Originally posted by normhead Exactly, I shoot Pentax because it produces top quality stills at the best price. The rest is bells and whistles. I prefer to put money into lenses rather than bodies, as I feel there is more flexibility added with good lenses than what for the most part are frills on more expensive bodies.
I paid for a used 300 2.8 lens and my K-1 what similar systems charge for just the body. There just is no argument there that says if pentax did what everyone else did I'd be getting the same results for the same price. That's the Pentax advantage.
Other people seem more concerned about the advantages of other systems, but, there's room for everyone, and not every company has to do what other companies do. There's room for everyone.
It gets tiring hearing these opinions about there not being a place for Pentax, the way it is for no other reason than "It's my opinion." The solution to that is obvious, sell your Pentax gear, buy what you want, post on their forum. I would point out that a number who went through that process in the end came back to Pentax. Way to often people don't understand if you give up on Pentax, you no longer get to use the things you take for granted that Pentax offers. But they notice when one of their favourite features isn't available on the system they thought was so hot. There are opinions, and there are informed opinions. I see no problem trying to determine which is which.
Winder sold me on A9s for weddings, because he uses them and can explain from a user standpoint the advantages over using his K-1. That kind of informed opinion is always welcome, and if someone ever pays me to shoot another wedding, I might rent one. That's useful information. People reading spec sheets saying "this doesn't have this or that" is not an informed opinion. It doesn't take into account the user experience.
Where the opinion is coming from is essential to understanding the opinion. Otherwise it's just words in a post, with no way to evaluate if it's real world experience or some guy reading a few web pages with no actual real world experience to base his opinion on.
It sure would be nice to be able to filter for real world user experience and filter out unsubstantiated opinion.
Although I have to say, the ignore list is pretty good for that. Guys who stir the pot with unsubstantiated opinion seldom change their stripes. And the guys who share real world experience usually don't become speculators. I just have to quit peeking in on the speculators once i've ignored them. It always leads to trouble.
Unfortunately, calling out specific posters does need to be done at times. The postings from Punk earlier in this thread are a classic example. It was nothing but condescending, dogmatic statements. No actual reasoning, just pretentious statements that were designed to provoke. If there was even a shred of sincerity (and a true desire to help ‘educate’ fellow forum members), I’d expect to see some reasoning, supported by images from said photography equipment – and preferably taken by the person consistently shouting the claims. (And in that case, mocking an entire forum!)
DPR also needs to be regularly called out, due to the following powerful combination.
1. They consistently misrepresent Pentax capabilities. They also consistently ignore important aspects of the system (at least until such features are mimicked by another company),and they often put a negative spin on things that could be viewed as a positive feature (or are at least neutral).
2. They have a very wide audience and sphere of influence. Most of that was gained in earlier years,before they had their current spin and arrangement with Amazon. Unfortunately, a lot of viewers don’t know (or remember) that, and the critical mass is there now.
I’m very glad there are people that keep an eye on these scenarios and call them out when they occur. It certainly does add value for Pentax / Pentaxians and for prospective buyers that are considering various systems, or even just learning about photography. (And I imagine for every 1 very knowledgeable PF member that hits the ‘ignore’ button, there may be 10 other less knowledgeable members or ‘lurkers’ that are potentially being influenced by false statements and vitriol.)