[Matthew Saville]

Can we all agree that Ken Rockwell is an idiot.

Ken Rockwell's Photography News

Hey, I have Aspergers and LOVE collecting old manual lenses, so yes I do take personal offense at his "news" article.

[Zygonyx]

We are many in that case
Getting an even worst desease called Lens Buy Addiction... but Ken seems immune to that

[BigMackCam]

The only real drawback from the K50 is AF performance: it struggle in low light and is not precise enough for narrow deph of field portraits. To me AF is an area where a high end system really help the newcomer. But that the same issue with eveything Pentax has outside K3, K3-II and now K1.

But I agree with you 100% that K1 is likely not the way to go. A decent K1 kit like 24-70 + 70-200 even going third party that more like 4000-5000$. If you are quite wealthy and enthousiast about photography, that's justified. Otherwise well getting a K3 for a bargain on the occasion with a 17-50 and 55-300 is more like 1200$... That already quite some sum but much more logical for many.

Yes. I was mainly thinking from the point of view that the poster described him- (or her-) self as a newbie who'd just got the K50. You're right about the AF improvements on the K3 onwards, but I still regularly use my backup K5 with excellent results. The AF isn't quite as good as the K3, but it's reliable enough in reasonably good light.

But, as you also say, if funds for the K1 + FF lenses aren't an issue, then why not?

[ffking]

as has been mentioned there are loads of threads, so I can't keep up with all of them, but one thing I've not seen in any video is the unmarked knob in use - do we have confirmation of what this actually does?

[Zygonyx]

As expected i guess.
Kenspo could easily answer

[monochrome]

We are many in that case
Getting an even worst desease called Lens Buy Addiction... but Ken seems immune to that

DK anything about the autism spectrum, but I must be un-diagnosed OCD because I'm certainly LBA.

On a somewhat more serious note, using old lenses on a modern camera is a perfectly justifiable hobby for an aspirational photographer. It's part of the fun, same as using old fly fishing equipment instead of carbon graphite rods, or fixing and driving old cars. Figuring out how to focus them, how to control (any) CA that might appear, how to process files to correct their faults; feeling joy using something (more) hand-assembled than current products; thinking about the faceless Pentax company man sitting at an assembly table in the 60's or 70's - all of that is part of the fun.

There's a curse at the back of my throat. If that makes me a Bitter Clinger then bring it on.

Ken Rockwell is a crank.

[traderdrew]

36 megapixels might be a little to much for some older computers to handle. A friend of mine had to buy a new Apple after he purchased a higher megapixel DSLR camera. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[rawr]

36 megapixels might be a little to much for some older computers to handle.

True. But anyone who has made panorama images, or processed/stored video (which is a lot of people in this YouTube age), probably already has enough computer to handle 36MP.

There's also always the solution to slow hardware I recall from my days of downloading stuff via a dial-up modem: start your computer on a task, go and make a cup of coffee, walk the dog, come back to computer, job done.

[jatrax]

But I realize that K1 is simply the best FF ever for landscape/outdoor. There no single FF out there even the A7R-II that match it for that setup.

Interesting observation considering that Pentax themselves make a point of calling the K-1 a "field camera". They say that repeatedly on the new K-1 site. So apparently they agree with you. And so do I. No camera can do everything the best, it appears Pentax focused on being the best 'field camera'.

[Simen1]

36 megapixels might be a little to much for some older computers to handle. A friend of mine had to buy a new Apple after he purchased a higher megapixel DSLR camera. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Why do you think its some kind of limit to how many Mp they can handle? Its all a matter of patience. 36 Mp would just take 50% longer to load, process and store. I presume most people use at least 10x more time to evaluate, select the right tools and buttons, take a step back, think out the next step and so on. That makes the whole process at most 5% longer compared to a 24 Mp image.

[kenspo]

as has been mentioned there are loads of threads, so I can't keep up with all of them, but one thing I've not seen in any video is the unmarked knob in use - do we have confirmation of what this actually does?

The two new wheels work together. One you make a choice with..ISO, Crop, Bracketing etc. And with the unmarked know, you change the settings quickly. Its fast and brilliant. Love this function

[noelpolar]

True. But anyone who has made panorama images, or processed/stored video (which is a lot of people in this YouTube age), probably already has enough computer to handle 36MP.

