Originally posted by UserAccessDenied I'm not bashing Pentax, and I'm not calling CANIKON god. I'm simply saying when you put down the K-3ii and pick up a D500 you'd be lying to yourself to say the AF performance is equal.
No one ever said it was equal. But what I did say, was given the lower resolution, and nearly equivalent frame rate, I'm not convinced for most of what I do you get more keepers. Considering that any image I actually capture will probably have more resolution with a K-3. If I take my images taken with a K-3, any image I take with any manual focus lens like my A-400 is going to be better than a D500 image based on resolution, unless the images is taken at 3200 ISO on the D500, and I'd probably toss that image anyway.
Any image I can capture using Pentax's somewhat slower AF system is going to be better from the K-3, based on the image being higher resolution.
Any image for which I use AF-s, turn off focus priority and use shutter priority and my subject doesn't move all that much, and that is the vast majority of my images, where I push the FPS to 8 FPS, again the image resolution is going to give my K-3 a clear advantage.
Where does the D500 have an advantage? A little bit of high ISO probably between 1600 ISO and 3200 ISO, and the rare circumstance when I use tracking (which is very rarely necessary) where the K-3 cannot track the subject, but the Nikon D500 can. SO just how big do you suppose that window might be? Only experience will tell.
But this is a straight trade off. AF speed for subject IQ in most shooting circumstances. Until someone shoots some side by side images we won't even be able to evaluate who this trade off might work for. But, it's not certain that for any but those shooters who shoot sports that involve a lot of speed, it will provide better images. It's giving up in the resolution battle to provide the fast but not the fastest APS-c burst speed. AF speed for those who need it..IN that sense it's a niche camera.
The thing I deal with constantly in this type of discussion is the notion that better AF gets you better pictures. The simple truth is that no AF with a larger format gets you better pictures. The realm of the fast AF camera is images you can't get with higher resolution cameras. Just buying a camera like the D500 means you've given up on K-1 or even K-3 image quality for that high speed lower res image. That's why I'm saying It's a niche camera.
Another example of that would be one of those huge cameras they use for aerial photgprahy. They are great at what they do, but do you really want one? Being really good at something only matters if it's the most important thing, and fast AF is irrelevant after the picture is snapped. You want to use the best image, whether it was taken by machine gunning a fast AF camera, or planning and capturing a great image with an MF lens buy triggering the shutter as at the moving subject move through a prefocussed position, if you can get it, the best image will be MF, prefocussed K-1. You have to give up on getting that image and settle for something less just by picking up a 1Dx or a D500, or even a D750. But for some, that is the right choice. Because the choice is between D500 and nothing. What hasn't happened yet is, no one has convinced me that this would be a meaningful choice for anyone.No one cares how fast your camera focusses , they care about what the image looks like. If in fact, they could have waited a half second for their camera to focus and achieved the exact same image with more detail, that image with more detail will probably be what they want. That's the situation most K-3 owner will be in faced with a in a K-3 vs D500 choice.
I see this camera as meaningful type addition to the Nikon family of cameras, in the same way the D3s was. And I expect it's sales to be about the same and it's production run to be as long. And honestly, how many Pentax users left Pentax for a D3s? I don't know of one. D750 yes, D800 D810 , yes, D3s, not one that I know of.
So my advice to those who honestly need it, would be, snap it up before its gone. You can't buy a D3s any more despite people whining and crying about low light performance, and you won't be able to buy a D500 very long, even with all these people whining about slow AF. They gave away to much to achieve their goal. But for those of you for whom it would be useful despite the trade offs, snap it up, Don't wait for the price to drop, you might wait too long. This is not going to become one of those cameras that sells a bazillion units to people of all photographic backgrounds. It simply costs too much for that. Over here in Pentax land, most of us would rather have a K-1, which would actually be cheaper.
I looked through the review on Imaging resources, and wondered, how did that guy get so many great wildlife images in such a short time, I can go weeks without seeing that much wildlife, but I also didn't see any images I couldn't have taken with a K-3.
I honestly think this should be the tone of Nikon's marketing.
It won't last long so get it while you can.
And I'm also willing to bet that people who honestly need what it has to offer, will treasure it for a long time. Who knows if there will ever again be something like it. Want evidence that that's going t be true? Try and buy a second hand D3s.
Last edited by normhead; 07-01-2016 at 10:27 AM.