Originally posted by Pentax_WA Well said Dan.
For those who always disagree with a constructive criticism, look what Sony or Fuji did. I purchased XT-1 few years back and couldn't stand its AF, so I sold it, then Fuji came out with XT-2 with a brand new AF system. Since then my K3ii isn't anymore use for my wildlife. Xt2 with 100-400 combo is a killer. Now, what Pentax has done from K5 to K3ii.adding a pixel shift, GPS, maybe slightly better AF.. This is not good enough to attract potential new customers and as many folks have said on this forum, people either wait for the next round of K1 series or buy a used one. How can you financially generate revenue for Ricoh by doing this?! Unfortunately, Ricoh doesn't listen to the photographer's need, they create things they think a photographer would want. Pixel shift for instance, ok great, but even today no software vendor support for that. Besides, it's almost useless for the majority of landscape work where there is almost always slight movement of leaves etc. 36mp is already plenty darn good ( even though the sensor is the same D810E from 2012), give me a better buffer, better AF, and more modern native FF lenses. Sony changed almost everything people asked for in A7Riii from A7Rii. I am sorry this may upset few folks here, but this is why Pentax market is getting smaller and smaller.
I still view Pentax cameras as excellent photographic tools. From the K5 to K3 II, Pentax added GPS, astro tracer, went from one to two card slots, bumped number of auto focus points from 11 to 27, increased speed of operation considerably, and yes, they did add pixel shift and add a number of little tweaks. If you use a K3 II you have a hard time going back to a K5 due to its slowness of operation.
I use pixel shift all the time and supports is fine. I use RAW Therapee which is free to develop my images and they are excellent -- enough better than standard files that I am willing to go through an extra (painless) step to get them.
It may be that Pentax isn't the camera company for you. They don't have the money given to them to churn out all of the models and lenses that Sony and Fuji have, but that doesn't mean that they aren't turning out good cameras that are excellent in practice. To me, the K-1 is a D810 lite. 95 percent of the specifications of the D810 (with pixel shift, in body stabilization and astro tracer thrown in for good measure), but for a thousand less. I'm expecting good things this year from Pentax and in the mean time, I continue to enjoy shooting my K-1 -- yes, with lots of pixel shift images.
(pixel shift shot with DFA 15-30)