[bessa-66]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at getting a new camera as my Kx is starting to show its age. I really enjoy shooting wildlife and landscapes, and my friends and I like taking landscape shots at night, so I'm looking for a camera that will handle this sort of thing well. I was looking at the K3. Will it cut the mustard? How good is it compared to, say , an Olympus mirrorless?

Thanks guys

[cleaverx]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at getting a new camera as my Kx is starting to show its age. I really enjoy shooting wildlife and landscapes, and my friends and I like taking landscape shots at night, so I'm looking for a camera that will handle this sort of thing well. I was looking at the K3. Will it cut the mustard? How good is it compared to, say , an Olympus mirrorless?

Thanks guys

Hard to answer, too many variables. What kind of lenses do you have? Full frame,,APS-C? etc. K-3 is awesome camera. Almost bought one, but end up getting K-1.
Far as landscapes, K-1 is awesome. Wildlife ...K-3 has faster FPS. There is also huge difference in price between K-1 and K-3.
K-3 will handle anything you ever wanted from camera. Not sure about Olympus mirror-less,,never owned one.
I would go for K-3. Awesome deals now from B&H. Get the battery grip for it also, you won't regret it. For the money I don't think there is better APS-C camera out there then K-3.

[BigMackCam]

The K-3 and Olympus mirrorless cameras are very different propositions - both have strengths and weaknesses.

The K-3 is my day-to-day camera and I love it - it's robust, has a large, bright optical viewfinder and a very capable APS-C sensor. The image quality is great, but the in-camera JPEG engine is only good rather than excellent, and I personally feel you need to shoot RAW and do some gentle post-processing in something like Lightroom in order to get the best from it. That post-processing can be largely automated, so this doesn't have to mean a large overhead of your time.

The Olympus mirrorless cameras are small, light, not as robust (in my view) and have micro four thirds sensors. This means that lenses with an equivalent field of view, used at the same apertures, will have greater depth of field. That can be good or bad depending on your creative priorities (how important is shallow depth of field in your photography?). However, there are some nice and pretty fast lenses available, which may make up for that to some extent. The smaller sensor also results in less dynamic range and performance at higher ISOs isn't quite as good. The electronic viewfinder in these cameras is a very different experience to the OVF in a DSLR... it's great for manual focus lenses and for shooting in less than ideal light, but you are seeing an electronic representation of a scene rather than the pure view from an OVF. I have cameras with both types of viewfinder and, again, they both have strengths and weaknesses.

I would pick the K-3 every time, but only you can really decide which is better for you, by looking at what features and capabilities matter most in your photography

[D1N0]

For landscape you need resolution, to get out the details. The K-3 II with it's 24mp sensor and pixel shift resolution and astrotracer for night shots would be ideal for that.

[pathdoc]

The Olympus mirrorless was something I briefly considered because of sentimentality and I liked the retro look, and it was small and handy (good for travelling). If I hadn't already been invested in a DSLR system, I might have gone for it; I consider it an excellent traveller's camera for someone stepping up from a cellphone or older point-and-shoot. I know of professionals who've made it work for them in a (small) studio setting, but that's under circumstances where they have all the light under their control and the dynamic range issues mentioned above do not come into play. 16MP on a micro 4/3 sensor is more than enough pixel pitch to play with under those circumstances.

However, I'm already invested in the Pentax system, and I didn't want two incompatible* sets of lenses. True, the film cameras have their own forward compatibility issues, but my DSLR can use ALL the lenses and my K-mount film cameras can (after a fashion) use all the Takumars, while even my Spotmatics can use a reversed DA Limited prime (for macro) if I hold the aperture lever open.


* = broadly speaking; I know the Olympus plus an adapter could have used the Takumar lenses with just as much ease as the K-5, but everything else suffers and the Pentax bodies could not have used the M4/3 glass.

[Pixelhdr]

I am a 1.2 systems person, meaning that I have my main Pentax system and also an Olympus m43 system. While the m43 is quite capable and can produce good results, it is not the system I turn to when I want something done with high degree of confidence. I mainly used the m43 when I don't want to bring the Pentax for reasons such as security and/or size. YMMV.

I had a Kx back in 2010; it is a very good camera. The lack of focus point indicators and rather loud mirror/shutter are the main weaknesses IMO. I have since upgraded to a K-5, then K-5IIs and now K-3II. I have no desire for K-1 because of the size especially for the lenses. I travel quite frequently and so size and weight are important factors for me. I also had a K-S2 for a short while. I like it a lot, especially the articulating screen. I replaced it with K-3II because of the pixel shift technology. The gain in IQ far outweighs losing the articulating screen. The AF in K-3II is a huge improvement over K-x.

I'd recommend K-3II if you want pixel shift and don't need a flash. I now actually like the built-in GPS because it allows me to pin point the locations of pictures taken. If you want the ultimate IQ and don't mind the weight, K-1 is your best option.

[UncleVanya]

I recently sent all my m43 great to my dad. He no longer was happy lugging a k3 around, it was too large and heavy for his needs. My GX7 and several lenses are now delighting him.

The summary above about relative strengths seems accurate. I carried the GX7 when I wanted more flexibility for less space and weight. I found it to make very good images, but not quite as good as the k3.

[bessa-66]

Thanks for the input guys, it's helped smooth out the decision. I have one proper Pentax lens, the 16-45mm, and several m42 lenses. I just realized that the difference in price between the two Pentaxs is quite large, and this may well be the deciding factor!
Does anyone know about the dynamic range of the K3?

