[eraser]

Just got an email for my pre-order from Henry's Canada saying it had shipped and I will receive a tracking number shortly.

[clawhammer]

Let it go. I won't be changed anyway!

(assuming he meant 'It' and not 'I')

This is the truth about all product arguments on the internet. Not only will we not change each others' minds, the manufacturers don't rely on the outcomes of internet arguments to drive their market strategy.

[kenspo]

(assuming he meant 'It' and not 'I')

This is the truth about all product arguments on the internet. Not only will we not change each others' minds, the manufacturers don't rely on the outcomes of internet arguments to drive their market strategy.

Correct. I ment IT!! I just dont see any point of arguing around something we can't change anyway. More important things to talk about imo.

[Zygonyx]

Many more things indeed !
Such as maximum speed allowed for succesfull pixel-shift shots for example...

[JimmyDranox]

Many more things indeed !
Such as maximum speed allowed for succesfull pixel-shift shots for example...

Yes, indeed.

Has anyone an idea about that? Did Pentax made a statement about that? K-3II is already on the way to stores, and customers, so, must be an information somewhere.

[D1N0]

^^ It will be out tomorrow. we'll know. No manuals online yet.

[rawr]

Lets see:

- April 22 - camera announced via Ricoh press release;
- May 22 - camera physically available on sale in stores (eg in Japan, confirmed via store shot posted in the K-3 sub-forum here)

Pretty good turnaround speed.

Hopefully the upcoming FF will work on a similar cycle. Announced in September [maybe], available in stores in October.

[Nicolas06]

(assuming he meant 'It' and not 'I')

The internet is a public place where everyone talk and listen. What is said here is read by other customers (that may decide to buy or not) and also read by manufacturesr. Marketing guys from many companies are aware of what happen on the internet, I know my company does it and I know softwares that automatically process all the internet and try to extract overall sentiment on a given topic is in a high demand. Some friend of mine actually make one and managed to sell it to european union, some TV chanels and some corporations. This help marketers to see how efficiant an Ads campaign or a product announcement is well seen by the public and what are the positive and negatives things that are said most often arround a product/subject.

Billions are spent on such topics.

As Ricoh, they release K-S2 not long after many critics on K-S1. They also removed the Ricoh logo on latest camera and I think somes lenses no longer get a red ring (honestly I don't care of theses both). But to think that a company that want to gain money don't care of what the potential clients think of their products is a bit naive. They don't care as long as the product sell well and obviously they think that a product that has a very positive buzz arround it will sell better.

In the end if lot of positive buzz is raised arround K3-II and interrest of pixel shift and astrotracer it will sell well even convince people to choose Pentax instead of another manufacturer... On the contrary, mixed reviews will convince many to wait or choose another product... And the manufacturer will try to correct the offering as soon as possible.

[MikeD]

Because a good garmin would not embed that data in the image file. Nor would it tell you which direction your camera is facing when the photo was taken. Nor would it allow Astrotracing that allows the sensor to follow the stars and eliminate star trails...



What numbers are you speaking of? Do you have any evidence that the pop-up flash is used more than a built in gps? Just putting tissue paper over the flash does not magically make it a larger, softer light source. All that would do is dim the flash. I have taken photos as proof of this if you would like to see them.



That's nice. But it doesn't really say anything about the market other than what you personally want.

A rather harsh answer, then I looked at your gallery, nice pic of the soup. And for your reference to using tissue to soften light from a flash. Joel Sartore of National Geographic fame uses tissue from time to time if he doesn't have his soft box. Joel states it is not as good as a soft box but does do a pretty good job of softening the light in a pinch. But then again what does he know compared to you.

To Matthew Saville: Thank you for the intelligent, kind, informative post. By the way I really liked your superb photographs, particularly the ones of the milky way even though I have several others I could mention also.

---------- Post added 05-22-2015 at 07:27 AM ----------

The idea of small flash is interresting but this one is quite expensive for what it offer.. It doesn't tilt horizontally or support high speed sync. Metz provide the same for half the price.

Why couldn't we have a small even expensive but uncripled flash?

Hi Nicolas
What do you mean by crippled? I am not disagreeing with you, I really don't know.

