[biz-engineer]

Your preferences do not inhabit a level of objective rightness that entitles you to tell everyone else that their own preferences are invalid.

Sure, I agree. It's not the same as implying that smartphones do the camera job as well as ILCs. I've seem such debates many times, not only for cameras, but it can be for anything. Someone I know just use a bicycle for short trips to buying bread at the local bakery, a few hundred meters away, he bought a cheap bike, but he felt the need to tell me that I don't need a $2000 race bike, he said paying $2000 for a bicycle is a waste of money. I do 100 miles a day, his bike is heavy and some parts would break after a few thousand miles. Back to smartphones: it's not because someone is satisfied to use a smartphone for snapshots and image sharing in social media, that he/she should feel the need to imply that smartphones are good enough and standalone cameras are a thing of the past. I think I'm very far away from not using DSLR (or even MILC) and carrying a camera bag with a tripod, good luck to convince me to shoot photography with my phone, it's not gonna happen any time soon. I'll just move to another camera brand if Pentax goes under due to its user base being content with a smartphone.

[johnmflores]

---------- Post added 24-08-21 at 08:33 ----------

On a magazine page, six small images squeezed in a magazine page, phone is not problem, since the quality bar is very low, I bet my 17 years old Nikon 2Mpixels compact would work for that.

I guess you didn't read the entire post.

[Dartmoor Dave]

Sure, I agree. It's not the same as implying that smartphones do the camera job as well as ILCs. I've seem such debates many times, not only for cameras, but it can be for anything. Someone I know just use a bicycle for short trips to buying bread at the local bakery, a few hundred meters away, he bought a cheap bike, but he felt the need to tell me that I don't need a $2000 race bike, he said paying $2000 for a bicycle is a waste of money. I do 100 miles a day, his bike is heavy and some parts would break after a few thousand miles. Back to smartphones: it's not because someone is satisfied to use a smartphone for snapshots and image sharing in social media, that he/she should feel the need to imply that smartphones are good enough and standalone cameras are a thing of the past. I think I'm very far away from not using DSLR (or even MILC) and carrying a camera bag with a tripod, good luck to convince me to shoot photography with my phone, it's not gonna happen any time soon. I'll just move to another camera brand if Pentax goes under due to its user base being content with a smartphone.

The bike analogy is a good one. Your friend has got his particular set of criteria determining what he needs from a bike, and you've got your own criteria which are very different. He would be wrong in telling you that you don't need a $2000 bike for the thousands of miles that you cover, but equally -- and this is crucial -- you would be wrong in telling him that he needs a $2000 bike to do his short trips to the shops.

In the context of photography, someone whose photographic criteria are fulfilled by using a smartphone, or a small sensor compact, or an old 10 megapixel APS-C CCD, would be wrong in telling you that you don't need a larger format high resolution camera for the sort of photography that you enjoy doing. You would be equally wrong in telling them that they should be using a full frame or medium format camera for the sort of photography that they enjoy doing.

Your choice to ride a $2000 bike for thousands of miles does not entitle you to tell me that I shouldn't be using a clapped-out old boneshaker for my ten minute ride to the shops. The fact that it's possible to ride a $2000 bike all the way across the country doesn't demand that all cyclists must do that. The fact that it's possible for a medium format digital camera to make huge prints at high resolution doesn't demand that all photographers must do that either.

Of course, you might say that someone who rides an expensive bike for long distances is a better cyclist, but that doesn't follow. The long distance cyclist has merely made a particular set of choices. Your friend who rides his cheap bike to the shops might well be just as capable of getting on a $2000 bike and taking a trans-continental trip as you are, but simply chooses not to.

[johnmflores]

The bike analogy is a good one. Your friend has got his particular set of criteria determining what he needs from a bike, and you've got your own criteria which are very different. He would be wrong in telling you that you don't need a $2000 bike for the thousands of miles that you cover, but equally -- and this is crucial -- you would be wrong in telling him that he needs a $2000 bike to do his short trips to the shops.

In the context of photography, someone whose photographic criteria are fulfilled by using a smartphone, or a small sensor compact, or an old 10 megapixel APS-C CCD, would be wrong in telling you that you don't need a larger format high resolution camera for the sort of photography that you enjoy doing. You would be equally wrong in telling them that they should be using a full frame or medium format camera for the sort of photography that they enjoy doing.

