Which one? I really don't think that Pentax K-7, 5, 3 are flagship. If it does, then Nikon D7000 series are flagship but they aren't since they have a real flagship: D500.

[SOldBear]

According to Merriam-Webster:

flagship:

1. the ship that carries the commander of a fleet or subdivision of a fleet and flies the commander's flag
2. the finest, largest, or most important one of a series, network, or chain <the company's flagship store>

By (2), K10D, K20D, K-7, K-5, K-3, and K-3II are Pentax's flagship DSLRs. Note that "flagship" and "pro-consumer" are NOT mutually exclusive. The question "such and such is flagship or pro-consumer" is meaningless.

Having said that, who cares whether they are flagships, who even care D7000 or D500 is Nikon's flagship. If you like a camera, buy it; if you don't like it, don't buy it. Why getting hung up on semantics?
___________________________________________________
Added after reading dcshooter's post below and after checking out rlatjsrud's old posts:

I'm sorry for feeding the tr0ll.

Request to Admin: Please give us a way to "thumb down" a post.

[beholder3]

Which one? I really don't think that Pentax K-7, 5, 3 are flagship. If it does, then Nikon D7000 series are flagship but they aren't since they have a real flagship: D500.

The D500 is a crippled down niche camera, certainly not a flagship. More of a KS1 type camera for low quality topics and shooters such as fast moving objects where you have to use a spray and pray approach.

Why the D500 certainly is no "flagship" (no matter what their marketing department wants the fanboys to believe):

• It doesn't offer any sort of image stabilization in the camera.
• It is way behind the crowd with a 2005 level of resolution.
• Not fully featured with astrotracker.
• Missing any innovative things like pixel shift making the retro-level-resolving power even worse
• Not even GPS built in

For those wannabe photographers whose skills are so poor that they need even more autofocus support, it might be the right underarm crutch, though. For each their own. But flagship, not really.

[Adam]

The D500 is a crippled down niche camera, certainly not a flagship. More of a KS1 type camera for low quality topics and shooters such as fast moving objects where you have to use a spray and pray approach.

Pretty far from niche, actually. The D500 is designed for sports photographers (an update to the aging D300s), which is the market segment where Canon and Nikon make the big bucks.

Shooting with crop lenses makes a lot of sense for sports, since it shaves a lot of bulk off your kit, and that can yield better hand-held stability and mobility in the field.

Which one? I really don't think that Pentax K-7, 5, 3 are flagship.

They were all flagships at some point

Adam
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[beholder3]

Pretty far from niche, actually. The D500 is designed for sports photographers (an update to the aging D300s), which is the market segment where Canon and Nikon make the big bucks.

Sports photography is already a small niche all by itself. Check flickr and instagram to see if sports is more mainstream than kitten pictures. It is not.
Add a rip-off price beyond the $2000 barrier to it and you are in very, very small niche territory. Even $1000 makes everything a niche.
Profitable is nice, but that doesnt change the niche aspect. Hasselblad created very profitable Lunars...

The general prediction is that most of "sports photography" will be dead within the next few years (if it is not already), since it's a topic where video is much better and the camera users will be replaced by drone pilots more and more. Algorithms will replace the remaining human part in there, because it is so easy to replace.



.

[BigMackCam]

The K-10D, K-20D, K-7, K-5, K-5II, K-5IIs, K3 and arguably the K-3II have all been Pentax's flagship cameras - ie. the top of the Pentax range at the time they were released to market.

I don't really understand labelling cameras as "entry level", "pro-sumer", "professional" etc. - I just don't get the point of it. There are professionals using iPhones as their main cameras - does that mean the iPhone is considered a "professional" camera?

[Sandy Hancock]

Which one? I really don't think that Pentax K-7, 5, 3 are flagship.

It doesn't matter what you think. At the time, they were the best APS-C cameras Pentax produced, so they were Pentax's APS-C flagships *by definition*. Of course, the 645D was the true Pentax flagship during much of that period.

The D500 does not currently exist in the market. It will not be the "flagship" APS-C camera until it does. I'm sure Nikon would consider two or three of their Full Frame DSLR's to remain above the D500 even after it's released.

Anyway, it's all semantic bullsh*t. If a camera has the feature set you want at a viable price-point, buy it.

