In the years I've been shooting Pentax - which is most of the years I've been into photography - continuous AF tracking has probably been the single most griped-about issue. Often with
no justification (because the user isn't bringing skill to the table), sometimes with
some justification (because they're applying good techniques and have learned their equipment), and only occasionally with
full justification because - for their specific use cases - there genuinely are better cameras. But as you rightly point out, better in
one area doesn't usually mean better in
all areas, and so we have choices to make based on our own use cases.
For
my own use cases, Pentax AF works very well - but I'm not an especially demanding user and my expectations aren't as high as some folks. So, I work with what I've got, and do the best that I can with it. Most of the time, I'm perfectly satisfied.
I can't recall the thread, but someone recently posted a fascinating comparison of test results from different manufacturers' AF systems. What was really interesting is that while some systems were very good at certain specific things, they were
terrible at others, and no single system was great in every scenario (Sony included). So it really does come down to use case. If you can find me a camera that's best for portraiture, landscape, astro, sport, birds in flight, tracking faces, tracking fast-moving vehicles, doesn't suffer from PDAF artefacts from the sensor, is weather resistant, heavily built, has in-body image stabilisation and can be bought for < $1,500, with lenses that perform quickly enough to leverage the AF performance yet don't cost a kidney each, I'll buy one
Incidentally, I'm not 100% tied to Pentax. I shoot Sony A-mount and - for adapted vintage and A-mount lenses - E-mount too, though I don't have any of the very recent gear. I like my Sony gear a lot, but not enough to drag me away from Pentax....
Maybe I really am tied to Pentax after all
Seriously, though, there's nothing wrong with shooting more than one system if you need the best performance in conflicting areas. So long as you bear in mind the cost of compatible lenses.
There probably
is something wrong with expecting one system to do everything brilliantly, though. I certainly don't know of one right now...
Last edited by BigMackCam; 04-05-2019 at 03:09 PM.