[ElJamoquio]

Every Canon APS-C since 2009 - same inferior 18mp sensor.

Yup. It would've been a great opportunity for Pentax to seize, to distance themselves even further from inferior Canon's.

Alas we will likely have to wait until at least the fall to see an improvement over 2010.

Of course, Canon-ites have long had the 5D/6D/etc.

[Uluru]

The only two cameras from Pentax recently, that I feel were particularly revolutionary over preceding cameras were the K10 and the K5. Even companies like Olympus do this sort of thing..

Well really? I thought K5 was just an incremental upgrade to K7. Everything same, same body, same controls, just a new sensor available at that time, 2 extra MPs (yeah, big difference) and 2 extra fps.

This sounds like a joke, but it isn't — real breakthrough are evolutionary improvements. You don't discard the thing that works, but just add or tweak other details that don't work as good or are not up to date. K30's body was splitting the audience. Period. Time for change, and give K30 a credit where it was due in everything else.

This new K50 sensor may as well be improved upon K30's and K01's sensor — it has one stop advantage from the specs and perhaps something else better too. New magnesium body. Stereo mic. Polished up software. Etc.

If people have realised with a new sensor in the K5 body how Pentax's philosophy was actually good and K7 truly unique, now they have the same chance to realise that with K50 for the K30's namesake. Evolution — there is nothing better, eye-opening and more natural than evolution.

[rawr]

Polished up software.

Tethering!

[boriscleto]

This new K50 sensor may as well be improved upon K30's and K01's sensor — it has one stop advantage from the specs and perhaps something else better too. New magnesium body. Stereo mic. Polished up software. Etc.

Maybe they fixed the AutoISO in M mode bug.

[Uluru]

Maybe they fixed the AutoISO in M mode bug.

I hope they have done a lot in software dept. By looking at how sleek the Ricoh GR software UI looks like, I'd hope Pentax has finally scrapped that blocky UI stolen from the computer games of 1980s and done something modern and easier to comprehend for the iPhone age. Time has moved on Pentax, and I don't need 1million dot screen to show me blocky, unkerned, jagged text a la Minecraft or Space Invaders! Geez, every time I grab my K7 I don't know whether should I look for a setting I need, or shoot alien ships and giant space amoebas ..

[Smeggypants]

Well really? I thought K5 was just an incremental upgrade to K7. Everything same, same body, same controls, just a new sensor available at that time, 2 extra MPs (yeah, big difference) and 2 extra fps.

This sounds like a joke, but it isn't — real breakthrough are evolutionary improvements. You don't discard the thing that works, but just add or tweak other details that don't work as good or are not up to date. K30's body was splitting the audience. Period. Time for change, and give K30 a credit where it was due in everything else.

This new K50 sensor may as well be improved upon K30's and K01's sensor — it has one stop advantage from the specs and perhaps something else better too. New magnesium body. Stereo mic. Polished up software. Etc.

If people have realised with a new sensor in the K5 body how Pentax's philosophy was actually good and K7 truly unique, now they have the same chance to realise that with K50 for the K30's namesake. Evolution — there is nothing better, eye-opening and more natural than evolution.

The K-5's sensor gave an almost 3 stop improvent on the K-7 in terms of ISO performance and also had much better dynamic range. Huge difference in performance in fact,. I wonder why you didn't note that instead of just saying it was an extra 2MP?

[aleonx3]

The K-5's sensor gave an almost 3 stop improvent on the K-7 in terms of ISO performance and also had much better dynamic range. Huge difference in performance in fact,. I wonder why you didn't note that instead of just saying it was an extra 2MP?

Indeed, I owned both k-7 and k-5 for over a year and I finally sold the k-7 and bought the k-01 instead for about the same price. There is a big difference in terms of dynamic range and ISO performance especially, I do a lot of events...I had a lot more success with the k-5 than k-7 for stage performance and flash photos.

[IchabodCrane]

Well really? I thought K5 was just an incremental upgrade to K7. Everything same, same body, same controls, just a new sensor available at that time, 2 extra MPs (yeah, big difference) and 2 extra fps.

This sounds like a joke, but it isn't — real breakthrough are evolutionary improvements. You don't discard the thing that works, but just add or tweak other details that don't work as good or are not up to date. K30's body was splitting the audience. Period. Time for change, and give K30 a credit where it was due in everything else.

This new K50 sensor may as well be improved upon K30's and K01's sensor — it has one stop advantage from the specs and perhaps something else better too. New magnesium body. Stereo mic. Polished up software. Etc.

If people have realised with a new sensor in the K5 body how Pentax's philosophy was actually good and K7 truly unique, now they have the same chance to realise that with K50 for the K30's namesake. Evolution — there is nothing better, eye-opening and more natural than evolution.

We don't know if it's a new sensor. We don't know if the DR is any better or not. We think we know it still doesn't have an audio input port or HDMI out. Until those things are positively answered, how can anyone even claim this is "evolutionary"?


edit: There's been nothing but pure speculation here that the K-30 didn't sell better because of "looks". Heck, it might have helped sales for all we know. IMHO, the only thing of consequence that holds the K-30 back is the lack of shelf presence.

[bossa]

It doesn't make much sense to produce a WR version of the sh*t* DA L, if you already have a little bit better DA version, would there be any difference in production cost in the end?

