[CypherOz]

Shot Pentax in the 70's when I first got serious with photography then had a bunch of glass, so I stayed with it.
Nikon would be my alternate but the changeover is really expensive
APS-C works well for my bird photography and the K-5 was excellent, now the stunning K-3

[starbase218]

I get so tired of being asked this question. Why does there have to be a special reason for shooting Pentax? When I'm out shooting, I'm not concerned at all with what it says directly above the lens mount. The reason I have Pentax now is that I started out with a used K100D Super I bought cheaply. I know some of you choose Pentax to "stand out from the crowd", but I don't really see the point of doing that. I mean, it's a camera, not a personality.

[Rondec]

I shoot with Pentax because of the glass. At this point I have some really nice lenses that work well for the things I use them for and I have no particular desire to flip them and try to purchase equivalents in some other system. Some lenses (DA15 anyone?) have few equivalents in other systems, not because they are fast, but because they aren't.

In addition, I do like small size for when I am hiking/traveling. I appreciate weather sealing. Pentax ergonomics are great, although they are also what I am used to, so when I pick up my brother's D7000 and feel irritated by the interface -- nothing wrong with it, it's just different. In body image stabilization does work and is awfully nice to have. I don't care that my cameras say Pentax on them. I am not an advertisement for a brand. If people ask me what I shoot, I tell them, but the reality is that the camera is not the reason why you get good photos (or don't). You just want a piece of gear that you can use effortlessly to capture the vision you see.

(Obligatory DA 15 limited photo)

[robgski]

I just found a local dealer that has some older used K and screw mount lenses, I will go back with my K-5 to check out a few!

[bvg]

...I need camera that is suitable for me, not for some other 1000000 people. Canon/Nikon has 200+ lenses? ......I don't need 200+ lenses, I need only 5-10 and K-mount is capable to provide this number. .

[jac]

I get so tired of being asked this question. Why does there have to be a special reason for shooting Pentax? When I'm out shooting, I'm not concerned at all with what it says directly above the lens mount. The reason I have Pentax now is that I started out with a used K100D Super I bought cheaply. I know some of you choose Pentax to "stand out from the crowd", but I don't really see the point of doing that. I mean, it's a camera, not a personality.

Agreed. My question would be "Why not"? I just can't seem to work up any under-dog, fan-boy or guilt complex for using equipment that suits my needs. I'm too old to care about defending the choice.

[KDAFA]

...I need camera that is suitable for me, not for some other 1000000 people. Canon/Nikon has 200+ lenses? ......I don't need 200+ lenses, I need only 5-10 and K-mount is capable to provide this number. .

Exactly.


Not only that, the "few" lenses that I REALLY need (in my case the FA & DA Limiteds) don't exist in Canon/Nikon! And nothing renders like the Limiteds - period.


Plus, using the DA*50-135, I get the equivalent FF FL of 70-200, but since it's APS-C, it's a much more compact and lighter solution, which eases the shooting experience.

[Buceemie]

I got into photography just a few years ago. My main reason was for a weather sealed DSLR under $1000

[kadajawi]

Size and weight (Canikons that compete with the K-5 are massive and filled with lead). Being able to use old lenses, though Nikon seems to be just as good or better. Handling. And when I bought my first Pentax also the poor resale value of a Pentax.

[ChopperCharles]

Started getting into photography, and a friend recommended a Canon P&S for me, with full manual controls. (Old 4 megapixel thing). He also let me play with his old Pentax screw-mount camera. I don't remember what it was, but it had a hand-held light meter and bad light seals and a 55mm lens. It helped me take some amazing photos, so shortly thereafter I bought a K1000 to play with. I was never able to get as good photos out of the K1000 as I did from is old pentax though. The 55mm had a specialness about it, and my K1000's light meter was so inaccurate, and the ground glass focusing screen so awful, that I ended up with a lot of underexposed, blurry shots. Then that friend bought me my first zoom lens, a Sigma UC-II 28-105. It was damn near impossible to use on the K1000 though, but I kept it safely in my camera bag and never used it.

I went through a bunch of P&S cameras, and though they had higher megapixels and more options, I was never happy with them. They were either miserably slow, had terrible picture quality, terrible noise, or were just awful at low light. (Some were combinations of all of these). I decided I wanted a camera that I can use to take pictures in more than just bright light, and that takes a shot the microsecond I press the shutter button. A camera that doesn't have to think for 10 minutes between shots. After lots of research and a superzoom bridge camera (Sony DSC-H50 with the f/2.5 lens on the wide end -- still crappy ISO performance and JPEG artifacting even at ISO100), i decided I'm tired of spending money on inadequate crap, and that i was just going to buy an SLR. Since I already had that Sigma AF lens, I decided it would be a Pentax.

I bought a K-x kit with the 55-300 and 18-55 and never looked back.

Funny thing is, the whole reason for getting the K-x, the Sigma lens i had... wow that lens is a piece of crap. The 18-55 is way, way sharper. Way. But I still keep it because it was a gift, and because I don't want my friend to know what a stinker it was

Charles.

[OldNoob]

Because , someone stole ALL my Sony/Minolta equipment, and the Pentax was one of only a very few NEW cameras who still had an Optical Viewfinder with In-body Stabilization .

[mrNewt]

Funny thing is, the whole reason for getting the K-x, the Sigma lens i had... wow that lens is a piece of crap. The 18-55 is way, way sharper. Way. But I still keep it because it was a gift, and because I don't want my friend to know what a stinker it was

Charles.

What's the name of your friend and how much you are willing to pay me to keep my mouth shut!?

...

I guess since I am here I might as well share my story...

Got into Pentax because back home at the local photo store was a friend with a very, very nice ME Super.
Loved the camera and always wanted one but just could not afford to have one at that time... my only personal camera at that time was a present from my father - a Kodak P&S (which I still have and still takes amazing panoramas - and takes great pictures for a P&S - and the only camera I will never sell or part with).

Obviously, as soon as I could I jumped on the Pentax wagon and my first proper Pentax was an MZ-6. Since then my collection keeps on expanding with Pentax and Ricoh cameras - Ricoh was my second favorite camera and love the fact that it takes K mount lenses.

Oh yea, and of course I do own a very nice ME Super nowadays - speaking of, is with me in the bag right now!

As digital camera goes... my first camera was a Fuji... and then another Fuji... and then an Olympus... and then back to Pentax with the *IST DS.

[saladin]

I shoot Pentax coz it rocks, and the other brands suck arse.

Simple, really. Lol.

[dcBear78]

I shoot Pentax coz it rocks, and the other brands suck arse.

Simple, really. Lol.

/end thread

[One3rdEV]

If film and processing was still relatively low cost and readily available- I’d still be shooting with my Hasselblad 500C and Sinar P2 cameras. But since its not- I was free to research and choose any system I wanted. Nikon was my default choice. Although my brother is a Canon fan, I generally don’t subscribe to their way of logic and I didn’t care for the model I rented. In early 2012 Pentax captured my interest due to the excellent K-5 image quality, handling, and weather sealing.

Ultimately I decided to select which system I would buy into based on the one that seemed to provide the highest frequency or consistency of images that captured my eye in regards to image rendering. Consequently I searched across the web by camera make and model, followed more extensively by searches based on lens models. I realized that this might likely stack the deck in favor of Nikon and Canon since they are the most common brands in the hands of the majority of professionals. I searched for images that caught my eye as having special rendering properties and then applied my experience to consider the parameters by which the sample images were made. To my surprise, Pentax occurred more consistently than any of the other makes for having specific lenses that provided unique rendering properties. At that time Pentax also had very attractive lens pricing.