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12-31-2008, 07:13 PM   #31
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Because I want to show off than I can afford it? That's amusing... I'm 17 and pay for all that I've got out of my own pocket. And no, I don't go on Ford forums and brag about my 2001 Mitsubishi Magna either. It's what you choose to spend money on, it's irrelevant how much you have. I don't waste money on getting hammered at weekends for example.

I wasn't even going to compare the A700 and K20D's CMOSs, someone else raised the point that the K20D's was superior when it's not, although I'm not concerned by that.

At the end of the day I do like Pentax and there's some things that they do very well. As some here have accurately interpreted, all I'm looking for is that Pentax recognises the biggest failing of their recent bodies and makes amends to make them at least level with the rest of the market's capabilities.

Oh, and I don't get why people seem to be taking personal offense to this either.

12-31-2008, 07:15 PM   #32
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He who can not self critique and analyze their purchases are poor representatives of the truth. Just because one can think critically about what works well and what could be improved, it does not mean that he's 'bashing' the brand. Every major purchase I've made has positive and negative points. Understanding and identifying those limitations serves to improve understanding and reduce ignorance. Only one with a weak position jumps to blindly defend his or her position.
12-31-2008, 08:06 PM   #33
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QuoteOriginally posted by SupremeMoFo Quote
Because I want to show off than I can afford it? That's amusing... I'm 17 and pay for all that I've got out of my own pocket. And no, I don't go on Ford forums and brag about my 2001 Mitsubishi Magna either. It's what you choose to spend money on, it's irrelevant how much you have. I don't waste money on getting hammered at weekends for example.

I wasn't even going to compare the A700 and K20D's CMOSs, someone else raised the point that the K20D's was superior when it's not, although I'm not concerned by that.

At the end of the day I do like Pentax and there's some things that they do very well. As some here have accurately interpreted, all I'm looking for is that Pentax recognises the biggest failing of their recent bodies and makes amends to make them at least level with the rest of the market's capabilities.

Oh, and I don't get why people seem to be taking personal offense to this either.

Umm perhaps you should check your 3rd post - you in fact were the one who started on about sensors.

17!! Hey, what the hell are you doing here - get a girlfriend and get hammered on the weekends, you are missing out on some awesome photo opportunities.

Still think anyone who hasn't posted on here for 5 months (last post was also whining about AF and a flash designed for P-TTL that supposedly doesn't P-TTL), then comes on again whining about AF is a bit of a nutter.

My advice to you is Sell all your Pentax gear, sell your Magna (Piece of crap -Trust me) - buy a V8 (Ford/Holden) make sure it has Mags, then spend the rest of your cash on some chick with questionable moral standards.

You will have the time of your life - then one day when you have a wife, kids, rent/mortgage, school fees and you're driving a Magna (my God the humiliation) - you might understand that faster AF for your hobby photos is not really a huge priority in life.
12-31-2008, 08:14 PM   #34
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QuoteOriginally posted by user440 Quote
He who can not self critique and analyze their purchases are poor representatives of the truth. Just because one can think critically about what works well and what could be improved, it does not mean that he's 'bashing' the brand. Every major purchase I've made has positive and negative points. Understanding and identifying those limitations serves to improve understanding and reduce ignorance. Only one with a weak position jumps to blindly defend his or her position.
Well if you didn't do your homework and you didn't know the limitations of the system and what you were exactly buying - well to be perfectly frank "You are an idiot!" If you aren't happy with your purchase don't blame me, take a look in the mirror and blame that guy.

12-31-2008, 08:28 PM   #35
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Might it be true that people like their Pentaxes so much because Pentax made the right trade off given limited resources? Resources are always limited -- you have so much money, so much time, and so much man power. It'd be terrible if Pentax made the exact same trade offs as Canon/Nikon and end up with similar cameras.

BTW, this is a perfectly fine forum to bitch about Pentax AF; where else can people go to bitch about Pentax short-comings? On a Canon/Nikon board? It's all in good fun.
12-31-2008, 08:33 PM   #36
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I do have to admit to being curious about your statements on the superiority of the A700's cmos. Have you used both of them? Worked with the RAW files? Put them to use in a variety of different photographic situations? I would imagine the sony very well may have some advantages in some situations, but it'd be interesting to hear you back up your statements with something other than some vague "facts" that very well may have come from dpreview's jpeg testing...
12-31-2008, 08:56 PM   #37
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QuoteOriginally posted by twinda1 Quote
Might it be true that people like their Pentaxes so much because Pentax made the right trade off given limited resources? Resources are always limited -- you have so much money, so much time, and so much man power. It'd be terrible if Pentax made the exact same trade offs as Canon/Nikon and end up with similar cameras.