[zzeitg]

Having said that, who cares whether they are flagships

If you are a snob and all you need is to show that you have the best - well let's say the most expensive - kind of stuff then surely you need a flagship







Is K-7/5/3 a good camera? No doubts. Confirmed by: Pentax K-3

[BigMackCam]

The D500 is a crippled down niche camera, certainly not a flagship. More of a KS1 type camera for low quality topics and shooters such as fast moving objects where you have to use a spray and pray approach.

Why the D500 certainly is no "flagship" (no matter what their marketing department wants the fanboys to believe):

• It doesn't offer any sort of image stabilization in the camera.
• It is way behind the crowd with a 2005 level of resolution.
• Not fully featured with astrotracker.
• Missing any innovative things like pixel shift making the retro-level-resolving power even worse
• Not even GPS built in

For those wannabe photographers whose skills are so poor that they need even more autofocus support, it might be the right underarm crutch, though. For each their own. But flagship, not really.

I'm Pentax through and through, but the D500 looks like a pretty special camera to me, with an *excellent* feature set. If I was a Nikon guy and wanted an APS-C sensor camera, I'd be excited about it. The K-S1 is an excellent camera, but not even close to the D500, surely?

[Sandy Hancock]

The K-S1 is an excellent camera, but not even close to the D500, surely?

You're not seriously comparing a camera pitched specifically for professional sports photographers to an entry-level compact camera selling for 20% of the price , are you?

[BigMackCam]

You're not seriously comparing a camera pitched specifically for professional sports photographers to an entry-level compact camera selling for 20% of the price , are you?

I wasn't, no - but beholder3 was:

The D500 is a crippled down niche camera, certainly not a flagship. More of a KS1 type camera for low quality topics and shooters such as fast moving objects where you have to use a spray and pray approach.

As I said, the K-S1 is a nice camera, but not even in the same ballpark as the D500

---------- Post added 02-16-2016 at 10:15 AM ----------

The general prediction is that most of "sports photography" will be dead within the next few years (if it is not already), since it's a topic where video is much better and the camera users will be replaced by drone pilots more and more. Algorithms will replace the remaining human part in there, because it is so easy to replace.

I'm sorry, but I think that's a ridiculous notion. Videography and photography stand apart as two entirely different means of recording and presenting sports. Video may be the preferred means for online distribution channels, but offline and paper-based news / magazines will still require a great deal of photographic content. And as for drones, I'd hazard a guess that the increasing number of problems - relating to safety and legal issues - will result in regulation and / or legislation that will limit their use. None of which has anything to do with the fact that cameras being released now are relevant to today's requirements - not what is likely to be required "within the next few years".

EDIT: Regarding video vs. photography, you also forget that in sport, the rights to film and broadcast an event will usually be held by one organisation, or at most a very limited number. The remaining legitimate news media primarily depends on written word and photographs. How do you suppose they'll get their material if "sports photography" is dead??

[Sandy Hancock]

I wasn't, no - but beholder3 was:

Well it all just gets sillier then. I filter a lot of verbose threads by just reading posts from those I respect. Sorry for impugning you in this nonsense.

To re-iterate, think about the feature set you want/need, and the amount you're willing to pay, and make a choice.

[BigMackCam]

Well it all just gets sillier then. I filter a lot of verbose threads by just reading posts from those I respect. Sorry for impugning you in this nonsense.

No worries I should filter the same way... seems I read an awful lot of silly threads these days...

[zzeitg]

No worries I should filter the same way... seems I read an awful lot of silly threads these days...

Yeah, I also have the feeling sometimes that people start to blame their equipment far before they've really explored it's limits. All the way around, I think there are very narrow fields only, where Pentax can't provide the right solution. And I'm wondering if there are really so many guys between us, who specialise exactly in these gaps.

[BigMackCam]

Yeah, I also have the feeling sometimes that people start to blame their equipment far before they've really explored it's limits. All the way around, I think there are very narrow fields only, where Pentax can't provide the right solution. And I'm wondering if there are really so many guys between us, who specialise exactly in these gaps.

Quite. I think many people forget that, prior to the 90s, professional photographers in all fields were using film bodies with just a fraction of the capabilities and functionality of even the cheapest DSLRs of today. They got their photographs through technique. Any of the latest cameras will do a fine job in pretty much every field if the photographer learns to get the best out of their equipment.