[Ken T]

I've just bought the K5 kit from adorama, body + 18-55 WR + 50-200 WR at 999$. Good price I guess ? I can hardly wait for it to arrive Thanks for all the suggestions!

Congratulation.

[top-quark]

If you can get a used K-5 for a good price, go for it. I'd advise against a K-30 if you actually want a K-5 (or K-5 II) since you'll just end up buying the better model later on anyway. K-5 will autofocus fine in sunrise / sunset light (think about it: it's a lot more light than indoors).

Lenses: Get two or three good ones that cover all your needs. Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 is best price / performance by a country mile. Inexpensive second hand (~€270) or comes with a six year guarantee bought new. No need for a 35mm F2.4 then. Pentax 55-300mm is an excellent, inexpensive telephoto. If you want a fast tele, the Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 is relatively inexpensive and very good (big and heavy though). Do not get hung up on the idea that you need weather resistant lenses. Apart from the two kit zooms, these are all really expensive and offer nothing over the Tamrons. Apart from maybe a macro lens, I wouldn't consider prime lenses to start with. I know whereof I speak: when I got my first DSLR, I lusted after the limited primes and the like and then found I didn't use them overmuch. That's a lot of money for little return. Same goes for weather resistant lenses. I persuaded myself that I needed WR lenses for my WR body. I got the 18-135 and found it underwhelming and then the DA* 16-50mm and didn't like it at all. Stupid thing is: my camera might like shooting in the rain but I don't!

Tripod: Buy right or buy twice. I have a carbon fibre Manfrotto and it should be good for a lifetime. You can go cheaper (Giotto, for example) and still get decent quality. Anything much below ~€150 should be avoided. More expensive (Gitzo, for example) won't buy you all that much, unless you're going to be taking bird / wildlife shots with extreme telephoto lenses.

Filters: Square filters with a holder are a bit less convenient than screw-on ones, but will fit any lens - you just need an adaptor with the correct thread size. You can stack square filters without causing vignetting too. Cokin P are probably adequate. I've got Lee, but I'm not persuaded that the extra expense was worth it. You can go down the route of getting, say, 77mm round filters and then using step-up rings to adapt them to your other lenses, but this is hardly more convenient than getting square filters in the first place.

[DSims]

Sounds like you made a good choice!

I'd still definitely consider primes soon, but inexpensive ones similar to what I mentioned. They'll come close enough to the more expensive ones. I can't think of a better way to find out whether you like to use primes or not. Just because they'll help you get images you can't get with a zoom doesn't mean you'll appreciate them, but many people do.

The best tripod is the one you have with you, so I don't see a problem with starting with one of those cheap, small and light ones (generally under $40). I still have mine, and it's still the easiest one to take when space or weight is an issue.

Your memory card can actually matter. Try to get a genuine Sandisk Extreme or better from a reputable dealer.

[Hattifnatt]

Sounds like you made a good choice!

I'd still definitely consider primes soon, but inexpensive ones similar to what I mentioned. They'll come close enough to the more expensive ones. I can't think of a better way to find out whether you like to use primes or not. Just because they'll help you get images you can't get with a zoom doesn't mean you'll appreciate them, but many people do.

The best tripod is the one you have with you, so I don't see a problem with starting with one of those cheap, small and light ones (generally under $40). I still have mine, and it's still the easiest one to take when space or weight is an issue.

Your memory card can actually matter. Try to get a genuine Sandisk Extreme or better from a reputable dealer.

Thank you all for the replies... now I have to wait until New Easter when a friend will bring me the camera (I shipped to his US address). I'll spend my time reading theory about DSLR photography.

[Hattifnatt]

Finally I got my camera and the 2 lenses so, after spending one day updating the firmware and going through absolutely all the settings, I figured it was time for some action. First target was a park close to my place. Once I've got there with the gear, I realized that I have like 30 min of daylight left, so I got into panic mode and instead of testing different ISO, aperture and shutter speed for the same frame, I've started shooting like there is no tomorrow. I've also come up with the this "brilliant" idea: I noted that somebody said on this thread that the 18-55 WR has a sweet spot at F6.7... so my idea was to shoot in Hyper Manual mode M, use green button to let the camera suggest the settings, lock the exposure with AE-L and then go to 6.7 (or close to it). In practice it turned out to be a very bad idea, because I used ISO 100, so I ended up with a very slow shutter speed. Hands shaky after too much coffee, no tripod... ruined almost all the shots till I realized what's going on. I also had some problems figuring out the shutter speed from the top LCD display: for instance, camera showed 30, I thought this is 30 s (when it's really 1/30s) and trying to achieve a faster shutter speed I went the wrong way, ending up with an even slower shutter speed I would have realized this if I wouldn't have disabled the status screen to save power. Then at some point I started boosting up the ISO as it got dark, but it was already too late.

When I got home, I discovered most of the shots were blurry and then got frustrated and I really went MEDIEVAL on post-processing. The fact that I was using Lightroom for the first time did not help either

Results: see below.







A bit disappointed about this failure, next day I went to another area with the 50-200. I was a little bit more satisfied this time. Pictures were not that blurry anymore, but I lacked inspiration and subjects so I ended up keeping just 2 frames (of around 25):




Overall I'm very happy with the K5, as it seems it has great potential.... unlike me A big thanks to everybody for the suggestions and please don't be hard on me, it's the first time I ever use a DSLR.

PS: I need to give up coffee as fast as possible, or get a good tripod.

[grispie]

I've also come up with the this "brilliant" idea: I noted that somebody said on this thread that the 18-55 WR has a sweet spot at F6.7...

LOL sorry for the "brilliant" suggestion!