Originally posted by hawaza Thanks for the rundown of K-3ii advantages over the K-70. When put like that it does highlight its premium standing. Hopefully it comes up on offer somewhere or receives a price snip due to the announcement of its successor before i have to pull the trigger and buy. As someone else mentioned though i imagine either is a fairly big step up from a K-50.
Thats good to know, both that they can be used handheld and the potential second hand price.
This is very good to know should i manage to get the K-50 back in working order. Looks like this lense along with the "Bigmas" are the only realistic choices for this kind of tele lens, along with the far more expensive pentax 150-450. I'll do some Internet window shopping and see what prices I can find these at
From a shooting perspective, the advantage to my K-3 is 8 FPS and 23 shot buffer.
The advantage with the K-70/ KP is better low light performance.
Since I shoot wildlife, mornings and evenings and shooting under the forest canopy are very important. That low light perforance makes a K-70 or K-P much more useful. I quite often stop shooting when the light reduces my ISO to 640 on a K-3. The K-70- / K-P are good to 1600ISO easily and maybe 3200 in a stretch. In many cases that's another half hour of shooting for the same travel time and expense in terms of gas and vehicle wear and tear.
The same factors are relevant to the lenses like the BIgma. The other manufacturers cap their lenses at ƒ6.3. Pentax caps their lenses at ƒ5.6. You might think it's not much difference, but when you consider AF is geared to ƒ2.8, from my perspective 5.6 is barely acceptable and ƒ6.3 is over the deep end. Simply stated, I won't willingly take even an ƒ4 lens out on shoot, and for the most part I prefer 2.8 lenses.
But even for me shooting ƒ2.8 lenses, that extra solid stop of high ISO performance would be huge. I currently take the K-3 and put it in the bag, and put the K-1 on once it starts getting dark, imagine having a caerma where I could stay with the longer reach of the K-3 for as long as i do with my K-1. It kind of makes you all tingly.
Like the K-30 coming after the K-5, there are things about the K-70 and K-P that the APS-c flagship can't currently match, although I would expect the next flagship, due out sometime in the next year, to change that.
I'm looking at an upgrade right now for my wife and I'm looking K-P or K-70. She doesn't need the burst and buffer I do, and for the average shooter, the high ISO performance of those camera is to die for. It will add a whole new dimension to your shooting.
K-P low light focussing is faster than on any other Pentax body according to the review at Imaging Resources. That in itself is just incredibly attractivel for those of us have realized, low light before it gets so dark you have to use flash, without flash is usually the best possible image.
Last edited by normhead; 10-19-2017 at 09:20 AM.