[aleonx3]

Thanks, JPT for such a professional and informative report; appreciate your thoughts and comments as well.

[UlrichSchiegg]

@ JPT: To my understanding you had all 3 cameras the K-50, the K-S1 and the K-S2 in your hands. Could you comment on the size and handling?

THoog did a scaling comparison, where the K-S2 looked more like a K-50: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/16-pentax-news-rumors/287993-k-s2-coming-42.html#post3154786

If I compare using that nice tool camerasize.com:

Compare camera dimensions side by side
Compare camera dimensions side by side

I am not sure what impression to get. Size advantage of the K-S1 in comparison to the WR, the second wheel & the tilt screen. Your hands on experience would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[anthony mazzeri]

and Kawauchi-san mentioned that you could not just assume that lenses that work OK on film cameras will be acceptable on the full frame camera because of the wider circle required for SR.

Their inclination would probably be to make crop-mode automatic whenever such lenses which don't cover the required circle are attached, but they should include a menu override so you can still use any of these lenses in FF mode by switching SR off.

[JPT]

@ JPT: To my understanding you had all 3 cameras the K-50, the K-S1 and the K-S2 in your hands. Could you comment on the size and handling?

THoog did a scaling comparison, where the K-S2 looked more like a K-50: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/16-pentax-news-rumors/287993-k-s2-coming-42.html#post3154786

If I compare using that nice tool camerasize.com:

Compare camera dimensions side by side
Compare camera dimensions side by side

I am not sure what impression to get. Size advantage of the K-S1 in comparison to the WR, the second wheel & the tilt screen. Your hands on experience would be appreciated.

Thanks.

The overall size of the camera is closer to the K-S1, by which I mean the top-to-bottom and side-to-side measurements. The grip itself is closer to the K-50 in size, but it is still smaller. Some people seem to have a strong preference for a grip that completely fills their palm. I think those people might find the K-50 more comfortable.

The other thing that affects handling is that many of the controls are smaller and placed more tightly together. The one I found particularly difficult to reach was the up/down/left/right direction pad. Those buttons don't protrude from the body like they do on the K-50, in fact they are slightly recessed. The OK button is raised and the edge of the screen is slightly raised, so I found the left (flash) position difficult to press without accidentally pressing OK. Also note that the screen itself is a bit smaller than most DSLRs (edit: this is wrong it has a 3" screen like most DSLRs. Sorry!).

It was interesting that the K-50 was very much present at CP+. It has not been discontinued and they are still taking orders for custom colors. I think they realize that some users are going to prefer the K-50 because of its size. The K-5 IIs, on the other hand, was completely gone.

I don't want to sound critical of the K-S2. It's handling addresses a lot of the complaints against the K-S1 and it feels like it is at least one generation ahead of the K-50 in terms of technology.

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Last edited by JPT; 02-17-2015 at 02:25 AM.

[reh321]

The overall size of the camera is closer to the K-S1, by which I mean the top-to-bottom and side-to-side measurements. The grip itself is closer to the K-50 in size, but it is still smaller. Some people seem to have a strong preference for a grip that completely fills their palm. I think those people might find the K-50 more comfortable.

The other thing that affects handling is that many of the controls are smaller and placed more tightly together. The one I found particularly difficult to reach was the up/down/left/right direction pad. Those buttons don't protrude from the body like they do on the K-50, in fact they are slightly recessed. The OK button is raised and the edge of the screen is slightly raised, so I found the left (flash) position difficult to press without accidentally pressing OK. Also note that the screen itself is a bit smaller than most DSLRs.

It was interesting that the K-50 was very much present at CP+. It has not been discontinued and they are still taking orders for custom colors. I think they realize that some users are going to prefer the K-50 because of its size. The K-5 IIs, on the other hand, was completely gone.

I don't want to sound critical of the K-S2. It's handling addresses a lot of the complaints against the K-S1 and it feels like it is at least one generation ahead of the K-50 in terms of technology.

So a regular user might find himself swinging the LCD out of the way in order to reliably hit the left arrow??
I wonder if hitting the left arrow might be more reliable as someone got more experience with it ... or maybe s/he would just have to take it more slowly.

[Uluru]

So here it goes
• K50 is for bargain hunters and scrooges.
• K-S1 is for kindergarden kids obsessed with lights and novel ideas.
• K-S2 is for those who can't decide between K50 and being a bargain hunter on one side, and still exploring their difficult, perplexing and emerging photographic personna
• K-3 is for die-hard Pentaxians
• FF is for dreamers and those who believers Pentax will strike back the evil imperium of Darth Nikon and Canon the Cloaked Emperor
• 645Z is for those who have repaid their home loans

[JPT]

So a regular user might find himself swinging the LCD out of the way in order to reliably hit the left arrow??
I wonder if hitting the left arrow might be more reliable as someone got more experience with it ... or maybe s/he would just have to take it more slowly.

You'd get used to it. It just takes a bit more care and accuracy to hit than some other cameras.

---

Last edited by JPT; 02-17-2015 at 02:19 AM.

[Zygonyx]

An interesting feature for K-S2 : the effective viewing screen has the exact dimensions of K-S1's, which is more than 4mm wider in diagonal than Sony A7's screen.

[UlrichSchiegg]

@JPT

Detailed discription.

Thanks.

[JPT]

An interesting feature for K-S2 : the effective viewing screen has the exact dimensions of K-S1's, which is more than 4mm wider in diagonal than Sony A7's screen.

I just checked this and you're right. I wrongly stated above that the K-S2 has a smaller screen than the K-50. In fact it's the same size. I must have been thinking about the bigger screen on the K-3. Sorry for the misinformation.

[zoolander]

Sawing equipment in half is getting really boring now. Almost every exhibitor had things cut in half. Pentax had cut a 645z in half, along with a few lenses. Cosina had every single one of their lenses cut in half. It made me think, “Why don’t you stop cutting things in half and start making your lenses for K-mount again?”

Wouldn't it be cool if at the next CP+, they have a Samurai-come-Teppanyaki chef cutting the lenses in half with a sword ! Now THAT would be the booth everybody would be milling around !

[mee]

Wouldn't it be cool if at the next CP+, they have a Samurai-come-Teppanyaki chef cutting the lenses in half with a sword ! Now THAT would be the booth everybody would be milling around !

I would more so mill around that booth if they had a Teppanyaki chef cooking free food for everyone.

[Zygonyx]

I just checked this and you're right. I wrongly stated above that the K-S2 has a smaller screen than the K-50. In fact it's the same size. I must have been thinking about the bigger screen on the K-3. Sorry for the misinformation.

Yep, in any case many thanks for your add ups

[kadajawi]

Thanks for the interesting report. I really hope they don't limit their cameras just because SOMEONE might be offended by the vignetting... (like they seem to have done with the video SR... because someone might complain about the noise the SR makes). So what? Just allow users to make full use of the lens, and if there is vignetting it can be fixed in post or cropped away.

[thibs]

Thanks for the interesting report. I really hope they don't limit their cameras just because SOMEONE might be offended by the vignetting... (like they seem to have done with the video SR... because someone might complain about the noise the SR makes). So what? Just allow users to make full use of the lens, and if there is vignetting it can be fixed in post or cropped away.

Agreed. Just set a menu item to deactivate SR in Video. I don't see the problem.