[CarlG]

Yeah. Being a pro somehow sounds a little better than being the owner of "pro" gear. But that's just me, I suppose.

[noelpolar]

I realise all that, but is the extra weight, size and price of FF worth it over crop, especially for a manufacturer with a small market share having to produce a whole new range of products?

Just trying to understand where TN is coming from.

Extra size and weight in Pentax world is still a choice AFTER you have a K-1....... the 31,43,77, 50s, K's, M's etc etc haven't changed size..... about 100grams is all it costs! Probally one of the biggest advantages to Pentax FF I reckon.

As Norm pointed out, those that wanted and could afford a 150-450 probally would of had it on their K3 or whatever anyway..... so still just another 100 grams. So it's really only the 2.8 zooms that do it..... and that's a choice as well... as the smaller Pentax versions work as well on FF as they did on a K5IIs etc.

[monochrome]

I realise all that, but is the extra weight, size and price of FF worth it over crop, especially for a manufacturer with a small market share having to produce a whole new range of products?

Just trying to understand where TN is coming from.

It's worth it to me. And that is the ONLY thing that matters to me. Tony Northrup's bloviations are meaningless.

[totsmuyco]

Actually I've learned something from him. I didn't know Canon had a 1.6 crop factor compared to other brands including Pentax which 1.5. Which means as he said, the sensor is about 9-10 percent smaller. I don't know how Canon users brag about this.

I also didn't know that m4/3 was kinda slow in AF. I'm just not sure if he's correct with the m4/3 AF. I know FTU tested the EM1 and the AF was really fast. As he said, probably that's just the EM1.

He also didn't mention anything about Fuji. Probably Fuji didn't make a mistake.

Actually, I don't take him seriously but, I find him entertaining.

[Pioneer]

After watching his video the thing that really struck me was that he didn't say a thing about focus.

Pentax absolutely needs to improve their auto focusing. I love the fact that Pentax is so backward compatible, but if that is hindering truly top notch auto focus then maybe it is time to move to a different mount.

I am not a Canon or a Nikon fan but I do own some of their equipment. The old 5D focuses faster than any of my Pentax equipment and the Nikon F6, a film camera, is amazingly fast. This is all old tech and yet Pentax still cannot out do it. Unless the K-1 is doing things with auto focus that I haven't heard about yet.

I think Tony was actually pretty nice to Ricoh/Pentax.

[shardulm]

I am not a Canon or a Nikon fan but I do own some of their equipment. The old 5D focuses faster than any of my Pentax equipment....

Accurately enough? I have a 5d partner who is usually frustrated with oof shots despite fast and confirmed focus.

[eyeball]

Although Tony Northrup tends to be sympatheitic to Pentax, his video criticism totally missed on several points.

Reasons for FF: One reason for Pentax going full frame is that there were so many users clamoring. My own reason had to do with my full-frame film lens collection, which I impatiently wanted to use, especially the wider angle ones that became telescoped to inconvenient lengths (unlike many, I find the range between 35-60mm an uninteresting dead zone.) And the large number of good, compatible vintage glass was a sort of selling point for the brand. Apparently along with many others, with the release of the K-1, I feel that Pentax/Ricoh has kept faith. TN's discussion totally missed this: the K-1, with its low price and exceptional feature set, was an arguably important marketing device, not just for new users, but for veterans who were getting ready to bail for lack of FF (there have been a few here).

In the meantime, I've picked up several APS bodies which I've come to enjoy, especially given the flexibility of digital post-processing. I joke that I could take a photo with the bottom of a beer bottle and make it come out ok with enough work. But over time, I've come to understand and respect APS-C as a serious format in its own right, and though I'm still looking forward to getting a K-1, it's now mostly to run wide angle primes and shift lenses. The image improvement that the larger sensor will provide is now more of a matter of curiosity than necessity.

No Lens Availability: Because you can develop a familiarity with a single focal length in a way that is too confusing for zooms, I prefer shooting primes when possible. In this regard, there are plenty of vintage lenses available, belying the criticism that lenses are unavailable for the K-1. My own experience with vintage lenses is that there are a good number of primes that provide high quality images on 20 MP K-S2, which is in some ways more demanding of spatial resolution than the K-1. TN's criticism of lens supply mistakenly ignores the availability older glass. Zooms, of course, are another story. Since aspherical elements and exotic glasses are now commonplace, the quality of modern zooms is unmatched by earlier versions.

Pentax also has a unique reputation for compactness, not only in its prime lenses, but in camera bodies as well. Pentax crop-sensor camera bodies are already relatively compact, but the main bulk in a camera bag has to do with the lens complement. For travelling, the larger size of the K-1 and its lenses is a disadvantage, especially if you use zooms, but it is possible to assemble a kit of small primes, limiteds and vintage, which are less bulky than other brands even in FF. However, while I've been toying with the idea of going to M43 for trips, I'm finding that I can do well with a couple of crop bodies with a 15mm/f4 limited and a 50mm/2.8 A macro, and with a 135mm/2.5 in the bag. A mix of new and old that I doubt TN would have considered.