BTW, this is a perfectly fine forum to bitch about Pentax AF; where else can people go to bitch about Pentax short-comings? On a Canon/Nikon board? It's all in good fun.
Business and Marketing, now we are talking something that interests me.

You are exactly right Pentax are doing what they can with the resources they are given and are producing cameras that are affordable for their current target market. They are not targeting a camera for professional sports shooters.

Pentax may be lagging in the area of AF - now I am not involved with Pentax in anyway so I don't know if the reason is because they have not got the resources and funding to develop a faster AF or if their market research suggests that the bulk of their target market A) aren't interested in faster AF or B) They will not be able to recover the investment of producing a faster AF camera due to the fact that competitors models with faster AF are allready priced at the same price as the K20D.
Basically I would guess that Pentax sales are not high enough to warrant investing funds in developing a faster AF as the cameras would have to be priced at pretty much the same price they are currently selling for - making a return on investment nigh impossible.
I would also guess that the Powers that Be at Pentax/HOYA don't believe that the bulk of the average Pentax users will pay a premium for a higher speced camera. Particularly as the competition already offer these higher speced cameras.

Further, Pentax representatives have stated that their priority is IQ and producing a camera with an APS-C sensor with class leading IQ.
They have stated that Fast AF is not a priority nor is FF - of course business is like politics and statements can change.
But if you go with Pentax be prepared for the long haul, they may eventually have a pro level camera but we are talking years here. It is all dependant on how much market share the current models can take.

01-01-2009, 01:14 AM   #38
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While it is fine to raise concerns, to beat a dead horse (AF) and repeatedly bring up another brand (Sony) isn't about "letting Pentax know," it can be a bit much. And with AF and Pentax, it is kind of like moving to Montana and then complaining that it is cold in the winter.

Last edited by nostatic; 01-01-2009 at 01:37 AM.
01-01-2009, 01:55 AM   #39
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At the end of the day, no, there obviously isn't any info about whether the AF is going to be improved for the next gen Kx0D body.

I was convinced that Pentax was the best choice when I bought the K10D 2 years ago, and as some of you keep missing I do think there are things going for it, just that as some have picked up, what I'm getting at is that Pentax has the worst AF on the market by now and it needs to be fixed.

I could've chosen the 40D, 50D, D90 as points of comparison... I just picked the A700.
QuoteOriginally posted by Falcons Quote
My advice to you is Sell all your Pentax gear, sell your Magna (Piece of crap -Trust me) - buy a V8 (Ford/Holden) make sure it has Mags, then spend the rest of your cash on some chick with questionable moral standards.
Oooh cutting coming from someone who has nothing better to do than introduce pointless personal insults on photography forum! Really, I'm hurt. The part about the cars was hilarious though, thanks for that (make me laugh more - what do you drive?). Cut it out and stop servicing your own ego.
01-01-2009, 02:42 AM   #40
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Wow, a couple people are being WAY too sensitive about something factual (looking at you, Falcons). They should also tone down the personal insults, it just makes you look ignorant.

I came to the Pentax camp after being in the Minolta/Sony one for a while -- it was my first experience with a DSLR, actually. As someone who knows quite a bit about both now, I can state what should be obvious to most people -- both camera systems have their strong and weak points. The reason why I use Pentax primarily now is because I like Pentax's strong points more than I like Sony's, on average.

Yes, all Sony DSLRs, especially the A700 (which is markedly faster than all others) have faster continuous AF speed than even Pentax's best offering. Yes, the A700 has considerably better ISO noise levels than even the K20D, or even the A900 for that matter. However, the A700 is currently the "bread and butter" of the Sony camp. All of their other cameras are either poorly designed (a digital teleconverter button? WTF?) both with menus and buttons/dials, or in the case of the one comfortable Alpha (A100), have horrible, HORRIBLE noise problems (nighttime photos are absolutely useless after ISO 400).

Sony's cameras are also considerably more expensive than Pentax's when comparing the same featureset (15-30% more), though the used lens market is comparable to that with old pentax glass. The biggest feature that brought me to Pentax, however, was how easy it was to use old MF lenses, either K-mount of M42. The best M42 adapter for sony systems is still crap compared to the built-in compatibility of Pentax. And again, this is a strong selling point for me -- there are so many great lenses available in M42-mount that I actually own very few AF lenses for either system, yet still have every possible situation handled.

To summarize, everyone who is getting bent out of shape because someone else is simply pointing out the factual things that Sony (or other companies) are better at than Pentax is just insecure about their purchase. There are many things that Pentax does better, and to me (and I assume almost everyone else here), they're the things that are more important to us. As a corollary, since I use so much manual glass (and since it's basically expected of you if you want cheap lenses in the Pentax system), the AF speed isn't really important to me. And, if AF speed is REALLY that important to you, it's because you're either a sports photographer or a professional gainfully employed nature/sports/event photographer, in which case price doesn't matter and you can just waste gobs of money on Canon FF bodies and L-glass xD
01-01-2009, 03:13 AM   #41
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QuoteOriginally posted by Alfisti Quote
Well except a Nikon D40 at $400 is faster and has better predictive AF. Or you can really splurge on a $500 D60. I know the restof the camera is a different story but it puts into perspective just how far Pentax has fallen behind in trerms of refinement of it's AF system.

