Originally posted by jtb04a I'm a semi-professional photographer. As such, I fear I will have to jump ship to Canon or Nikon for two reasons.
1) I will need full-frame.
2) I need 300 mm and 400mm f/2.8, not f/4.
I do see your urges. I do a lot of sports and we are handicapt in many ways. On the other hand we can still make great images, but I would like a better camera and some lenses as well.
Originally posted by cmohr Odd, I'm not sure how the K-5 crop sensor is a problem with low light a FF won't be any advantage in low light, I take it you are refering to available lenses not being fast enough.
You can get a Sigma 300/2.8 and Sigma 500/4.5 for the K-5 today. It would suprise most just how much the sports guys crop their FF images even with dinnerplate size glass lenses.
The K-5 is a wonderfull camera, but falls short in image quality when compared to D3s/D4 in hi-iso. The amount of cropping and image pimping is enourmous and something I don't do enough yet.
Originally posted by Chex For sports, on top of the FF sensor and lens availability.. the Autofocus system difference is HUGE going from the K-5 to my D800.. the 3D tracking mode is amazing, even on the slow focusing 24-120 VR f3.5-5.6 I have.. can't wait for a bit of wiggle room in my budget for a 70-200 or 300 f4.
Having a smarter AF is one desire. Having a faster processor inside the camera is also a way to get that. Canon put in 1Dx a separate processor for the AF module to do all the calculations. When our K-5 would have more power inside to make calculations then even our AF-C would get better (simply by more times/second recalculating the settings for AF).
Originally posted by falconeye I take it jtb04a meant he needs 300 mm and 400mm f/2.8 for the full frame he says he also needs.
So, K-5 would need 200/1.8 or 270/1.8, lenses which clearly don't exist for APS-C (APS-C with Nikon would be a bit closer with D7000+200/2.0G but here full frame is a non issue).
Maybe he means to need 300 mm and 400mm f/2.8 for APS-C indeed (he didn't specify). But then you would compare 300/2.8 for APS-C with 500/4.5 for full frame. They have a similiar price and weight (the 500 is a bit more, but it would be equivalent to 330/3.0 on APS-C; 111mm vs. 107mm aperture). So, a full frame with 500/4 would fit his needs ideally.
Well long lenses are used a lot. I do a lot of big field work with K-5 and DA*300mm and for that one could also put that sigma 500mm/f4.5 on a full frame. I see a lot of sportsphotographers using 400mm/f2.8 and 1.4x tc on their fullf frame D3s (less Canon where I come). The Nikon 200mm/f2.0 is a wonderful lens, but you don't use such an expensive lens on an aps-c camera, since you can buy 135mm/f2.0 for that.
I don't think that Pentax will go all the way into the sportsphotography section since that would take way to much investments and the time to get that money back from customers will take to long. There is a need for some lenses. I hope for a very good long telezoomlens. That could be 80-200mm/f2.8, but I hope they make it a bit longer as my suggested 135-270mm/f2.8 (and thus not a new 300mm/f2.8 but only one lens). A fast 135mm/f2.0 would also be great for indoor sports.
On the long side a 400mm would be great, but I don't think it will come soon. A 400mm/f2.8 is to expensive and even a 400mm/f4 won't get to many buyers.