[Alex645]

Well for the first time since I've been reporting tallies of student cameras in my classes each semester on this thread, not a single Pentax in sight
Canon: 36
Nikon: 11

Probably because of the economy, I am seeing older DSLRs and more entry level new DSLRs, and thus no matter how much praise I may give the K70, there is too big a price gap between the K70 and the Rebel or the D3500. I really wish Pentax offered a competitively priced entry level camera...the 1976 K1000 equivalent type of competition against the Canon AE-1 or the Nikon FM.

[yucafrita]

How many of us could there possibly be if the sales figures of 40k cameras per year are correct? No wonder we seldomly bump into each other...

[barefootdesigns]

She always used her old iPhone to take her pix and they were lovely. Watching me with my cameras, she decided go for a DSLR, but before I could recruit her, her grown children had pitched in and bought her an entry-level Canon setup for Christmas. I never saw her actually use it though. Then she met a widower and they are a pair now. He is a techie type--has all kinds of toys. He also had two Hasselblad Lunars, untouched in their presentation boxes. He gave one to her, hoping, I think, to go shooting together.

My friend is an artist, mostly dealing in framed abstract art that she creates from her photos in PhotoShop. Well, guess what. I haven't seen either the Canon or Hasselblad lately, She seems to prefer her iPhone 7. It takes all kinds.

[noelpolar]

I know 3 pentax owners that I see from time to time. Me (K1 owner), myself (KP owner) and I (K1). "I" is a little up himself as a K1 Limited owner, so we don't tend to acknowledge him much.

[Lord Lucan]

Well for the first time since I've been reporting tallies of student cameras in my classes each semester on this thread, not a single Pentax in sight

Canon: 36
Nikon: 11

Look on the bright side, no Sonys I had thought Sony was on the way to taking over the camera world.

[ThorSanchez]

I think in future the larger size of Pentax cameras, as they retain the pentaprism while other brands go mirrorless, will make it stand out as a more serious camera.

That's not always a good thing. There are places that "serious" cameras and photographers aren't allowed, but they won't give a second thought to someone with a compact camera or a smaller mirrorless body with a prime, and they really don't care about phones. I wish I had some better shots of the third-division German soccer game I went to a year ago, but DSLRs were verboten and I had to make do with the phone.

[normhead]

That's not always a good thing. There are places that "serious" cameras and photographers aren't allowed, but they won't give a second thought to someone with a compact camera or a smaller mirrorless body with a prime, and they really don't care about phones. I wish I had some better shots of the third-division German soccer game I went to a year ago, but DSLRs were verboten and I had to make do with the phone.

Big long huge heavy lenses in a confined space are not a good idea.
We've seen from Covid just how many would endanger others by bringing potentially dangerous equipment into a crowded situation. Some people just don't give care about the safety of others, so all DSLRs are banned. As usual, the bad behaviour of some leads to restricted options for the 90% of people capable of behaving responsibly.

[ThorSanchez]

Big long huge heavy lenses in a confined space are not a good idea.
We've seen from Covid just how many would endanger others by bringing potentially dangerous equipment into a crowded situation. Some people just don't give care about the safety of others, so all DSLRs are banned. As usual, the bad behaviour of some leads to restricted options for the 90% of people capable of behaving responsibly.

Sure, but there's a lot of difference between a KP with a 40XS and a K-1ii and a 150-450. I've seen stadiums that ban tripods, monopods and lenses over 8". That makes more sense than banning all SLRs.

[tim60]

Big long huge heavy lenses in a confined space are not a good idea.
We've seen from Covid just how many would endanger others by bringing potentially dangerous equipment into a crowded situation. Some people just don't give care about the safety of others, so all DSLRs are banned. As usual, the bad behaviour of some leads to restricted options for the 90% of people capable of behaving responsibly.

I think it is more that they are worried about high quality images being produced by people other than the photographers who are there under media deals. To keep the value of the media packages.

If safety was the concern it would be easy to ban any object bigger or heavier than some defined amount.

[BigDave]

She always used her old iPhone

Sometimes its a matter of "fool proofing", forcing them to stop using their old ways by taking the older method away. The iPhone is light and always with her. Why change? She is warping the image in PS anyway, so it is a start for the rest of her "art". You can lead a horse to water....

[ThorSanchez]

I think it is more that they are worried about high quality images being produced by people other than the photographers who are there under media deals. To keep the value of the media packages.

If safety was the concern it would be easy to ban any object bigger or heavier than some defined amount.

Some places do both. A lot of stadiums now only allow transparent bags of a certain size like ziplocs. No camera bags, no DSLRs, no umbrellas, no coolers, no bottles. I look forward to the day where events are a kind of reverse ancient Olympics, where it's fans who're naked and the players clothed. For safety, of course. Iris scan for your ticket, embedded RFI chip to pay for nachos, just watch where the hot cheese falls...

[Lord Lucan]

That's not always a good thing. There are places that "serious" cameras and photographers aren't allowed

Where I said that size could be an advantage, I was thinking of giving the right impression and credibility to clients in eg wedding, studio and commercial photography. My father did weddings and used a MF on a tripod, at least partly to enhance an air of authority, and to identify himself as the official photographer and not just another guest snapping away with a P&S. After all he had to order the subjects into the usual group poses, and order others out of the way of the shots.

At my wedding the photographer had a MF 6x6; in film days of course . I would have felt cheated if he had turned up with a half-fame like an Olympus Pen, arguably the equivalent of a modern micro four thirds, however capable they are at taking good pictues.

[Ivan]

I have often been to Russia, Germany, Poland, the Baltics. I have never come across a person who has Pentax in his hands. I didn't have Pentax in my hands either ... You say that Pentax optics are available, I don't think so, the glass that I would like to buy is very expensive. I don't really like old manual lenses, with a few exceptions.

[normhead]

I took my K-3 with 40xs mounted into one of B.B King's concerts. I went to a concert the the Rock Pile (circa 68) in Toronto, his first tour in Canada, and more recent, his last tour (At Massey Hall) just before he died. I walked in with it around my neck. No one guessed It wasn't a bridge camera, or they just didn't care.[COLOR="Silver"]

---------- Post added 11-11-20 at 10:09 AM ----------


2017, was he last time I saw a Pentax, with approx. 20 shooting days at Niagara Falls, over 8 years, I saw a lot of cameras, but I never saw a Pentax.

I have maybe 4 more images or people shooting Pentax, and know of me because I shoot Pentax, so they don't count. , I have one other random shot from a group of photographers taken years ago. So in 10 years up here shooting Pentax, maybe 6 other encounters. It's not something that happens every year, and it seems to be getting to be less and less.

I've never seen a K-P, a K-1ii a K-30 or a K-50.

I'd love to say the situation is getting better but it's not. It's getting worse.

[kjfishman]

We are hard to find in the U.S. I think Pentax just gave up on our market.