[simon_199]

I have seen there are a few users who have both the K-3 and the K-S1. I'd like to replace my k200D and at current prices the K-3 seems a relatively good value....however...thinking about my shooting habits, i realized that i don't need some of the extra features it has, and if i wanted to spend some money i'd be better off with a cheaper body and some nice sharp piece of Limited glass from the used market.

Compared to my k200 i'd like a bigger viewfinder, greater high ISO capabilities and live view with focus peaking to aid me with my MF lenses, all the rest is secondary. I would get all of this with anything currently offered by RICOH...and right now there's a deal on a new K-S1 with DA L 18-55 and 50-200 for 475€. It's dirt cheap as i can sell the lenses for maybe 100€ and get a new body for less than 400€. The "pure" image quality is there with the 20MP sensor, rarely i shoot scenes where the AF is stressed to its limits, so far i was never in a situation where i would have needed WR (and most of my lenses aren't WR either...) and often i would have liked my k200D to be lighter on my neck...

The problem is...there are no stores that carry it around and i'd be buying blindly. How dreadful are the ergonomics ? I have a Ricoh KR-10M film camera which has a grip much shallower than my k200D but that would be fine. Comparing the size using photos on the web it seems that the K-S1 has an even smaller grip

Of course it's just a matter of holding a most of the weight of the lens with the left hand, but i guess i will never know without trying it in person

[clackers]

Weight on your left, Simon, letting your fingers manual focus easily, right hand very relaxed with pinky and even ring finger curled underneath the body depending on your hand size. :-)

[Clothears]

The problem is...there are no stores that carry it around (here) and i'd be buying blindly.

Are you sure about the lack of stores? Once I started looking I found a store about 25 miles away and then a bit more looking I found a store 7 miles from where I live.

[simon_199]

Well there is a larve consumer electronics vendor in my country that supposedly carries the k-s1 (it's on their online store). However when i visited some local outlets...no luck.

That offer is going to expire soon. I think it is a good price...maybe i'll decide to bet on the K-S1 in spite of all the bad comments about its design.

But the user base is still small, there isn't much enthusiasm around this camera....

[THoog]

I suspect the enthusiasm will go up as the price goes down... Also, those of us who do like the K-S1 are tired of arguing about it, and just quietly enjoy our cameras. Looking at your lens list, most of them would be fine with the K-S1. Around 500g is my breaking point where the small grip becomes an issue. I shot manual focus film cameras with thinner grips for 20+ years, so the thinner grip and smaller body feels more natural to me than the typical fat grip on most DSLRs.

[mtngal]

I love my K-S1, its my day to day go-to camera. While it feels completely different than the K3, I much prefer it now. For whatever reason, I don't have the same camera shake problems that I had with the K3. I've even thought about getting a K-S2 to go with the S1 so that I would have a lighter weight WR camera. But somehow that seems silly since I think I can manage the K3 on those occasions I want WR. It must sound strange to say that my K3 backs up the S1. It's been so long since I used a film camera, I can't remember how I used it. But I guess it's not all that different than shooting with an ME.

[monochrome]

It's been so long since I used a film camera, I can't remember how I used it. But I guess it's not all that different than shooting with an ME.

I think many of us have forgotten what to do with our left hands when holding a camera - and many more of us never learned. They don't put those 'How to hold your camera' and 'How to focus your camera' pages in the User Guides any more.

[THoog]

I love my K-S1, its my day to day go-to camera. While it feels completely different than the K3, I much prefer it now. For whatever reason, I don't have the same camera shake problems that I had with the K3. I've even thought about getting a K-S2 to go with the S1 so that I would have a lighter weight WR camera. But somehow that seems silly since I think I can manage the K3 on those occasions I want WR. It must sound strange to say that my K3 backs up the S1. It's been so long since I used a film camera, I can't remember how I used it. But I guess it's not all that different than shooting with an ME.

I may add a K-S2 to my collection for shooting with heavier lenses. It falls between the K-x and K-r in size (profile dimensions very close to the K-x, but with higher "shoulders" like the K-r, and a very flat grip profile). The K-r, which also has a fairly flat grip, is one of the more comfortable bodies for my hands.

The P30T that I used for many years had a pretty substantial thumbrest as well as a small bulge in front, making it quite a bit thicker than the ME Super, though thinner than the K-S1. It still feels as comfortable as an old pair of slippers. But if you want to talk strange and uncomfortable grips, the P5's angular grip takes the prize. I couldn't use that thing unless I put a power winder on it.

