[aheadfordinci]

Yep, that's why i doubt any Pentax professional body would be out before fall 2012.
It's possible that the mirrorless system will be inserted halfway, maybe at the PMA/CliQ

[WyldRage]

As soon as Nikon announces a new DSLR with the new Sony 24MP, Pentax will have to follow rapidly, unless they are going with a different sensor than Sony's. Photography is still a highly competitive domain, and you don't want to be stuck with last year's model when your competitor already has a replacement (looks at Sony's A700).

As for the megapixels, we have to remember that a new sensor is not only megapixels, but that it's also a new design. As surely as more megapixels doesn't necessarily mean a better sensor, it also doesn't necessarily mean it will be worse. It wasn't that long ago that Nikon said 6MP was more than enough. Last year, Sony upped the ante with the 14MP, and even more with the 16MP: they could well do it again this year. I, for one, would welcome the increased resolution, as long as it doesn't impact too much the sensor's high ISO ability.

And with some chance, a 24MP sensor might reduce or even eliminate the need for AA filters.

[RonHendriks1966]

Sony is rumored to be releasing a 24MP A77 this Summer/Fall with a new sensor that will take another step in high ISO performance. This will be Sony's flagship APS-C body and it will have their best APS-C sensor.

What are the chances we see a Pentax body with the new Sony 24MP sensor released/announced Winter 2011 or Spring 2012?

Pentax does not have a lot tied up in the K-5. It is a K-7 with new sensor and AF system. There is no reason Pentax can not put the new Sony 24MP sensor in a K-7/K-5 body and make some minor improvements to AF again with very little cost. The longer Pentax keeps this body the more 3rd party support they are going to have (underwater housings, grips).

The K-5 is still "new", but time marches on and 6 months from now it will be an old model.

Thanks for bringing this up, I was wondering when we all could go on the new camera topic instead off taking pictures Credits for that!

Anyways, I suppose they could do something along the lines of;

• Better AF - (much better would be great)
• Improved video mode - higher FPS, manual control and AF
• Faster FPS - (8-10 would be a serious upgrade imo.)
• Flash synch revision? - (seems like a big deal for the flashers)
• Bigger body - (I'd like a little more meat in hand anyways)no thanks
• True NR: OFF - (oh how sweet that would be)
• Tethering - (for the buffs but definitely welcomed)
• Dual SD - (but not stacked, that's just too Nikonian)
• Pano assist in LV - (overlapping frames between shots)
• AF bracketing - (heaven for the macro kids)
• *Mirrorless stills - (hybrid between video mode and stills)
• Better ISO - (better is better right)
• Better DR - (why the hell not)
• More color depth - (for bragging rights)
• Slightly less AA filter - (would love to get just a liiiitle closer to those pixels)

Well that's all I can think of atm.
Oh and of course

That is a fine list. I would give some extra money for tracking AF.

Winder,
Does anyone really think that the new K3 with its 24 megapixel sensor will be at the same price as the K5? Its going to be a lot more expensive and in the world's current sick economies, i wonder at the ability of Pentax's enthusiast level customer base to buy such lofty products.

To be honest there is a marketshare above K-5 to fill. If this K-3 would come out in fall then there is no reason to stop selling K-5, but make K-3 top-level aps-c and K-5 just below current prices.

If they want to use a 24 Mp sensor they surely have to increase the processing power to handle those 24 Mp, hence they have introduce the PRIME III processor.

This is my biggest thing to improve with K-5. It is deadt slow in handling the amount of data in processing and not using UHS-I speed in writing. I did a search for flipping over to Canon and buy a 1D. The diffenrence is amazing in speed (if you'r willing to pay for that udma-card). With 1D you can make in jpg 600 pictures in a minute and with K-5 you go up to 106 (but actually you only manage to run 75 pictures since you are ending with a full buffer). When you set all lenscorrections on and make jpg's you van make after full buffer every 3 seconds a picture and the rest is just work for processing and that is seriously not acceptable for future camera's. Speedwise it needs at least a doubling in speed but I would like even to quadruple it.

The K-5's worth it, if you can get past the fear of the front-focusing issue paraded around.
How much more high ISO performance do we need? (Yes, I know we want clean ISO gazillion shots... but I can say my best images are ones at ISO 80, not at 6400+ )

Maybe we really need iso 25!

To add somethings of my own.
I like the current body. So updating this one again, is smart moneywise (for R&D) and for customers. What I would change is having a brighter viewfinder. If this needs a bigger prism that makes inbody flash not possible then I would give it up.

[Eruditass]

The most important things to me are faster tracking AF, low-light AF, and record-to-play speed. 2 seconds this day in age is too long!

What are you laughing about? The diffraction has some serious impact on the IQ. It would be worse in the 24mp sensor and f8 than on the 16mp one with the same f8 aperture. It seems to be Sony marketing bullshit who try to justify stoppping FF production for their customers (more mps to see more abberations LOL)

The 24mp will still capture more detail, if you know how diffraction and imaging systems work. It just won't be as 1:1 pixel sharp.

[Winder]

The 24MP APS-C will be the best sensor available (IQ/DR/Noise) or it will never see the light of day. This will be Sony's flagship APS-C and a fully professional camera. Sony has spent the last 2 years flooding the market with APS-C bodies and working out new technology for the A77.

The Canon 7DII will also have a sensor with over 20MP.

By this time next year the K-x/K-r/K-? line will have 16MP and the K-7/K-5/K-3 will be at 24MP.

I don't understand the opposition to the advancement of technology. If you don't need or want a 24MP APS-C body then simply don't buy one. The MP race is not over.

Pentax can keep the current body. Make improvements to the AF system and drop in the 24MP sensor and new image processor with little cost to R&D. This seems to be Pentax's current MO.