---------- Post added 05-22-2015 at 07:32 AM ----------

Not sure what an "Adventure photog" is or why they have anything to do with GPS. You are missing the whole point of on board GPS I think. It embeds the location information for you automatically. If you always shoot in a studio, then no, this is not useful to you. It is however, massively useful to many people for many different reasons. And has nothing to do with "adventure" or being in the "wild".

Some examples:
1) I shoot for stock and I travel all over. If I shoot a building or river, or lake or bridge or whatever I may or may not write down where I was or what it was I just shot. On the other hand I may have no idea what that bridge is or where I am at. But if the GPS coordinates are embedded it is a simple matter to click on the map tab in Lightroom, zoom in and get all the information I need.

2) If you find a cool location, maybe wild maybe just along the road you can snap a quick shot and the coordinates are embedded along with the picture of what you want to shoot. Easy as pie to load that into your GPS so you can navigate there in the dark to get a sunrise picture.

3) If you are on vacation, a cruise perhaps, you have hundreds or thousands of pictures at the end of the trip. You are on vacation, did you stop to keep meticulous notes about each shot? I doubt it. But again, click on the map tab and there you go it shows you exactly where you were when you shot the image.

4) Images I shoot require a lot of keywords, locations being one of them. It is a massive time saver to be able to get the exact town, county, state info from the GPS coordinates.

I would suggest that the on board GPS has nothing whatsoever to do with "adventure" or "wild". Anyone going into the outback will have a map/compass/GPS and be proficient in their use and not need a GPS in the camera to get where they want to go. But having the images tagged automatically is a huge plus for many people that need that info embedded for various reasons.

I get some people are upset about not having an on board flash. Sorry about that. But I am delighted to have a built in GPS, and I think if people would get past the "no flash" and see the benefits of GPS they would realize what a fantastic feature this really is.

Good answer thanks. Much appreciated

[monochrome]

The flash has rather limited, manual power controls and cannot trigger Pentax slaves using P-TTL.

[MikeD]

I'm sorry, Nicolas, but the arguments both ways are getting tired.

If people need a pop up flash, they should get: a K30, K50, K5, K5II, K5 IIs, K-S1, K-S2 or K3 (either used or new).

If people don't care about the pop up flash and want a free GPS unit with astrotracer features they should get: a K3 II.

It is really that simple.

Don't try to say the GPS is free. It comes at the cost of a slave setup. I can see the value of the astrotracer to keep streaks out of the shot if you don't want them. Just don't say it's free.

---------- Post added 05-22-2015 at 07:45 AM ----------

This thread was inactive for over half-a-week, and then you just had to resume beating this dead horse. Why? You live in a beautiful part of the country. Go out and take some pictures! (most likely you'll need neither point-flash nor GPS)

If you think two days makes it a dead horse why are you still watching and commenting on it just ignore and go on your way.

[Rondec]

Don't try to say the GPS is free. It comes at the cost of a slave setup. I can see the value of the astrotracer to keep streaks out of the shot if you don't want them. Just don't say it's free.

---------- Post added 05-22-2015 at 07:45 AM ----------


If you think two days makes it a dead horse why are you still watching and commenting on it just ignore and go on your way.

If you notice I said "if you don't care about the pop up flash" immediately before mentioning the free GPS unit. If you are someone like me who uses either an external flash or radio triggers and has not used the pop flash for the last 6 years (all right, I did use it a couple of times after this thread started to see the results and was just as disappointed in them as I remembered), then it is free. I am not particularly interested in the K3 II (saving for the full frame camera, doncha know), but it has nothing to do with the lack of the pop up flash.

[lm4187]

No manuals online yet.

Now online: http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/support/man-pdf/k-3-2.pdf

Cheers,
Lou

[reh321]

If you think two days makes it a dead horse why are you still watching and commenting on it just ignore and go on your way.

I'm following this thread because some people actually have had interesting things to say, and most of them don't require use of the words "GPS" or "flash".

Before I got my Q-7, various people here tried to tell me that I didn't need a viewfinder. I knew they were wrong, but once it was clear to me that they weren't going to change their minds, I stopped arguing with them and spent that energy looking for a hoodman-clone that would meet my need. Now I am a happy Q7 user, which is a good thing because my Canon Rebel unexpectedly died a couple of weeks ago, so my Q7 is my only working digital camera until I find a K-something that fits into our very limited cash-flow.

[normhead]

Much as I like what this camera has to offer, I have a K-3 and it's just too soon to upgrade..... but for everyone else, from Henry's.