Someone told me that I hold a camera "wrong" in portrait orientation, since I usually hold the body with the grip on the bottom. I had to dig out my ME Super User Guide to prove that once upon a time, it was okay to hold the body either way.

[simon_199]

I love my K-S1, its my day to day go-to camera. While it feels completely different than the K3, I much prefer it now. For whatever reason, I don't have the same camera shake problems that I had with the K3. I've even thought about getting a K-S2 to go with the S1 so that I would have a lighter weight WR camera. But somehow that seems silly since I think I can manage the K3 on those occasions I want WR. It must sound strange to say that my K3 backs up the S1. It's been so long since I used a film camera, I can't remember how I used it. But I guess it's not all that different than shooting with an ME.

Nice to read such a positive opinion In the meantime i have decided that even if the current offer is good...it is wiser to wait till the K-S2 hits the shelves, since the wait is short. So that i can have the complete picture. Buying the K-S1 blindly without even trying it (i will try to find some store where i can do it) just "because it's cheap" is a rushed decision.

Probably the K-S2 will be the perfect replacement for my k200D. The only step back in ergonomics is the top LCD but i think i can live without it. Plus the collapsible WR lens with DC motor will bring something more to my lens collection as opposed to an useless double kit zoom that i don't need with the hassle of having to sell it.

[mtngal]

Nice to read such a positive opinion In the meantime i have decided that even if the current offer is good...it is wiser to wait till the K-S2 hits the shelves, since the wait is short. So that i can have the complete picture. Buying the K-S1 blindly without even trying it (i will try to find some store where i can do it) just "because it's cheap" is a rushed decision.

Probably the K-S2 will be the perfect replacement for my k200D. The only step back in ergonomics is the top LCD but i think i can live without it. Plus the collapsible WR lens with DC motor will bring something more to my lens collection as opposed to an useless double kit zoom that i don't need with the hassle of having to sell it.

Very wise words - buying a camera just because it is cheap is always a lousy idea. Photography is a compromise enough as it is, getting a camera you aren't happy with is a waste of money, no matter how good of a "deal" you get it for.

However, I didn't follow those words. Not only did I buy the K-S1 blind, I accidentally bought it - I hadn't meant to buy it at all. I was just checking out specs and the prices of it at various places. I was interested in it because of its small size and light weight, a couple of days before I had used the K3 to shoot some ballroom dancing and by the end of a couple of nights I was in a fair amount of pain, enough to discourage me from using the camera again. So my interest was strictly academic, with a vague idea that it might be a nice idea, but I had no intention of buying it right away. The camera I accidentally bought wasn't even the color I thought I wanted (I had been eying the blue one). But by the time the camera came 2 days later, and I felt how light it was, I knew it was the right camera for me, and I even fell in love with the color.

The only problem with such a happy story is that I thought a white camera would look better as a unicorn than a panda bear, so I just had to add a silver lens... or two... or three... or four. And it was so liberating, such a joy to use the camera with the small DA Limited lenses, that I just had to add the 100 WR to my camera bag, to replace the heavy Viv S1 105 macro I was struggling with (and was finding myself leaving at home most of the time). My budget has been blown totally out of the water, and I'm not going to be buying a K-S2 anytime soon! But I have no regrets, the K-S1 is light enough that I can continue to enjoy taking pictures and being delighted with the results.

Prior to owning a K5, I thought not having a top LCD would be a problem. But I don't miss it at all. I had more or less stopped using it when I got the K5 - the information menu system on the back LCD has more information/easier to use and I found myself using it more and more instead of the top LCD. So for me it turned out to be a non-issue.

---------- Post added 02-16-15 at 06:47 PM ----------

I think many of us have forgotten what to do with our left hands when holding a camera - and many more of us never learned. They don't put those 'How to hold your camera' and 'How to focus your camera' pages in the User Guides any more.

The funny thing is that I must have always supported the camera with my left hand when shooting film. I have small hands and when I tried a K10 with a grip, I couldn't manage it at all - my fingers couldn't reach the focus ring easily from under the grip and I was using a number of my old manual focus lenses, with zooms at the time for modern lenses. It was enough of a problem that I've never owned a grip for any of the cameras I own.

[mtngal]

Time to revive this thread. Anyone can post K-S1 pictures on it - show off your photos!