---------- Post added 08-16-16 at 03:20 PM ----------

Hard to answer, too many variables. What kind of lenses do you have? Full frame,,APS-C? etc. K-3 is awesome camera. Almost bought one, but end up getting K-1.
Far as landscapes, K-1 is awesome. Wildlife ...K-3 has faster FPS. There is also huge difference in price between K-1 and K-3.
K-3 will handle anything you ever wanted from camera. Not sure about Olympus mirror-less,,never owned one.
I would go for K-3. Awesome deals now from B&H. Get the battery grip for it also, you won't regret it. For the money I don't think there is better APS-C camera out there then K-3.

Awesome, cheers!

[Des]

Does anyone know about the dynamic range of the K3?

According to DxOMark, 13.6 EV stops for the K-3ii. For comparison the K-x is 12.5.

Since you like shooting wildlife, you might consider a second-hand K-3 rather than a new K-3ii if you don't really need the extra features, and put the change towards a decent telephoto lens (e.g. F/FA*300 f4.5, DA*300 f4, DFA 150-450, Sigma 100-300 f4, etc, depending on what sort of wildlife you are interested in) or a landscape/wildlife lens like the DA*60-250 f4. The K-3 is very good for wildlife - I have found it a big upgrade from the K-30, and it should be more so from the K-x. One little side benefit of the K-3 v K-3ii is that the popup flash works brilliantly with the cheap and lightweight Rogue Safari flash extender - a boon for fill light when photographing birds up to about 10-15m away (say 30-45 feet).

[bessa-66]

According to DxOMark, 13.6 EV stops for the K-3ii. For comparison the K-x is 12.5.

Since you like shooting wildlife, you might consider a second-hand K-3 rather than a new K-3ii if you don't really need the extra features, and put the change towards a decent telephoto lens (e.g. F/FA*300 f4.5, DA*300 f4, DFA 150-450, Sigma 100-300 f4, etc, depending on what sort of wildlife you are interested in) or a landscape/wildlife lens like the DA*60-250 f4. The K-3 is very good for wildlife - I have found it a big upgrade from the K-30, and it should be more so from the K-x. One little side benefit of the K-3 v K-3ii is that the popup flash works brilliantly with the cheap and lightweight Rogue Safari flash extender - a boon for fill light when photographing birds up to about 10-15m away (say 30-45 feet).

The K3 is sounding better and better! I do like the crop effect for wildlife, and plan on (eventually) getting a 300 f/4.... As to which one is a subject for a different question! Thank you!

[shakereduced]

I used to have a K-x and switched to an Olympus micro four thirds in 2013. I also had only a couple Pentax K mount lenses at the time, and much more invested in m42. I really liked my Olympus, but I missed my Pentax much more. So only a few months after selling my K-x (and one K mount lens), I bought back into Pentax. I loved the portability of the Olympus and the color was always spot on, but Pentax IMO had much better controls, and image quality was generally better (I never did get too deep down the rabbit hole of m4/3 lenses though). One of my biggest issues with switching to m4/3 and using my old m42 lenses was the 2x crop factor of the smaller m4/3 sensor. Not even my 20mm was a wide angle on that camera. It took a lot of getting used to my favorite lenses behaving very differently, and that was ultimately the dealbreaker for me. I did keep my Oly for a couple years as a backup camera, but I only used it sparingly. I have tried other mirrorless systems, and I do like Fujis for use with m42 lenses, particularly a small camera with EVF like the XT10, but I still like the Pentax ergonomics, build, and controls more.

Along those lines, one thing to consider regarding the K-3 is that it is a larger and heavier camera than the K-x. When I went back to Pentax, I went with a K-5iis first and I missed the smaller body of the K-x, so I sold that and got a K-01, and then a K-50. If you think you might not like a larger body than the K-x, other cameras to consider would be the K-S2 and K-70. The K-S2 is close in size and weight to the K-x, and the K-70 is close in size (but heavier).

[TER-OR]

The K3 series is outstanding. You'll like it a lot. There's nothing a mirrorless will bring to the game which the K3 can't do better, except fit in your pocket.

I like the K3II for only one real reason, I can use the GPS and my ring flash very conveniently. I do use GPS for science, tagging images. The K5 with OGPS did fine, but now that I've seen the light (the Sunpak DX-8R ringflash for macro) I'm sold.

I also use the top LCD constantly, rarely ever referencing the in-viewfinder information.

If GPS isn't very important to you, but the pop-up flash is useful, get the K3. Get a sling-strap for comfort and take it everywhere.

[UncleVanya]

The K3 series is outstanding. You'll like it a lot. There's nothing a mirrorless will bring to the game which the K3 can't do better, except fit in your pocket.

Focus peaking on the K-3 is behind what many mirrorless cameras offer. Electronic Shutter is something that you won't get on the K-3. NX-1 might exceed the resolution - but that's a call that's hard to make either way.

That is not to say that the K-3 doesn't excel - it's just not an open and shut case. I like OVF and probably would not enjoy an all mirrorless kit due to the lack of OVF.

[pathdoc]

That is not to say that the K-3 doesn't excel - it's just not an open and shut case.

This illustrates very clearly the importance of matching your camera purchase to the tasks you expect it to perform, as well as the presence of any other gear you might already own in that system. Out-migration can be expensive, especially if it's to bodies with smaller sensors where a common wide-ish angle lens you made much use of can suddenly find itself behaving like a near-normal or even a mild tele.

[pentasonic49]

If you stick with Pentax, you already have the 16-45 which is pretty good for landscapes, the wide end is equivalent to 24mm on FF. the K3 or K3 II would be wise choices.