Originally posted by sandilands Well, I don't think I fall into either "camp". Ricoh/Pentax has limited R&D resources, and maybe there is a camp of us who think those Yen are better spent solving more immediate needs than FF. I'm certainly not going to jump ship and give up the best of Pentax just because my ancient glass might work better on a FF sensor.
So Pentax, spend your money to take the K-5 to new heights. Don't break was isn't broke. Give us best in class AF. Give us the least noise and highest ISO (and lowest) in the industry. Bring your flash system into the 21st (or for that matter 20th) century. Provide the best line of pro lenses in the industry.
Do those things, and I think all camps will be happier. Those pining for FF will be temporaily placated, and the rest of us will be proud as peacocks showing off the results from our best in indusrty K-5+.
I honestly don't think there will be that much more development into Pentax's AF system if they are starting to lean towards mirrorless systems anyways.. they will look at ways to speed up their peak detection system for sure.. but for now that seems a very mechanical issue of speeding up the actual AF motor drive system to GET to and then a little bit PAST the peak.. then returning to it. There is a lot to be done to make it all out "BEST IN CLASS" for APS-C market, the IQ of the K-5 made it best in class for IQ for sure.. but starting into Pentax I was OK with the limited video feature set and lack of upgrade path.. little did I see how soon I would be burning for an upgrade path.
If the K-5's replacement can get even "slightly" better IQ, the same or more FPS burst (with a bigger buffer!), update the flash synch to at LEAST 1/250th of a sec (1/500th would be nice!!), have improved video functions and full manual controls for it (1080P@60fps would be great, 30FPS is pretty vanilla now days) and work on some QC problems so they don't have another "sensor stain" type of issue out of the gates...
As for packaging it up right.. DROP the 50-200 lens outright.. WR the 55-300 and sell the new camera with a 2 piece kit with the 18-55WR/55-300WR and some damn view finder focusing shims so you don't have to order after the fact.. your camera should be good to go out of the box. As a complete starting kit, that would do very well..
All that being said, it still is only a stop gap camera on the way to wanting to get the IQ of a FF camera, which you won't without a FF sensor.