Originally posted by jab2980 I'm weighing the importance of the benefits that I would receive by upgrading from my K5IIS to the K1 specific to wedding photography. Here is what I've come up with so far in terms of justification for laying down that much money:
1. One stop more of usable ISO. From what I've seen, I can get print-quality shots with the K5II up to 1600 ISO without losing too much clarity/color depth, and ISO 3200 looks comparable on the K1.
2. Superior autofocus on the K1. Many reviews have stated that AF speed and accuracy is superior. Bonus points if it can be confirmed that the tracking speed (C mode) is considerably faster (for walking down the aisle shots).
3. Dual memory card slots! This almost justifies the purchase in itself.
There are a few negatives other than cost including the zooms that I was planning on using are APS-C (Sigma 17-50 and 50-150) but I'll leave that for another thread.
I know there have been several people on here who have done well shooting weddings with the K-5II and much less advanced bodies, but these advances look like they would give me an unquestionable advantage.
Does this sound reasonable and am I missing anything?
Thanks!
Well, if you want it and you have the money, go for it. There is no wrong decision if you just want it because you want it.
I would dearly LOVE to buy a K1 and the three Ltd's for wedding work, but the market I'm in is slow as creeping death, and right now money is a bit tight. So just because I want it is not enough to make the sacrifice.
Now do I need it? I personally don't and I'm not sure anyone really does for wedding work. If you can't shoot a professional $1500 wedding with a K5II and some good lenses, you just can't shoot and need to work on that first. Case in point: we did just that today. I shot the K3II and the wife shot the K5IIs and 1000 photos later it looks great and the bride will be well pleased. All the work on our website is crop camera from the past 15 years and a lot of that work was with sub 10mp crop cameras.
One major point: I have stopped using the 2.8 zooms mostly with the k5/k3 and now shoot a lot of my wedding work with the 21mm, 35mm and 70mm ltds. They're not even remotely fast lenses but they are very sharp, have lovely color and weigh almost nothing on a K5/k3 body. The fact is that a K1 with a 24-70 zoom on it is 4+ pounds. There is no way I'm carrying that and lifting it to my face 650 times in a day. That's just the way it is. I'd go the additional pound for the K1 and 31mm or 43mm or 77, but even if I had the money the zooms are out for me. If you are under 30 years old it may not be an issue...
To answer your questions more directly:
1.) We never really shoot over iso 800 and use flash/fill flash about 95% of the time.
2.) I've never missed a walking down the isle shot with a manual focus film camera or any AF camera I've ever used. Not sure why it's so hard for everyone else. Maybe more helpful is my wife has no issues with the K5II and those shots with the AF. We also have NEVER used AF-c at a wedding, EVER. Not even sure why anyone would.
3.) As for dual card slots, I personally have never had an issue using one. (Shooting weddings exclusively digital since 2005) I do like that the K3II has 2, but only because I write raw to 1 and jpeg to the other. On the K5II we use we just write raws. No big deal really either way.
Again, if it turns you on and you have the money do it, love it, and don't look back.
If you need to justify it because you don't have the money, forget it. The benefits in no way justify the cost for weddings. At least in my opinion. You would get way more bang for the buck going for a K3II, particularly if you can snag one at a sale price like $729 in a few months during the annual Holiday Pentax blow out.
We plan on upgrading the wife's K5IIs this Holiday season with another k3II on sale. (But if our money situation turns around she gets my K3II and I'm getting a K1.
)
---------- Post added 09-25-16 at 01:54 AM ----------
Originally posted by focusr3 Sad but true story.
As someone who recently hired a wedding photographer for my own wedding. I can say that my now wife got a "checklist" from one of her wedding boards that stated "make sure your photographer uses FF camera. I laughed she said well it must be important because it was question number 3. So it could help with business cause a lot of brides use these checklist as gospel and if they nor the grooms knows any better you could be missing some gig's.
We are getting that question asked a lot. Our answer is "do you like our display albums and prints?" They say "yes" and we say "none of them were shot with FF." The discussion goes on from there, but every bride that has asked that question has booked us...
One bride said a photographer she met with made a big deal about how her work was all FF, and the bride told us she thought that photographer's work looked like crap and she booked us.
All the expensive gear in the world won't make up for not knowing what you're doing.
---------- Post added 09-25-16 at 01:55 AM ----------
Originally posted by Digitalis To test this, I suggest you get the bride to RUN down the aisle...
LOL, That's funny!