyway the final verdict will come when the real street prices start showing and stabilising and once the first thorough reviews start coming in.

I can understand that some people are disappointed because they were hoping for some features in the K-5 that didn't make it but if Pentax were in the business trying to make cameras that had all of those features they would have been bankrupt by now. As I said, any camera maker has to evaluate cost versus benefit of including more specialized functionality, the smaller your market segment the harder it gets and for a company like Pentax having some unique selling points that appeal to a large portion of potential buyers is all important so that's where their focus lies. If that means they have to sacrifice some functionality which may be important to a smaller but perhaps quite vocal part of the Pentax user community the profit equation still spells out their financial bottom line limits. Better lose a minor battle an live to fight another day than win some minor battles and discover you have invested too much to be able to continue the war.

I also get the impression that a lot of the bitching on these boards is from people who have unrealistically high expectations from a camera and at some level expect a camera that will magically improve their pictures. Part of them would be better off investing some more time improving their basic photographic skills because it would make a more significant contribution to the quality of their photography and to their creative satisfaction than hoping for some magic camera that will solve all their dissatisfactions. Personally I get more creative satisfaction and a better aesthetic experience from shooting with my 50 year old Rolleicord Vb with all its limitations than from shooting with my K20D and it has taught me a lot about photography in a very enjoyable way.

Photographers have made awesome photos that people still enjoy since the dawn of photography, from box cameras to holgas, from cheap folders to pinhole cameras. Cameras with all kinds of severe limitations. You can do things with cameras now that all those great names from the history of photography could not even dream of and more people than ever have access to all that technology and yet the bitching only seems to get worse. I think the reason for that is that having a camera with a gazillion features in no way guarantees you'll make better pictures or get more creative satisfaction from shooting. If you are still dissatisfied while having a camera with shi*loads of features and an amount of versatility that all those great photographers from history could only have dreamt of I think it is safe to say that the problem is not in the camera.

Just my two cents.

[Peter Zack]

Well said. I was thinking the same thing. Pentax's biggest problem is Pentaxians. Go to a Canon or Nikon forum and they will complain about real issues that are wrong but not often and not based on supposition and a camera that hasn't even been tested.

Unlike almost all other brands, we seem to love to attack the mothership on a daily basis.

The only thing weak here is the continual drone of negativity. Give the K-5 a break and wait until some real world reviews are out. Ultimately, if Pentax upset you all so much by releasing such 'weak' cameras, take a walk over to the marketplace forum and dump your load... Or find a nice Bridge (to live under).

[Varash]

Sorry, wrong again IMO.
Photo enthusiasts are just that - they're not video enthusiasts as well. Those who are both would not be settling on a dSLR for video work. I'm sure Pentax were cognisant of producing a flagship model without video and so included it to at least remain on par with competitors, but again, it's not the primary reason enthusiasts go out to invest in a mid-level dSLR.

I would beg to differ. I and many people I know are photo as well as video enthusiasts and many of us just don't have the money to buy a great DSLR as well as a great video camera. The prices of video cameras are particularly prohibitive; a camera that offers comparable creative freedom to VDSLR's can easily cost 10 times the amount of a K-5, D7000 or 7D.

Out of these three only the K-5 doesn't offer manual video control (which, as I've said many times, is probably one of the simplest things to implement) and that, for anyone hoping to us it as a video camera, is a major letdown.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love almost everything about my K-7 and I am pretty sure the K-5 is going to be terrific to use as well. For my taste Pentax DSLR's have by far the best ergonomics and I absolutely love the IQ, even in video. It has this really organic and natural feel to it, while the video on a Canon for instance usually comes out too smooth and artificial.

That's what makes it even more disappointing. I really don't think the lack of 14bit RAW, small buffer or 1/180 x-sync are big problems. These are all very specific use attributes, which all would probably raise the cost of the camera substantially (buffer requires expensive hardware for instance). Video AF is also not a big deal, as it would be very expensive to develop and implement. Also, AF is a function mostly used by parents filming their children or trips and the like; even the cheapest HD cameras (like a 150$ flip) are much better suited for that than any DSLR.

Manual video control however, is a much different thing. It would quite literally cost next to nothing to implement and would not raise the price of the K-5, but to people who care about video it would be a world of difference.

What we have now is an excellent camera with a crippled video mode, which video enthusiast will skip without thinking and turn to another brand.
What we could have had, is an excellent camera which is also a powerful film-making tool which many enthusiasts would seriously consider as a contender.

All that difference, for a trivial improvement.

[pcarfan]

The weaknesses of K-5 - what do you think?
What could be better?

1. no 12/14 bit RAW mode ?

YES, this is bad, if true
2. small buffer size ?

ABSOLUTELY
3. weak video control ?

NO, it's a DSLR. But, I see what you mean.
4. no AF in video ?

See answer to #3
5. price? higher than 60D and D7000

The K-5 is a much MUCH better camera. What the hell are you smoking, comparing this to the k-5?

6. still 1/180 x-sync

Use iso 80.

7. ridiculous speed modes - 7 fps and 1.6 fps. K-7 has 5.2 and 3.3 fps modes (and it's logical)

Are you sure there is no in between speeds?, this would be dumb.

What is your impressions, thoughts, feelings???

I am very much warming up to the K-5. It is an improvement over the already great K-7, and that is quite impressive.

[SCGushue]

The weaknesses of K-5 - what do you think?
What could be better?

1. no 12/14 bit RAW mode ?
2. small buffer size ?
3. weak video control ?
4. no AF in video ?
5. price? higher than 60D and D7000
6. still 1/180 x-sync
7. ridiculous speed modes - 7 fps and 1.6 fps. K-7 has 5.2 and 3.3 fps modes (and it's logical)

What is your impressions, thoughts, feelings???

On the #6 issue: Please don't hold my feet in the fire for this... but it my understanding that the camera will be software upgraded next year to 1/250 to augment a new line of PTTL flashes that will be offered.

[ogl]

AF video is an issue for power, noise, and accuracy, and is not easy to resolve. It may require dedicated lenses to be quality effective.

Nikon D3100 and new Sony offer rather good performance of AF in video.:ugh: