Originally posted by biz-engineer ... if you remove sport photography and video, there is nothing that the current Pentax camera models fall short of. ...
Well, that's a funny one. Off the top of my head, features I wish I had by now:
- Focus bracketing (most of the competition)
- Live bulb (Olympus, though bulb timer in K-70, KP & K-1ii is not bad)
- Touch to focus (most of the competition)
- Eye detection AF (Sony, Fuji, not sure about others)
- Animal eye detection AF (coming to Sony)
- 4K and 6K photos modes (Panasonic)
- USB in-camera recharging (not sure)
- Decent FPS, buffer and fast buffer clearing
(it's not just for sports, BTW, but also wildlife - I'm OK with my K-3, but it's not matched by any Pentax model you can currently buy new) - "Pre-shutter" bursts (not sure, but at least some top m4/3 cams)
(where the camera starts shooting from half-press into a circular buffer and, when you actually hit the shutter, saves a certain number of shots prior to when you hit the shutter) - A small & light, WR, APS-C wide prime (Fuji 16mm F/2.8 & 23mm F/2, though admittedly that's glass)
Plus decent video, as you mentioned.
That's not to say that Pentax bodies aren't great cameras - they definitely are. If the KP had a better buffer & fps, and larger battery, I'd already own it and would only be
really missing focus bracketing, and only wishing for the rest - they fall more into the "nice-to-have" rather than the "must-have" category. But they do add-up and the competition has been improving like crazy.
When I bought my K-3, it
totally blew away the X-T1 I was comparing it with, and the Pentax APS-C lens lineup also blew away the Fuji lens line-up! Now, looking at the X-T3 (or the X-H1 or even the X-T30) versus the KP, things are much less clear... BTW, the KP has the same AF module as my K-3. The X-T3's AF is light years away from the X-T1, AFAICT. Fuji has now added small, weather-sealed, silent-focusing, reasonably inexpensive APS-C primes in 16mm, 23mm, 35mm and 50m to their line-up. They've also added a range of other lenses. When I was shopping for my K-3, they didn't even have a 1:1 macro! In the same time, Pentax has added a single, very large, very expensive, fast & sealed ultra-wide APS-C zoom. A nice lens, for sure... Oh, and some WR kit-lenses like the 18-50 RE (which would totally rock my world if it was 15-45).
If my K-3 was to give up the ghost tomorrow, I might buy a used K-3ii or even try to make a KP work for me until 2020. Mostly because of the D-FA 100mm WR (& the DA 1.4X AW) as well as the pain that a system switch entails. Pentax might still be the best system for me. But the equation is nowhere nearly as clear as it was before and it feels like the competition is motoring along while Pentax is resource-starved by its parent company, though what they are producing is still very nice...