Your choice to ride a $2000 bike for thousands of miles does not entitle you to tell me that I shouldn't be using a clapped-out old boneshaker for my ten minute ride to the shops. The fact that it's possible to ride a $2000 bike all the way across the country doesn't demand that all cyclists must do that. The fact that it's possible for a medium format digital camera to make huge prints at high resolution doesn't demand that all photographers must do that either.

Of course, you might say that someone who rides an expensive bike for long distances is a better cyclist, but that doesn't follow. The long distance cyclist has merely made a particular set of choices. Your friend who rides his cheap bike to the shops might well be just as capable of getting on a $2000 bike and taking a trans-continental trip as you are, but simply chooses not to.

That bike analogy is terrible and telling. The bicycles are doing nothing. They are not riding to the shop for a baguette. They are not riding a 100 miles a day. They are inanimate objects until someone gets on them and pedals.

The bike analogy gives all agency to the bike and none to the actual rider. Put a fit cyclist on a $200 bike and they could certainly ride 100 miles. Put a couch potato on a $2000 bike and they'd struggle to fetch that baguette. The $2000 bike did not make them a better cyclist although, to the undiscerning eye, they may appear to be.

And so it goes with photography too.

[biz-engineer]

That bike analogy is terrible and telling.

Yes, to some extend, the bike analog isn't as strong as a case as cameras, but I don't think you ever rode a bike for 100 miles, or at least if the bike was $200 it likely was your first and last time. Practically with cameras, if someone ask you for a file to make a large print and you took the picture with a phone, the lack of quality immediately shows in the print. Since we don't know how an image is going to end-up (in A4 magazine, or in A0 poster), it's better to shoot with large camera. The large ILC cameras covers a wide range of image use, which a small camera or a phone can't do. When I take a picture, I don't know if it will be deleted, posted on the web, printed in a magazine or printed as A0 poster, that's the problem, it all depends what the customer ask for (customer can be myself, a friend, a family member, a wedding couple, a company, a PR agency, a sport club, who knows...). When I shot with compact cameras I had that issue at wedding, that was what pushed me to upgrade to a proper DSLR.

[Dartmoor Dave]

That bike analogy is terrible and telling. The bicycles are doing nothing. They are not riding to the shop for a baguette. They are not riding a 100 miles a day. They are inanimate objects until someone gets on them and pedals.

The bike analogy gives all agency to the bike and none to the actual rider. Put a fit cyclist on a $200 bike and they could certainly ride 100 miles. Put a couch potato on a $2000 bike and they'd struggle to fetch that baguette. The $2000 bike did not make them a better cyclist although, to the undiscerning eye, they may appear to be.

And so it goes with photography too.

I'm not sure where I allotted the bikes themselves any agency in my own use of the analogy. I was talking about the bikes as tools chosen by the cyclists to do the particular things that they want to do, giving the agency entirely to the cyclists rather than the bikes.

My point is that cyclists need to be careful about assuming that their own choices are intrinsically superior to the choices made by other cyclists. And you sure as heck can't judge a cyclist's innate talent by the bike he's riding. That guy who chooses to ride a cheap bike to the shops might be a retired Tour-de-France winner for all you or I know.

In the town where I live you'll sometimes see a scruffy-looking old guy wandering around with a battered old film camera around his neck, occasionally taking a snap of someone or something that grabs his attention. To look at him, any advanced amateur with a bagful of top-of-the-range gear might assume that the decrepit old duffer hasn't got a clue. Thing is though, the old guy who looks like a tramp is David Bailey.

[ThorSanchez]

Sure, I agree. It's not the same as implying that smartphones do the camera job as well as ILCs. I've seem such debates many times, not only for cameras, but it can be for anything. Someone I know just use a bicycle for short trips to buying bread at the local bakery, a few hundred meters away, he bought a cheap bike, but he felt the need to tell me that I don't need a $2000 race bike, he said paying $2000 for a bicycle is a waste of money. I do 100 miles a day, his bike is heavy and some parts would break after a few thousand miles. Back to smartphones: it's not because someone is satisfied to use a smartphone for snapshots and image sharing in social media, that he/she should feel the need to imply that smartphones are good enough and standalone cameras are a thing of the past. I think I'm very far away from not using DSLR (or even MILC) and carrying a camera bag with a tripod, good luck to convince me to shoot photography with my phone, it's not gonna happen any time soon. I'll just move to another camera brand if Pentax goes under due to its user base being content with a smartphone.

Nobody is saying that cell phones are going to completely displace all ILCs. We are saying that for most people an ILC is overkill, and its capabilities would sit unused and they would be spending hundreds or thousands of dollars for no reason at all.