There's also always the solution to slow hardware I recall from my days of downloading stuff via a dial-up modem: start your computer on a task, go and make a cup of coffee, walk the dog, come back to computer, job done.

i run a 2008 iMac.... which is slow...... I'd replace it if time was money, but for me these days it's not. i've done all the possible internal up grades and can get by. Storage wise, a 2 second burst on a K3 is going to take up more space then the same on a K-1.

I believe I will need to upgrade my brains "delete bad photo" algorithm though. I'm a hoarder of bad photos.

[Nicolas06]

For the computer it all depend what you use. I have the feeling that with jpeg, there almost not computer that would struggle and that even with lightroom this should be no issue in term of processing time. DxO is more demanding and that's a bit annoying. Actually, it is only the export that long so I don't think 36 vs 24 would make much of a difference. And as long as you don't care to see the result of the export instantly this is of no importance at all.

But if you want to have a powerfull computer for processing your picture that quite easy, buy a destop, a 4core i5, 8GB of memory a main ssd hdr of 128GB, an operating system and lightroom you are likely no more than 600$ if you take the time to do it yourself and that would be more than enough and also serve as a quite powerful computer too.

What matter a bit more is that if you are serious about your photo and not losing them you need to have some storage place for them as well as a backup solution too. All storage device will finish by fail one day (including the backup storage) so you need to always have several copy of your data kept fresh and that has to be automatically and only checked manually from time to time if you don't want it to become a pain.

36MP bump instantly your storage requirement by 50% overall. But I think the number of picture you take and much more importantly, the number of picture you keep is the most important factor here.

Even with 36MP if you have say 2TB hard drive dedicated to store the picture inside you computer and another 2TB to store the backup on a network drive, the cost is no more than say 200-250$ (2 disk and including the wireless router to make the backup on the home network) and that's 45K pictures. including backup.

I take 10K pictures a year, keeping 1500 rougly so I would like have to replace the drive long before they are full. But somebody taking 20K shoot and keeping half would be good only for 4 years. Storing say 10TB + backup permanently would be more expensive, like 500$-1000$.

But there are easy ways if money is a problem: delete much more of the crap photos you'll never want to look again. You make yourself a service because if you keep only great picture looking them again would be a pleasure and not a terrible sin to endure. This would also motivate yourself to take less picture and take more time to get the right when you shoot. You could delete the raw once you finished with a picture. I save my jpeg at 90% quality, I can't see any artifact even at 100% crop this take 4-5MB on average. Even 50% more would mean the 2TB solution would fit 250K+ pictures.

[Nicolas06]

i run a 2008 iMac.... which is slow...... I'd replace it if time was money, but for me these days it's not. i've done all the possible internal up grades and can get by. Storage wise, a 2 second burst on a K3 is going to take up more space then the same on a K-1.

I believe I will need to upgrade my brains "delete bad photo" algorithm though. I'm a hoarder of bad photos.

Mac are expensive. They are nice but a luxury. Somebody on a budget can get even a 500$ destop under linux and raw therapee + 200$ of storage and backup and have something very fast and woth in performance of a 1500-2000$ iMac.

Laptop overall, you need to pay twice the price to get the same performance and it last half the time but consume less power and low end laptop overheat. Mac laptop are nice but even more expensive than iMac and still a luxury.

Having Mac for computer is like choosing Leica as a camera brand. Nice but expensive. I had mac before. Since I got a mortage, I seen the compute I wanted as a MacBook pro was worth 2300€ and similar window desktop was worth 700€... Plus the laptop failed after 3-4years while the desktop is always on but is perfectly stable.

[falconeye]

Having Mac for computer is like choosing Leica as a camera brand.

What an odd remark ...

Since four years, I edit my 36mp raws with a now six y.o. MacBook Pro and even at the time I purchased it, it was a hair cheaper than an equivalently built Dell or HP.

Taking resale value into account, a Mac is more value for the bang. Only problem, you won't get the stuff built to lowest standards. Just my two cents to oppose you. OT anyway