Divided Resources: The camera is planned for a four year lifetime, which leaves resources for further development of APS-C, as we're seeing with the K-70. Pentax still needs to improve focusing, and tweak its sensor performance. The D500 has set new standards, which Ricoh will be matching as technology improves. (Movies also, for whomever is interested). But I'm thinking there will be APS-C advances over those next 4 years, which will not only increase performance of the newer crop of crop cameras (couldn't resist ), but will likely be incorporated in next-generation FF. And will we see the FF tilt screen on the next APS-C flagship? Instead of spreading resources too thin, I see the possibility for developmental synergy. I think TN missed that too.

TN just isn't Pentaxian.

[RobA_Oz]

After watching his video the thing that really struck me was that he didn't say a thing about focus.

Pentax absolutely needs to improve their auto focusing. I love the fact that Pentax is so backward compatible, but if that is hindering truly top notch auto focus then maybe it is time to move to a different mount.

I am not a Canon or a Nikon fan but I do own some of their equipment. The old 5D focuses faster than any of my Pentax equipment and the Nikon F6, a film camera, is amazingly fast. This is all old tech and yet Pentax still cannot out do it. Unless the K-1 is doing things with auto focus that I haven't heard about yet.

I think Tony was actually pretty nice to Ricoh/Pentax.

I didn't think from the start that his review of the K-1 was the fiasco that some people apparently saw it as. However, I'll reiterate my thought that his criticism of the K-1's AF was in part based on the fact that he'd developed a style of portraiture that arose from the abilities of the gear he uses, in that it involved a dynamic style of posing, and presumably his own movements as well. All that, of course, is nothing new - David Bailey and others were practising that style with film SLRs in the 1960s, all without a hint of auto-focus.

The main action I shoot is ballroom dancing - one of my other hobbies - and I don't find the K-1 has trouble maintaining focus in that. I've promised a friend I'd shoot some of his motorcycle racing some time, so I'll be interested to see how it performs in that sphere, too. Then again, I come from non-AF film shooting, so I don't let the camera do all the work for me, and I think it's pretty clear that the K-1 was in large part aimed at people like me. Given that, the imperative for developing an up-to-date AF system probably wasn't there for the K-1 team. Without doing rigorous testing, though, my impression is that it's noticeably faster than the K-3, which itself was an improvement on bodies that came before, so if your view is based on using models several generations old by now, then you might be forgiven for thinking it's still terrible. It isn't, but I expect the next Pentax flagship APS-C and 35FF bodies to be better again.

And I still don't think the K-1 was a mistake, to any degree.

[pathdoc]

IIRC TN uses a lot of Canon. Native-platform legacy glass is a door which is absolutely closed to him on that front, and maybe his mindset just isn't there.

[monochrome]

After watching his video the thing that really struck me was that he didn't say a thing about focus.

Pentax absolutely needs to improve their auto focusing. I love the fact that Pentax is so backward compatible, but if that is hindering truly top notch auto focus then maybe it is time to move to a different mount.

I am not a Canon or a Nikon fan but I do own some of their equipment. The old 5D focuses faster than any of my Pentax equipment and the Nikon F6, a film camera, is amazingly fast. This is all old tech and yet Pentax still cannot out do it. Unless the K-1 is doing things with auto focus that I haven't heard about yet.

I think Tony was actually pretty nice to Ricoh/Pentax.

Pentax AF is fine - good as anyone else's. They/re behind in tracking continuous autofocus, especially subjects moving toward the camera, PDAF eye recognition for studio portrait, and in lens motor technology.

It isn't the mount. It is the entire AF ecosystem, from the PDAF sensor (designed for APSc) through the coverage and display (in FF using an APSc sensor) to the alogorithms.

[beholder3]

I'd say it is "only" two things that are at the heart of things for the much criticized subarea of AF:
a) more processing speed of the input received from the AF sensors and the 360x240 pixel metering CMOS
b) smarter image recognition algorithms to actually keep track of an item recorded by the 360x240 sensor.

They need a faster processing hardware and better software.

[Big Dawg]

Easily enough done. Just sell an image you took with your APS-C Pentax and, viola! It's pro gear!

Exactly!!

[grahame]

I really have no idea how comes "K1 is a mistake".
although buying K1 might be a mistake for those don't appreciate Pentax's effort, and don't appreciate Pentax's fine glasses, but offering k1 for purchasing is defensively not a mistake!

[SteveD]

The Biggest MistakeTony Northrup Made. By his own use of the word "Biggest" he acknowledged that size matters.

[Wheatfield]

Pentax biggest mistake was selling the company to Hoya.

If Pentax hadn't sold to Hoya, the camera line would have stopped at the K10D. Hoya was a mixed bag. They didn't want the camera division, but were forced into it in order to get medical instruments. They didn't do much with the camera line, but they did keep the brand alive.
The world would be a different place if Ricoh had bought the camera division in 2007. Pentax as a company would have been broken up sooner, but Ricoh genuinely wanted the camera division.