There are seven billion people in the world. Like, I don't know, a few thousand people need a carbon-fiber race bike, and about as many need a MF ILC to shoot super-high res fine art prints. For the vast majority of everyone else they're all good with a $400 bike and whatever camera comes with their cell phone.

Photography for those with ILCs is a semi-serious hobby or a job. Saying most people should buy, learn, and use a stand-alone camera and lens setup is like saying everyone should have a $2000 sewing machine, because that's how you make real quilts. Or that everyone should do Stage 3 mods to their commuter car because how else are you going to win your local SCC track day? Or that we all need that $600 laser scope for their rifle, because everyone is a serious hunter, right? Or that everyone should build their own high-end gaming computer from parts because what kind of amateur would buy an off-the-shelf laptop from BestBuy?

Stop setting up strawmen and knocking them down. Your niche or my niche is tiny, most people are perfectly happy with their phone and it doesn't make them any anything besides not interested in your hobby.

---------- Post added 08-24-21 at 07:38 AM ----------

Practically with cameras, if someone ask you for a file to make a large print and you took the picture with a phone, the lack of quality immediately shows in the print.

I bet if you asked the general population about how many times someone came up to them and asked them to make a large print of a photo they'd taken you'd get through thousands of people before you found anyone. Here on a photography enthusiasts forum the number is probably less than 10%. I've been using Pentax ILCs for a decade and other kinds of cameras for 15 years prior, and no one has even once said "hey, can you print that really big?"

The largest prints I've ever made were about 30" on the long side, taken with a K-3 II. They've hung in my living room for six years and exactly zero people have commented that they'd look better with more resolution.

For almost everyone spec'ing out a camera specifically for its capabilities in producing 2m wide prints is like choosing your next car by insisting it have a top speed of at least 180 mph, paying huge sums for that capability, but then realizing that you almost never approach 100, much less 180.

---

Last edited by ThorSanchez; 08-24-2021 at 04:40 AM.

[normhead]

I'm not going back and quoting specific comments from multiple pages in this topic regarding an entry level camera for Pentax being a possible new camera. I will comment in general on some of the thoughts and comments while adding my own opinion.

Why did you bother?
This is a Pentax forum, maybe on other forums for other brands this kind of nonsense is popular. But everyone here knows where you're wrong. You simply don't appreciate the things Pentax is good at.

A camera's job is to take pictures. Pentax cameras do that.

[johnmflores]

Yes, to some extend, the bike analog isn't as strong as a case as cameras, but I don't think you ever rode a bike for 100 miles, or at least if the bike was $200 it likely was your first and last time. Practically with cameras, if someone ask you for a file to make a large print and you took the picture with a phone, the lack of quality immediately shows in the print. Since we don't know how an image is going to end-up (in A4 magazine, or in A0 poster), it's better to shoot with large camera. The large ILC cameras covers a wide range of image use, which a small camera or a phone can't do. When I take a picture, I don't know if it will be deleted, posted on the web, printed in a magazine or printed as A0 poster, that's the problem, it all depends what the customer ask for (customer can be myself, a friend, a family member, a wedding couple, a company, a PR agency, a sport club, who knows...). When I shot with compact cameras I had that issue at wedding, that was what pushed me to upgrade to a proper DSLR.

I've ridden...

• The Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles
• The State of Colorado from south to north
• The White Rim Trail in Utah
• Through Glacier National Park and across the border to Waterton Lakes National Park
• Most recently across the Green Mountains of Vermont with a loaded touring bike with rim brakes and bar-end shifters

This includes numerous centuries, including one with over 13,000' of vertical climbing. Most of these trips were on what would be considered entry-level enthusiast bikes, with low level componentry that "serious" bicyclists would turn their nose up at. I even medaled in a state duathlon on this type of bike.

And for the last 15+ years, I've been published in national magazines using camera gear and sensors that aren't allegedly professional equipment. I've had photos from the Pentax Q fill most of a two-page spread and produce photos that have others asking me, "How'd you do that?"

Why do you keep giving the bike and camera credit for your hard work and skill?