I wasn't referring to that lens specifically.. I'd never buy such a lens personally.

[bossa]

I really don't get it ... K-30 has a great distinctive design, it looks contemporary and this K-50 looks like a grandfather. Really sad.

The K-50 design looks a lot simpler and probably represents an effort to keep supplying a decent product at a lower cost. Also, if Canon are the most popular brand it may be a decent marketing ploy to produce a camera that 'looks like' a Canon in many ways. Most people only go on looks anyway.

ps. Maybe Samyang will now produce a 24mm Shift lens now that the flash 'overhang' is gone.

[Ratmagiclady]

Hrm. Curious, really. I wonder if maybe Pentax found the weird-lookingness of the K-30 was cramping their sales, or they just weren't tooled-up for another magnesium body yet and didn't wait for one for the K-30? It doesn't seem out of character for Pentax to release a 'lower-level' model that equals the previous next-step-up's present performance either, though, so maybe they intend to differentiate them with later improvements? . (If so, their numbering scheme has become even more baffling.)

If there's anything to this and those are the real specs, I bet it's just that the K-30's just too weird-looking for some. (Though this one looks kind of humdrum, considering. Not *bad,* really: how it feels is more important to me anyway, but could probably use an extra touch somewhere. )

[treebeard]

NOT digging the body at all.

[ElJamoquio]

Meh. The K-50 styling wasn't my cup of tea, but neither was the K-30. The K-5 was my favorite. But hey, you get three choices of bodies. At least Pentax gives us that.

[Uluru]

The K-5's sensor gave an almost 3 stop improvent on the K-7 in terms of ISO performance and also had much better dynamic range. Huge difference in performance in fact,. I wonder why you didn't note that instead of just saying it was an extra 2MP?

THAT was discovered later on, when the K5 has hit the shelves and some reviews came out. At first there were lots of suspicious notes, people didn't quite get it. Some could not believe it. And guess what, K7 body and philosophy was all of a sudden "very cool" with the new sensor.

One single thing changed the perception of the whole camera and the imaging philosophy of Pentax. But before that, people found too many bizarre excuses, including the body design of K7, to denigrate it. Now thanks to K5, that design is instant classic. And thanks to DXO marks, K5 is best Pentax-designed DSLR, if not best DSLR by any brand, ever.

Well, all of a sudden?!

What I wanted to say so far, people are not quite rational beings; they don't really know how to recognise truly valuable and unique merits. They find excuses in wholly irrelevant matters in order to describe why they dislike something. They don't know what's really going inside their heads. As a designer myself for over 25 years, I know the frustration.

To put it bluntly, majority of people have no clue what a good design really is and how it works. Say, use same today's iPad design people love, but put in it an iPhone 3 powered processor, and people will say that iPad design sucks and that Apple should better become a fruit grower. It doesn't matter to them than old iPhone 3 and today's iPad share same design principles.

[ramseybuckeye]

Well it is styled a bit more conservatively and has some mic input maybe better if anyone really cares...
DA-L WR kit is the real update and a marketing focus. I like that. This is by far the best deal in DSLR's with a pentaprism, not mirror, and WR.

A WR lens is the best part, too bad it wasn't a 16-80, or something to make it a little different, but with better quality. I never noticed that the DA L lenses are not on the road map, including this supposed new one.

Except this one probably costs them less to manufacture.

Definitely if they are able to assemble it just like the K-30 with a couple cosmetic changes.

The K-30 was already a highly competitive product, maybe they found that it's unusual styling was a drawback. Improve it a little, change its outer shell and voila, you have a competitive product made better. If their strategy makes sense or not, we'll probably found out after another DSLR or two.

The only drawback to K-30 sales (in the US) is/was the inability to find it anywhere but online in most of the country.

Well really? I thought K5 was just an incremental upgrade to K7. Everything same, same body, same controls, just a new sensor available at that time, 2 extra MPs (yeah, big difference) and 2 extra fps.

This sounds like a joke, but it isn't — real breakthrough are evolutionary improvements. You don't discard the thing that works, but just add or tweak other details that don't work as good or are not up to date. K30's body was splitting the audience. Period. Time for change, and give K30 a credit where it was due in everything else.

This new K50 sensor may as well be improved upon K30's and K01's sensor — it has one stop advantage from the specs and perhaps something else better too. New magnesium body. Stereo mic. Polished up software. Etc.

If people have realised with a new sensor in the K5 body how Pentax's philosophy was actually good and K7 truly unique, now they have the same chance to realise that with K50 for the K30's namesake. Evolution — there is nothing better, eye-opening and more natural than evolution.

I agree, every new camera is evolved from what came before it, sometimes there are totally new parts, but most are just the same or hopefully improved a little. I went from the K20D to the K-30 and the improvements were huge, if I hade a K7 between, probably not. A company comes out with new models to sell cameras. I don't think it has anything to do wioth the K-30's body, I read of very few people complaining about the style besides those that had a K-5 and weren't going to buy it anyway. I think had that K-30 been is the Best Buys etc people would be buying them over the Rebels on looks alone. Possibly Pentax is getting back up to better manufacturing capabilities so they can produce more lines of cameras (and hopefully lenses) and come out with new models sooner. Most next models will have evolution that many users will never notice, because it may be some feature they don't use or behind the scene changes that are very subtle, then by the next model they may evolve to a more substantial change.