[normhead]

Sensor stains, buttons that would fall off, AF that was so colour sensitive as to be useless in anything other than daylight, there may have been other issues with it. Search the forum for threads from when the camera first came out, the discussions were quite lively. It was, IIRC, the first of the Hoya DSLR Pentax cameras, the K7 being released practically the same day the Hoya takeover of Pentax was completed.
I'm sure there were some good ones, but the possibility of getting one with something wrong with it was very high. Mine didn't have senor stains and no buttons fell off of it, but the AF was useless to the point I was never able to use it. Others had buttons, especially the lens release button, fall off, others suffered sensor stains, and some poor souls got a combination of all of the problems.
I've never heard of the K5 being the best Pentax DSLR ever, my opinion is anyone who believes that is taking psychedelic drugs.

Ya, I really had a lot of trouble with the AF on the post image. Did you notice there are out of focus branches in front of the bird?

SO what you're saying is, the camera ranked #6 of all camera in the world ahead of almost all the full frames, only 5 cameras in the world with better image quality, and you see it as failure?

Well, I'm not on psychedelic drugs, and your answer is nonsense. All kinds of manufacturers had sensor stain problems in those days, not the least of which was Nikon who got themselves banned from Russia and China for trying to dump sensor stained product there. Your memory of that time is what's stained here. And if I'm on psychedelic drugs on this one, you're brain dead.

If all you have is insults, you have nothing.

Name one independent site anywhere that agrees with your opinion and I'll be happy to recant. Not disgruntled camera owners, every brand has those. Not someone saying how bad the K-5 was in isolation, someone aware of the camera industry at that time. Not someone in a niche market needing niche product.

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Last edited by normhead; 03-04-2020 at 03:29 PM.

[bjolester]

Sensor stains, buttons that would fall off, AF that was so colour sensitive as to be useless in anything other than daylight, there may have been other issues with it. Search the forum for threads from when the camera first came out, the discussions were quite lively. It was, IIRC, the first of the Hoya DSLR Pentax cameras, the K7 being released practically the same day the Hoya takeover of Pentax was completed.
I'm sure there were some good ones, but the possibility of getting one with something wrong with it was very high. Mine didn't have senor stains and no buttons fell off of it, but the AF was useless to the point I was never able to use it. Others had buttons, especially the lens release button, fall off, others suffered sensor stains, and some poor souls got a combination of all of the problems.
I've never heard of the K5 being the best Pentax DSLR ever, my opinion is anyone who believes that is taking psychedelic drugs.

I have (and use) the regular K-5 and the K-5iis, both superb cameras. These cameras are best used when sober, people using psychedelic drugs ought to make use of other, less refined, cameras.

[RICHARD L.]

[bjolester]

RICHARD L: Great photos! Where did you shoot the desert images? Namibia?

[RICHARD L.]

California (Death Valley sand dunes, Yosemite and San Juan Capistrano Mission), Arizona (Mount Lemmon near Tucson), Utah (Arches - Balanced Rock), Texas (Welcoming Center on Interstate-40).

[bjolester]

California (Death Valley sand dunes, Yosemite and San Juan Capistrano Mission), Arizona (Mount Lemmon near Tucson), Utah (Arches - Balanced Rock), Texas (Welcoming Center on Interstate-40).

Thank you for the information!

[Wheatfield]

California (Death Valley sand dunes, Yosemite and San Juan Capistrano Mission), Arizona (Mount Lemmon near Tucson), Utah (Arches - Balanced Rock), Texas (Welcoming Center on Interstate-40).

AF wasn't really required for those, but sunny daytime was about the only time the K5 AF worked. I got very nice outdoor shots with mine as well.

I was shooting a lot in the studio when the K5 was current, and under those conditions the AF was worse than useless as the colour of the halogen modeling lights threw the AF out. It was extremely colour sensitive, and would vary from extreme front focus to extreme back focus depending on the colour in front of it.

Perhaps not so much of a problem in daylight when everything is near infinity and the lens is stopped down, but at portrait apertures and closer focus distances, it was a disaster. It was the same under street lights or any other artificial source. The very good high ISO abilities of the sensor was somewhat nullified by the fact the AF wasn't consistent or accurate under lighting conditions that would tend to be used at high ISOs.

I did some reading in the K5 forum, going right back to when it was released. I had forgotten about the front and rear control wheel issues, as well as problems with the mode dial.

A lemon in the automobile industry is a car with an unacceptable number of bad samples.
The K5 was such a camera. I'm glad yours worked for you, but for a large number of users, it was a bad camera. They did get the sensor stains fixed as it was a production problem on a run of them at Sony, but I don't think they ever sorted out the issues with the AF, mode dials or buttons falling off.

[MarkJerling]

A lemon in the automobile industry is a car with an unacceptable number of bad samples.
The K5 was such a camera. I'm glad yours worked for you, but for a large number of users, it was a bad camera. They did get the sensor stains fixed as it was a production problem on a run of them at Sony, but I don't think they ever sorted out the issues with the AF, mode dials or buttons falling off.

I think it's a bit unfair to describe the K5 as a "lemon". For the vast majority of users, it was (and is) a fantastic camera. There were some early production issues, mainly to do with the shutter release button and, to a lesser extent, with sensor stains. Mode dial issues were rare, as were front and rear control wheel issues which were experienced by only a few users.