To kick-start it:

Saturday morning eclipse. Not the best shot in the world, there was a certain amount of moisture in the air, making it harder than it might otherwise have been to get a sharp image. Also, while I had a certain amount of trouble manually focusing, the focus peaking with the K-S1 made it much easier than with the K3.



For the past week I've been shooting with the DA HD 40 Ltd. I haven't been entirely happy with the lens and wasn't sure if it were a problem with the lens, the camera or me. After shooting brick walls and deciding it's not decentered, and shooting various subjects to check that I've fine-tuned the focus appropriately, I came to the conclusion that it must be me. And I think I've now become friends with the lens.

A lonely bench.



Silly picture from my office, but I rather liked it. Focus was right-on the center of the pencil sharpener. Taken at f2.8.



Let's see some other pictures with our cute, little cameras!

[robthebloke]

Similar story to me with the k-s1 and the FA43. Initially I kept missing focus on the shots (it's not the lens, it works fine on my k-3). Eventually worked out it was slight movement in the camera when I was pressing the trigger. A slightly bigger grip would help with that! Once I figured that out though, I adjusted the way I held the camera, and now all is well.

I'm actually fairly impressed with it. I'm housebound at the moment with a fractured vertebra in my spine, so haven't used it in anger yet. I did however run some non-scientific tests against my k-5 & k-3. Well, it puts the k-5 to shame in the high ISO and sharpness stakes, and comes fairly close to the k-3. (I actually think the noise at high ISO is more tasteful than the noise from the k-3. It's slightly noisier, but seems to retain more detail and sharpness, and is aesthetically more pleasing)

Aside from the lack of a control wheel (which frankly is no show stopper), it's a damn fine little camera.

[Clothears]

A bit early for our oak tree and beech hedge. Wheat not doing much in the field beyond, either.

[mtngal]

Similar story to me with the k-s1 and the FA43. Initially I kept missing focus on the shots (it's not the lens, it works fine on my k-3). Eventually worked out it was slight movement in the camera when I was pressing the trigger. A slightly bigger grip would help with that! Once I figured that out though, I adjusted the way I held the camera, and now all is well.

I'm actually fairly impressed with it. I'm housebound at the moment with a fractured vertebra in my spine, so haven't used it in anger yet. I did however run some non-scientific tests against my k-5 & k-3. Well, it puts the k-5 to shame in the high ISO and sharpness stakes, and comes fairly close to the k-3. (I actually think the noise at high ISO is more tasteful than the noise from the k-3. It's slightly noisier, but seems to retain more detail and sharpness, and is aesthetically more pleasing)

Aside from the lack of a control wheel (which frankly is no show stopper), it's a damn fine little camera.

Funny thing is that I had no trouble with the 43, it was like I was instantly friends with it.

I shot with both the K3 and the K-S1 for the eclipse, and decided that I not only don't mind having only 1 wheel, in some ways I felt more comfortable with it. To me it's no big deal to push the button to change what the wheel was changing. I had more trouble getting used to where the K-S1 has the button to change the ISO. I missed the K3's dedicated ISO button on the top. But that's not a big deal either, just something to think about. Just about anything that gets me to slow down and think about my settings and what I'm doing is better for me. If I rush too much I find myself doing something wrong/stupid. But then, I'm no pro and usually don't shoot sports.

[ppohja]

After the price dump, I decided to sell my K-30 and get this one. The discounted colours were the in the sweets collection, of which I happened to choose the strawberry cake. The logic-side of my brain is suggesting this color as a good choice for passing the camera on to one of the daughters (4 yrs and 2 yrs with the usual girlish love for pink) when the time comes.

So! I've had the time to play around with the camera for one hour so far. The UI seems more logical. I never learned to choose the autofocus point with the K-30, so I used it with the centre autofocus. With this one, it was easily found. The effect and scenery modes were easy to find - I was never able to activate those in the K-30 without looking up the manual. When moving from K-20 to K-30 I thought that the lack of top LCD display would be a problem. It wasn't. When moving from K-30 to K-S1 I though that lack of the second wheel would be a problem. It isn't. Actually, the use of only one wheel seems more logical so far - with the P mode being an exception. The smaller size is a big boon for me.

I've tried to find pics of the K-S1 body with silver lenses from the net - without much success. The shipped kit lens looks OK with the body, but generally all the other lenses are black. Does any of you have this camera with its colouring in white background (white/grey; cotton beige; or any of the sweets collection) and silver lenses? Do the silver lenses match the combination, or am I destined to go on with the kit lens from now on?