.....used K3 v1 for less than $400, and I bought one. Very happy with it and frankly surprised at the capability of this camera given its age. (OK I won’t mention the slow and noisy AF lol).
- use electric motor lenses like pentax PLM or Sigma HSM and focus will be surprisingly fast...., in other words lens matters, even some screwdrive focus lenses are quit fast. But K3III will also improve on camera side.
- Do you guys turn on any of the distortion correction features? Do you do it differently if you are using old M lenses as opposed to newer AF lenses?
You can leave it on, but old manual lenses don’t provide lensinfo, so no correction is applied.
- Do you guys use PEF or DNG? Seems safer to do the latter, but I could change my mind.
Mostly jpg and PEF as back up with pentax sw DCU. Match to your postprocessing Software...
- When you use manual focus lenses and use the green button to stop down and meter, how long does it hold that exposure? I couldn’t figure out if it resets after the shutter button is pressed, when the camera is turned off, or if it holds until you press the green button again.
The top display shows this info ... check there? On a K3 it is a convenient ’tool’
- One thing that troubled me is, I think, the time it takes to ‘wake’ the camera from sleep. Most of the time, when walking the NYC streets, I carry the camera at my side with a wrist strap, and the power on. If I see a shot coming, with any recent camera I’ve owned, I can half press the shutter button and by the time I get the camera to my eye, it’s ‘awake’. With the K3 yesterday, I paused because I was near Central Park, there was an interesting background, and I planned to hang out a while and catch cyclists and skaters passing against the background. A couple of times, when I brought the camera up to my eye, it was still ‘asleep’ and I missed the shot. I pressed the shutter and nothing happened. If I pressed it a few more times the camera ‘woke’ but of course by that time it was too late. Do I need to extend the ‘power off’ time? I’ll set it to ten minutes but I’m not sure if that’s the answer here.
? Might indicate button wear or corroding contacts (might improve when used)? But I would say half a second if camera is left on and pressing half the shutter. I usually press the shutter a first time already when lifting my arm with camera to allow a quick shot. (And yes, occasionally it yields a picture of the pavement
)
On an older camera you might need to invest in a new battery, a worn battery’s voltage might be lower/weaker and affect camera performance.