If the D90 was a little smaller and if Nikon had something like the 77/1.8, 21 pancake and the in body IS ... well .. i'm there.
A camera with 3 focus points has better predictive AF? Where'd you get that from?
01-01-2009, 03:33 AM   #42
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It's a Nikon, it has to be better!
01-01-2009, 04:25 AM   #43
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Well my good old Nikon D70 was a bit faster in low-light than my old K10D and also better(I can't directly compare because the D70 was stolen before I bought the K20D) than the K20D in my opnion. But not by a big leap.
Many AF points is not everything, yes it is very nice to have yes, but it is not the world.
All the old "higher spec" Pentax dSLR's are using a 11 point AF system and all are not on par with a old 5 point AF system found in the Nikon D70

PS. Predective AF ? I didn't found a feature like that on my D70 :P AF-C was rubbish with moving subjects.
The D200 was a lot better and the newer D300 is great in that respect.
01-01-2009, 05:04 AM   #44
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The question of this thread is useless - no one can know for sure what will happen in the future but those who really can know such things probably can't tell it to others. So...

My personal thoughts - sometimes I like to look inside some electronics equipment - what parts are used and do some "spying" (electronics is my hobby so this interest is understandable). Often I have thought - damn why on earth they used this part - there is much better integral circuit that costs only 2 cents more, but.... when it comes to mass production every cent counts - it's all about the profits. So when I am building my own pieces of electronics, I can choose better parts - because I build only one piece and for me this cost difference is not noticeable. So it is understandable if Pentax won't improve their AF system - the money needed for designing new AF system might not be so high but introducing it in real life production would be painful - the production line must be rebuild completely or modified - time for modifying or rebuilding their factory line means lost time=lost profit (it's a theoretical speculation - I don't know how many units of K20Ds are made each day). They will calculate and do the best thing for them (Hoya+Pentax) for not loosing profit. If their calculations would show that they will gain larger profit from modifying AF system they will do it. But they keep in mind that there are other brands ( many people even don't know that Pentax exists) and they already have competitive pieces of tech so spending money on introducing new AF system (or any other innovative thing) might not gain much profit because then Pentax might have to boost their prices and with C an N around people would choose their units. If this is the case Pentax should spend lots and lots of money on advertisements which also might not give the desirable profit and then it is just lost money. It is easier to stick with something you already have than introduce something new which always is risky.
Eventually they will have to redesign their system, but when and if - maybe Nostradamus had some info...
01-01-2009, 05:42 AM   #45
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Slightly OT....

QuoteOriginally posted by Falcons Quote
Yeah but some of us do shoot static scenery and we like our affordable Pentax's - so why don't you outlay your extra cash on a Canon 1DsMK111? Sort of getting tired of being told I'm a fanboy or I'm defensive if I happen to like my camera the way it is - and I'm still on the *ist DS.
Apart from the AF "issues" (and I concur with your assessment of going to some other brand if speedy AF is needed while Pentax gets to the required level), I recently went through more than 2 years worth of my pictures (and sent more than 500 pics to be proof-printed... at last!) that were taken successively (and sometimes jointly) with a Ds, a K10, a K20, a 30D and a 5D and it was an interesting exercise to see if these material evolutions had led to some quality evolution in the end result...

After all, I shot my Z1P from 1995 through 2004 and never felt the need for anything else so it's pretty unusual for me to go on a "buying spree" like last year...

Well, the conclusions are quite clear when it comes to the switch to Canon: I definitely have much more keepers from the 30D/5D and I am really achieving the "look" I was looking for from the 5D but I do a lot of indoor low light portraits of my family and landscapes and this camera was almost tailor-made for this.

When it comes to the Pentax cameras, the K20 clearly produced some of the most beautiful pictures of the bunch with incredible textural details at ISO 100. Above ISO 400 though, it gets behind the 30D/5D for DR and noise.

I was not that happy about the K10 with a lot of slightly misfocused shots in any kind of light and underexposure leading to high noise in low light.

But perhaps the most surprising was rediscovering the pictures from my Ds: lots of keepers (even with the slowish AF), very nice colors and noise really kept under control up to ISO 800: it doesn't have the sheer resolution of the K20 or 5D but up to 20x30cm, I am pretty sure I will get some very nice print!

I was not found of the UI on the Ds but IQ was certainly very good.
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