Originally posted by madisonphotogrl I really hope this doesn't open a can of worms.. but here I go..
I was talking to a photographer friend of mine and told him i was looking to buy a Pentax set up. He's a Canon man, prev. a Nikon man, and told me that Pentax is a limited system. I know some photographers who are all about equipment, and this particular friend never has been. Have any of you used the "other" systems before and come back to Pentax? In my opion how may lenses can a company really make without repetition?
In terms of a total system, the current Pentax lineup is extremely limited. Currently they produce two camera bodies and a relative handful of lenses. A well-heeled Canon shooter can have three different bodies and a stable of lenses, pack the whole kit into three large Pelican cases, and go anywhere for any job and know that the right tool is there for the job. That just isn't the case with Pentax.
If you want to shoot sports, Pentax is the wrong system. If you want to do professional-grade architectural work, Pentax (and indeed nearly all small format digital offerings) is the wrong choice. If you want to do studio lighting with strobes and you need high speed flash sync, then Pentax isn't the right system to buy (at the moment).
Beyond that, there isn't much that the system fails to do, and do well. As others have likely pointed out (I skimmed some of the responses), the in-camera shake reduction is a boon for many applications. Only Pentax and Sony offer this currently (unless you want to jump into the mess that is fourThirds), and Pentax offers many things that Sony doesn't (yet).
If you want to shoot with primes and you want to have four distinctive focal lengths from wide to tele and run as light as you can, Canon and Nikon allow that, with the 5D and D3 respectively. But those are big cameras, and those will be big lenses. Come the release of the 15mm limited, odds are that the Pentax equivalent will be much, much more manageable. As in camera-over-your-shoulder-and-three-lenses-in-a-waistpack manageable. For some, that isn't a dealbreaker, but for me, it is a huge advantage and it offers something that no other system does. In fact, Canon and Nikon are rather "limited" systems if shooting primes and running mean and lean is your goal.
The legacy lenses are all pretty great, and those that autofocus can be used hassle-free on the new cameras (personally, I hate manually focusing without a split-image prism, and getting one for these cameras is a bit of a chore). The lens roadmap looks very promising. By this time next year, the focal lengths not covered by currently-produced Pentax lenses will be very niche indeed.
But the Pentax system can't do everything. Figure out what you need it to do, and determine if it will do it. If it isn't sports, architecture, or high-level strobe work, my guess is you're in great shape. If you're looking to do street type stuff, then this is the best of all possible systems for you.
Will
In full disclosure, I started out shooting with Pentax a decade ago, and did so (quite happily) until I moved to digital. I had a Nikon D70 for less than a year, but I hated it. I switched to Canon 20d and now have five lenses. I love my camera. But when I just want to grab the camera and go, I can't easily carry more than two lenses, and even that isn't as simple as it should be. So I'm waiting for the dust to clear on the K20D and for more info on the 15mm Limited, and I expect that after having all of the facts before me I'll be back in Pentax's camp. I really think they're doing the most interesting things in terms of innovative camera AND lens design. But I need to be sure it'll be everything I need before I go about selling off a pretty substantial camera system.