Personally I think a K-3 (K-5 with new sensor and AF) is the best option. Then in 1-2 years they should follow that up with a K-1 which will have the same 24MP sensor, real predictive AF, 2 SD slots, & a new larger body with larger VF.

[aheadfordinci]

Taking pictures of paintings, I could use surely higher resolution, as long as the noise stay negligible and dynamic range high-ish. I don't complain for sure about tech improvement, only that I can't afford it right now.

[yeatzee]

graduation present?

(class of 2012 )

[Winder]

There is also some talk by some of the Sony guys that the new 24MP sensor will be a 1.4 crop factor. I'm not sure how probable that actually is.

[Ratmagiclady]

Don't think 24mp APS-C will offer anything more other than slower PP times

The K5 is already a very good camera.
If Pentax can work on the problems of the overall system, that would be much better :

1. Better AF (esp. AF-C)
2. Better MF focus confirm
3. Better PTTL and better wireless commander (radio control??)
4. More lenses (esp. primes)
5. Tweakable HDR mode
6. Focus stacking
7. AF in video


IMO, things like better ISO and DR can wait a year or two as its really nice enough atm. Anyway, its more dependent on what the sensor seller can come up with, so its a level playing field (esp. between Nikon, Sony, Pentax)

I think stuff like this adds up to it being potentially a good time for the next model to be a 'K-5 Super:' rather than redeveloping a whole new body when they've got a pretty darn good one already: they could be taking this time to work on 'under the hood' things to catch the system as a whole up with the tech: flash system, still more with the focusing regarding speed, accuracy, and tracking, etc, maybe park a really spectacular VF up there, even, if they want it to look different.

Then release a few lenses for the 'getting attention' factor: it seems they ought to have plenty of designs for primes they could use.

[Winder]

I think stuff like this adds up to it being potentially a good time for the next model to be a 'K-5 Super:' rather than redeveloping a whole new body when they've got a pretty darn good one already: they could be taking this time to work on 'under the hood' things to catch the system as a whole up with the tech: flash system, still more with the focusing regarding speed, accuracy, and tracking, etc, maybe park a really spectacular VF up there, even, if they want it to look different.

Then release a few lenses for the 'getting attention' factor: it seems they ought to have plenty of designs for primes they could use.

I agree. It would be a great time to produce a K-5 Super with a 24MP sensor.

[Frogfish]

The K-5's worth it, if you can get past the fear of the front-focusing issue paraded around.
How much more high ISO performance do we need? (Yes, I know we want clean ISO gazillion shots... but I can say my best images are ones at ISO 80, not at 6400+ )

Enjoy it - it's (reasonably) cheap at the moment, and it's a keeper.

Actually that is something they could work on ... even cleaner images at high ISOs rather that just more numbers. I do use high ISO a lot for birding so that would be a major improvement for me. I don't need more MP.

[Winder]

Actually that is something they could work on ... even cleaner images at high ISOs rather that just more numbers. I do use high ISO a lot for birding so that would be a major improvement for me. I don't need more MP.

A friend of mine is a Sony fanatic and uses an A900. He has been trying to get me to upgrade my 5D to an A900 for the last 2 years. From a noise stand point the A900 is almost the same as my 5D, it just has 2x MP. If you look at S/N graphs there is not much difference. BUT because the "pixels" are smaller the noise appears a much finer grain. No large blotches. The images also clean up much better with less loss in detail.

Even if Sony can show no improvement in high-ISO Signal to noise ratios between the 16MP and the 24MP sensor, the 24MP will look cleaner and will enlarge better and have more detail than the 16MP. If Sony can manage a 1/2 stop improvement with an increase of 8MP it will give the appearance of a full stop advantage.

RAW converters like DxO do really well with high pixel density sensors.

[Rondec]

I think stuff like this adds up to it being potentially a good time for the next model to be a 'K-5 Super:' rather than redeveloping a whole new body when they've got a pretty darn good one already: they could be taking this time to work on 'under the hood' things to catch the system as a whole up with the tech: flash system, still more with the focusing regarding speed, accuracy, and tracking, etc, maybe park a really spectacular VF up there, even, if they want it to look different.

Then release a few lenses for the 'getting attention' factor: it seems they ought to have plenty of designs for primes they could use.

For a 24 megapixel sensor, you would need significant improvement in processing speed to keep up. As it is, the K5's buffer is very slow to empty (although it certainly is slower to fill than the D7000).

I just got a K5 and I really don't feel like I am going to need more camera than it from a sensor standpoint for a long, long time. However, it is the other things -- auto focus, video mode, etc (John Bee did a good job summarizing them) that I would be looking for.

Right now, frankly, I think Pentax needs to work on getting some faster lenses into their line up -- both fast from aperture stand point as well as faster from an auto focus stand point. I just don't think the camera body is the big sticking point at this point when it comes to focus speed, but rather the speed of SDM.

[Pompous Moronox]

What are you laughing about? The diffraction has some serious impact on the IQ. It would be worse in the 24mp sensor and f8 than on the 16mp one with the same f8 aperture. It seems to be Sony marketing bullshit who try to justify stoppping FF production for their customers (more mps to see more abberations LOL)

Diffraction is not a function of pixel count (or size).

[deejjjaaaa]

What are you laughing about? The diffraction has some serious impact on the IQ. It would be worse in the 24mp sensor and f8 than on the 16mp one with the same f8 aperture. It seems to be Sony marketing bullshit who try to justify stoppping FF production for their customers (more mps to see more abberations LOL)

f11 looks just fine on my 16mp GH2... and that is still little a bigger pixel density than 24mp APS-C 'd have...