Pentax Q, a not serious camera

Ontario_RoadRUNNER_Jun14.pdf by John Flores, on Flickr

Pentax K-5, terrible AF

Pentax K-5 shoots the cover of RoadRUNNER Magazine, Feb 2013 issue. by John Flores, on Flickr

Pentax K-01, I can't believe Pentax made this piece of junk

Pentax K-01 gets two-page spread in RoadRUNNER Magazine by John Flores, on Flickr

Micro Four-Thirds is Dead

2018-10-RoadRUNNER Cry of the Guanaco by John Flores, on Flickr

[reh321]

I disagree based on the people I know , friends, family and work, none of the hundred people I know use their mobile phone camera for photography. They take casual pictures on the go if something happens in the front of them, they take picture of a picture of a product in a shop to show send to their wife to confirm a purchase decision (is it photography? for me no), they take a picture of the bathroom leaking tap to show the plumber for repair (is it photography? for me it's not, it's utility, commodity,..). They don't travel to a location for making a landscape photograph, they don't move here and there to improve a composition, they don't wait for sunsets or wake up early for sunrises, they don't do long exposures, they don't setup strobe for photographing portraits with a backdrop, they don't print, they don't display on computer monitor (all pictures stay on the mobile phone), they just to care about photography, ah I forgot, yes they do a lot of selfies with backgrounds completely blown out.

By your definition, most people would never “do photography”.

[normhead]

By your definition, most people would never “do photography”.

I would agree with that assessment. Most people don't take picture anywhere near a professional level and don't care to learn to. That's not a bad thing. Most people don't care to collect stamps, yet almost everyone uses stamps, or used to. or coins which people also used to use every day. There are lot's of things people choose not to do, like fix their own cars, do their own electrical and plumbing. The fact that they use something doesn't mean they need to make a hobby of it or get really good at it. People use cameras for snapshots, images taken solely to remember good times by. They aren't interested in art, they aren't interested in composition. So, ya, most people will never "do photography." And there's nothing wrong with that.

I think coin collectors are weird. I'm sure there are lots of coin collectors who think photographers are weird. everyone makes their own decisions on where they put their time and what they invest in. We aren't all the same, nor should we be.

[reh321]

Now let's use the KP as an example of meeting the requirements for an entry level camera in 2021. Flippy screen is a check. IBIS is a check. Buffer is a massive fail. Auto focus is a massive fail. 4k video? lol. Price point? Do they even make the KP anymore? Retail at launch in 2017 was $1,099 USD. So that's around $1,399 - $1,599 in the covid-19 era.

How can Ricoh/Pentax increase the specs of a KP camera and sell it for less than a 2017 KP in 2022? Therein lies the whole can of worms.

As for a new camera from Ricoh I'm hoping for a monochrome Ricoh GR before Fujifilm comes out with an X100M. The M is for monochrome. Some company is going to sell it if they make it. The Nikon Zfc should have been monochrome. That's what people want right now. Compact in size, retro in design, and black & white only.

Also, your definition is at fault. There is no reason for a deep buffer unless the photographer will take a series of photos, which will be true only if the subject is changing or s/he is odd. A few years ago, we went on a ‘ranger walk’ through the swampland where Jean Lafitte lived. They did have a few squirrels there, but they were mostly still. A guy with a Canon took bursts instead of single shots; I saw no reason for that - the leaves were hardly moving. The KP would make a fine ‘entry camera’; in fact, it could even do without the metal chassis and still qualify {i.e., the K-70 would be OK}. Do not unnecessarily add features that would unnecessarily drive the price up.

I would personally prefer a K-70 follow up before another GR - the GR is not ILC and does not have a viewfinder

added: as far as I can see, there is little functional difference between a GR and a smart phone camera;
they do seem to sell a lot of them, so I won’t complain much if they release yet another one, though.

[ThorSanchez]

By your definition, most people would never “do photography”.

If you go ahead and exclude photos taken in green mode with ILCs along with everything else just mentioned then well over 99% of all photographs "aren't photography".

[pres589]

A lighter weight "son of KP" that is more K-70 in build materials but sized & styled like the KP seems like a nice middle place between the two for Pentax to offer going forward. I hope it's something like that, whatever it is, whenever it gets here.

To John M. Flores, thanks for sharing your images and backstory on getting images into magazines. Kind of inspiring, actually, especially while I sit here bathed in fluorescent office lighting wishing I could be on another motorcycle trip again tomorrow.

[Wheatfield]

I guess you didn't read the entire post.

It's pretty obvious he is reading to respond, not to understand.

---------- Post added Aug 24th, 2021 at 08:18 AM ----------

If you go ahead and exclude photos taken in green mode with ILCs along with everything else just mentioned then well over 99% of all photographs "aren't photography".

Tribalism at its finest.