I for one, got many years of use out of mine, and it lives on as my daughter's camera, looking as and working as perfectly as it always have. I know that it struggled with AF in low light but I never experienced any focusing issues under artificial lights or during day-time conditions. I shot a lot of sports with my K5 and it was always up to the task, whether shooting football (soccer) or cycling or (indoor) basketball. I have posted many action shots taken with the K5 on this forum.
It was my dependable camera in truly wet winter conditions and never gave me a moment's trouble. I used it as a backup camera when I shot a wedding more recently and it worked well for that, although it's not a patch on the K-1ii of course.

[RICHARD L.]

Guys,


A polite and civilized exchange of ideas is always better than hurling insults at each other. There may have been some Quality Control issues or the performance of a camera may not suit the needs of a user but always better discussing issues politely than being gross or nasty !

Cheers !
Richard

[cpk]

I have (and use) the regular K-5 and the K-5iis, both superb cameras. These cameras are best used when sober, people using psychedelic drugs ought to make use of other, less refined, cameras.

Agreed, except that my K-5 is partnered with a K-5ii, not the s version.

[bdery]

The K5 is pretty much the worst camera Pentax has ever released.

Wait, what?

I'll refrain from biting.

The ONLY thing good about it [K-3] compared to the K1 is the ability to make telephoto lenses give more reach, at the expense of overall picture quality.

Humm, well, again I disagree but here I'll bite.

In good light the K-3 offers more reach AND more resolution, which is useful for telephoto. The higher pixel density makes a significant difference.So when you wish for telephoto, and light levels are decent, the K-3 is a better tool than the K-1. As @normhead pointed out, it also has a fast burst rate and high buffer.

The K-3 was even the camera of the year on DPReview when it came out. That's saying something.

Tossing around generalizations is rarely very helpful, or very accurate.

[luftfluss]

I guess I'm lucky. In my almost 13 years of shooting Pentax cameras I've never had a "worst". Then again, I've never been an early adopter and perhaps have thus avoided some issues.

Some of the gear I've owned have been noted to suffer from certain foibles... but I was aware of that going in, so it would seem intellectually dishonest to blame the gear for those limitations.

I imagine one's overall disposition has much to do with one's assessment of cameras, among other things.

[Wheatfield]

Wait, what?

I'll refrain from biting.



Humm, well, again I disagree but here I'll bite.

In good light the K-3 offers more reach AND more resolution, which is useful for telephoto. The higher pixel density makes a significant difference.So when you wish for telephoto, and light levels are decent, the K-3 is a better tool than the K-1. As @normhead pointed out, it also has a fast burst rate and high buffer.

The K-3 was even the camera of the year on DPReview when it came out. That's saying something.

Tossing around generalizations is rarely very helpful, or very accurate.

In general, a half ton truck will carry far more lumber than a Honda Civic.
How is this innacurate?

Really, you just took more words to say what I said.

As an aside, the K3 has higher noise levels than the K1, and when you have to start putting caveats in (in good light, for example) you are saying that the camera isn't as good.
By being specific, you have taken my generalization and made my point for me.

I kept my K3 to extend the reach of my 600mm lens. I will use it for that reason, but I am accepting that the picture quality won't be up to that of the K1 in terms of noise by doing it. In that specific instance it will be, but that is because I've had to compromise by not having a 1000mm lens.

[ThorSanchez]

I guess I'm lucky. In my almost 13 years of shooting Pentax cameras I've never had a "worst". Then again, I've never been an early adopter and perhaps have thus avoided some issues.

Some of the gear I've owned have been noted to suffer from certain foibles... but I was aware of that going in, so it would seem intellectually dishonest to blame the gear for those limitations.

I imagine one's overall disposition has much to do with one's assessment of cameras, among other things.

Let's say the the K-1 is an A camera. The K-3 is a B or a B+. The A grade camera costs twice as much.

I'm not going to let someone tell me that my B+ camera is kind of crappy with only a tiny niche use case to use because it's not an A. The K-5 and K-3 are very good cameras.

[Wheatfield]

I guess I'm lucky. In my almost 13 years of shooting Pentax cameras I've never had a "worst". Then again, I've never been an early adopter and perhaps have thus avoided some issues.

Some of the gear I've owned have been noted to suffer from certain foibles... but I was aware of that going in, so it would seem intellectually dishonest to blame the gear for those limitations.

I imagine one's overall disposition has much to do with one's assessment of cameras, among other things.

Pentax has never made a camera before that had as many flaws as the K5. I'm not sure if anyone has.
Mine missed the sensor spots and bad switches and buttons, but the AF was useless in all but ideal light. Others had good AF, but sensor spots, some would shed their buttons, others had control wheels that would fail. Some, I expect, had a combination of them all.
And obviously, just like the Edsel, Corvair and anything by British Leyland, some were just fine.

I wanted to like the K5, but for the type of photography I was doing at the time it was a horrible camera.
I expect that the people who had to use a sharpie to change lenses or were forced into PHD automatic by failed control wheels felt the same way about it.

Go look at the K5 sub forum. Starting about 6 pages from the last, the discussions start to get very interesting. You will even read posts from Wheatfield waving Pom Poms about the camera. It took a couple of studio shoots to find out how bad my camera was.