Originally posted by mercyreaper
As you may easily tell I am new to these forums and I have been doing research on all of the big 3 (Pentax, Canon, Nikon) sure there are others out there. Anyway I decided on a Pentax because it seems they provide very high quality product that is backwards compatible and I like their feature sets of IS in body and pentaprism.
I am trying to decide between the K10 or K2000.
If you specifically want the pentaprism, the K2000 shouldn't be on your list. Only the K20D and K-7 among current models have a pentaprism. The K20D, having been pretty much superceded by the K-7, is on the way out, and can be had new for not that much than what you were looking at paying for the K10D ($600-ish). The K-7 is more like twice that. But the K10D, K20D, and K-7 are the only models that give you stabilization and a pentaprism.
Quote: I found a good deal for getting a refurb K10 for $399 (body only). I wanted to get the 50mm 1.4f lens and then expand from there. I would like to start with some good glass, my needs are small and am a first time DSLR user.
I wouldn't recommend the 50/1.4 as a first lens. 50mm was a good first lens for 35mm film cameras, but with the crop factor of APS-C, it's too long to serve that same purpose on a Pentax DSLR. It's still a fine lens for dfferent purposes (more of a portrait lens than a general purpose lens), but you should be looking at something more in the 28-40 range if you are wanting one prime to start with.
And really, you should also be asking yourself if there is really a good reason *not* to get the "kit" zoom lens. Sure, for people who really know exactly what they are doing and what their needs are, it can make sense to use primes only, and there is certain "pride" factor (deserved or not) that sometimes goes with that. But unless you really know your focal lengths well and can have a good sense of exactly what focal lengths you find useful for what purposes, you're kind of doing yourself a disservice by only having one focal length available, I think. A basic zoom like the 18-55 for general use *plus* a prime for use in more demanding situations once you figure out what focal length will serve you best - that should be the default starting place for anyone who can't really convincingly describe why something else makes more sense for them.
I realize others feel a prime is a great place to learn from, so some may disagree with my feelings about learning focal lengths form a zoom here, but I do think most would agree that if you *are* to start with just one prime, 50mm isn't the optimum focal length for APS-C. I'd be trying to scope out an FA35/2.