Hi,
My name is Francois and for now I am active jobwise in the Netherlands. I have been reading a lot of articles here and I decided to join in with the fun every now and then with some posts. I have been shooting Pentax since about 2005 or 2006...can't remember so well anymore (Pentax istDS).
In 2008 I managed to get hold of a fancy trio called the DA 21, DA 40 and DA 70. I also have the Zenitar 16 mm, the Pentax 16-45, an old 50mm F1.7 Pentax manual lens a well as a Metz 50 flash.
In 2010 I got myself the Pentax K-r which I think was the lowpoint of my acquisitions. Shitty camera to say the least (personal experience and evaluation - i.e. subjective).
It was so bad that I actually considered strongly to leave Pentax and join another brand. I decided to keep the camera and lenses and sidestep a bit by buying a Sony Nex 5n to compliment the Pentax where it had failures (focusing in tungsten for instance).
What did I not like about the K-r:
1. Unreliable focusing. Not only was it total crap in tungsten (front focusing) it was also unreliable in daylight. With my DA 40 I could lock focus on the subject at F2.8 and take 3 consecutive photos with the same exposure settings. The focus point was changing between them ....
2. Movie mode was included I guess to keep people quiet about requesting such a mode. It sucks donkey ballz compared to the Sony mirror less (unfair comparison for sure...but still). I think many if not all compact cameras had much better video capabilities. But I hear you say - its not for video but photos. Indeed. They could just have spared us the addition.
3. The viewfinder was of course smaller than my DS. I knew it beforehand, but still it was a point I did not like the more I used it.
4. Flash exposure....not consistent. I actually found out over the weekend that if I rather set the camera on shutter priority mode with 1/125 or 1/180 these inconsistencies are waaayyyy less than on aperture priority or P mode.
So needless to say the Sony got more and more use as a photo camera as well. Slow focusing compared to the Pentax, but it had more positive hits in focus than the Pentax (due to contrast detect I guess). As I said, contemplated to move away from pentax but what kept me from selling my gear was: My limited lenses.
If I revisited my photos made (mostly with the DS) the contrast and detail on these photos were just amazing. And using an adapter on the Sony showed me these lenses still perform really awesomely. The only drawback in my experience was the actual camera. So.....
I am "back" looking at re-investing in Pentax. The mirrorless cameras are not bad, but there is not a system that offers me the ease of use together with image quality that the pentax tend to offer. The Sony system is not bad...but the menu's......not good, the lack of viewfinder....not good. EVF - not doing it for me, and a lot of settings are just too deep in menus compared to even a mid or bottom range DSLR. And....I would also like to use my flash every now and then for portrait and group photos. And on a mirrorless its not so much fun holding with a flash attached.
Its a long introduction, but it hopefully gives you guys an idea of who I am. That I have Pentax experience under the belt. And that I am probably going to come around with some questions like:
1. Comparing K-5 IIs with K-3 for my purposes
2. Fleshing out and cleaning up my lens selection. I have a better idea now of what works for me, and what I probably should look for. Although I am still very much undecided.
Hope to see you around and looking forward to some interactions.
PS I am also on the dpreview forum....but also more a lurker than a poster.
Best wishes,
Francois