Have K20d, looking to upgrade. K5 or K-50?

normhead · 08-26-2013, 12:00 PM

I'm going to be the guy who says the other thing.... I love my K-5s, both of them, his and hers, but on a recent trip I put a Sigma 8-18 on my K-01 and got some great pictures. The K30 is a newer camera than the K-5, I'm not sold on the benefits to 14 bit processing over 12, in fact I've even read a scientific paper by a guy in optical physics at the University of Chicago who suggested there was no real difference.. and the K-30 has an improved AF, it was the first major upgrade in AF after the K-5 and Pentax engineers incorporated the improvements into the K-5 II. And if you look at all the K-30 images on the forum, I'm not seeing a difference. Maybe there are features on a K-5 that K-30 doesn't have, but I would find out what those features are and decide if they are worth the extra dollars, for a camera, that at least in terms of auto-focus, isn't as advanced.

If I was making the decision right now, I'd go K-30 instead of K-5, and I sometimes wish I had done so when I bought the second K-5. I just think for birds in flight etc, the better AF on the K-30 could have saved some shots that I missed.

The K5-11s big advance is low light focussing ( the K30's was predictive focussing on moving objects and a bit more speed.) If you shoot in the dark, go for a K-5 II. IMHO shooting in the dark rarely produces good images anyway, so I tend to ignore it.

I went from a K20D to a K-5 and the difference was so much, my wife refused to use either her old K-x or my old K-20D, we had to buy one for each of us. Coming from a K20D to anyone of these newer cameras will blow you away.

Last edited by normhead; 08-26-2013 at 12:09 PM.

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08-26-2013, 12:00 PM	#16
normhead Pentaxian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Near Algonquin Park Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 40,451	I'm going to be the guy who says the other thing.... I love my K-5s, both of them, his and hers, but on a recent trip I put a Sigma 8-18 on my K-01 and got some great pictures. The K30 is a newer camera than the K-5, I'm not sold on the benefits to 14 bit processing over 12, in fact I've even read a scientific paper by a guy in optical physics at the University of Chicago who suggested there was no real difference.. and the K-30 has an improved AF, it was the first major upgrade in AF after the K-5 and Pentax engineers incorporated the improvements into the K-5 II. And if you look at all the K-30 images on the forum, I'm not seeing a difference. Maybe there are features on a K-5 that K-30 doesn't have, but I would find out what those features are and decide if they are worth the extra dollars, for a camera, that at least in terms of auto-focus, isn't as advanced. If I was making the decision right now, I'd go K-30 instead of K-5, and I sometimes wish I had done so when I bought the second K-5. I just think for birds in flight etc, the better AF on the K-30 could have saved some shots that I missed. The K5-11s big advance is low light focussing ( the K30's was predictive focussing on moving objects and a bit more speed.) If you shoot in the dark, go for a K-5 II. IMHO shooting in the dark rarely produces good images anyway, so I tend to ignore it. I went from a K20D to a K-5 and the difference was so much, my wife refused to use either her old K-x or my old K-20D, we had to buy one for each of us. Coming from a K20D to anyone of these newer cameras will blow you away. Last edited by normhead; 08-26-2013 at 12:09 PM.