Although I am not in the discussion yet, I am gonna give you my two cents anyway...
I made my choice at the end of Febuary when the K-3 was much more expensive than it is now. My main reason was the AF. While I am truly not a fan of the K-3's AF, it is still a noticeable improvement over the K-5 II and with the firmware upgrades out there, the K-3 is now in an area that I would consider "workable". Now I can get a reasonable amount of good shots when I go to a dancing tournament.
But even when shooting portraits, I think a good AF is often highly
underrated! I tend to talk to my models, get them to laugh or do funny things naturally. Sure I can tell them to do poses and I am not above doing that. Looking back I'd say that many of the best shots I have made were not strictly posed, but quite spontaneous. If your AF doesn't work correctly in those situations, you lose. Remember that portraits are often shot relatively open, so the DoF is pretty narrow.
Now (with current firmware) I'd trust my K-3 not to let me down. In case you are wondering, I am no professional. But while it is not so absolutely vital for me making money that I get exactly that money shot, I don't want to miss the moment when the person I am shooting has a really cute smile on his or her face. And when I shoot photos of children, I can't really make them stand still.
Ok, I am going a little overboard here. What I am basicly trying to say is: AF
does matter and the K-3's is better.
I have only shot with a K-5 II on a couple of occasions (I don't own one myself), but in those cases I was not thrilled by the AF and quite a few reviews on the subject seems to think the same: AF still isn't Pentax's strongest side, but the K-3 is a good step in the right direction.
Apart from the AF, the K-3 has higher resolution (although this isn't important to you) and quite a bit more responsive (at least that's what I felt). Both are built very well (apart from the battery grip) and have great image quality.
Oh, there is one thing I forgot: The gun metal version of the K-3 looks
really sexy!
Regards,
Pix
---------- Post added 10-11-14 at 09:03 PM ----------
Originally posted by jatrax K-3 is:
- faster more responsive
- AF is faster and surer, not by a lot, but enough to be noticeable
- more focus points
As I was saying.
The amount of focus points however is really a non-issue (IMHO). There are more points but they are not spread out more which I find very disappointing. Especially with portraits I'd like more points to the side because moving the camera after focus with 85mm and f/2 is usually a bad idea.
Regards,
Pix