[kooks]

I found this video about the A7ii and is kind of interesting..

You Tube

You Tube

Great cameras.. great performance and price.. BUUUT.. lack of lenses..

I cant imagine what pentax could do with a camera like this and a ofcourse K lenses ( legacy and new )... to me.. mmmm this could be Pentax way to go in order to catch FF users.. forget about normal FF DSLRs and focus on getting a robust mirrorless FF - K system.. That could be the "WOW" that the world is expecting from Pentax.

[Na Horuk]

You know how we saw Sony rebranded cameras before? The Hasselblad fiasco and all. Couldn't Pentax do something similar, just making the mirror box bigger and adding K-mount? And of course Firmware. That would be quite enough for a lot of people, and it would prevent large shifts from Pentax to Sony. At least until Ricoh and Pentax get their sh*t together and produce a real FF DSLR in their own vision.

[Winder]

Great cameras.. great performance and price.. BUUUT.. lack of lenses..

The system is just 1 year old. If they stay on track with the road map they will have 18 lenses by the end of 2015. By this time next year It will be a pretty compelling system.

[kooks]

The system is just 1 year old. If they stay on track with the road map they will have 18 lenses by the end of 2015. By this time next year It will be a pretty compelling system.

yes.. thats a good point

lets see how it goes, if they keep releasing products as they are doing it, this system ( FF mirrorless ) is going to be great.. it is attracting more and more people.. Pentax can take advantage of this, especially because we have already FF lenses that will work with a mirrorless ff K body..

Hope that early 2015 will be the year of the "reborn" of Pentax..

[Winder]

yes.. thats a good point

lets see how it goes, if they keep releasing products as they are doing it, this system ( FF mirrorless ) is going to be great.. it is attracting more and more people.. Pentax can take advantage of this, especially because we have already FF lenses that will work with a mirrorless ff K body..

Hope that early 2015 will be the year of the "reborn" of Pentax..

If Pentax does it right, but I don't have a lot of confidence in Ricoh at this point.

[kooks]

If Pentax does it right, but I don't have a lot of confidence in Ricoh at this point.

I have more confidence in Ricoh than what i had with Hoya thats for sure.. at least Ricoh is betting on some new products..

[Winder]

I have more confidence in Ricoh than what i had with Hoya thats for sure.. at least Ricoh is betting on some new products..

I have no doubt Ricoh will release new product, I just don't think it will be as innovative as Sony. Hope I'm wrong.

[osv]

Great cameras.. great performance and price.. BUUUT.. lack of lenses..

i use lenses from canon, pentax, minolta, konica, etc. on my a7r.

there is no "lack of lenses" with these cameras; you have access to unlimited glass, pick and choose the best from all manufacturers.

[Nicolas06]

i use lenses from canon, pentax, minolta, konica, etc. on my a7r.

there is no "lack of lenses" with these cameras; you have access to unlimited glass, pick and choose the best from all manufacturers.

osv, you must understand that it is because you use MF lenses and adapters... If you want AF and preferably natives lenses that cover the 24x36 sensor, that's a different story.

[osv]

osv, you must understand that it is because you use MF lenses and adapters... If you want AF and preferably natives lenses that cover the 24x36 sensor, that's a different story.

since film is also 24x36, everything that i shoot with is a native lens that covers the 24x36 sensor.

there are a lot of ff a-mount lenses that work in autofocus mode, with an lea4 adapter:
List of Sony A-mount lenses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alpha A-mount and E-mount lenses guide

the hottest zoom lens on the market right now is the tamron 150-600... it doesn't come in a pentax mount, but you can order an a-mount version of it:
Tamron 150-600 | B&H Photo Video

that's right, a-mount is one of the big three... b&h lists 77 new ff a-mount lenses:
SLR Lenses, DSLR Lenses | B&H Photo Video

126 pentax lenses for sale at b&h, but only 49 of 'em are ff:
SLR Lenses, DSLR Lenses | B&H Photo Video

i'd guess that a-mount and k-mount both evolved and got better as time went on, so the a-mount/lea4 isn't for everyone... native e-mount would be the best approach, just like the latest k-mount is, and sony is taking major heat for not having enough e-mount glass on the market.

[kooks]

sony is taking major heat for not having enough e-mount glass on the market.

I was basically refering to native E-Mount,without using adapters and ofcourse having AF.. with MF you can basically use whatever you want as long as you have the adaptor..

so i was thinking more of the lack of E-Mount lenses wich are basically 7 at this time..

Full-Frame E-Mount Lenses - Lenses Sony Store - Sony US

[Nicolas06]

since film is also 24x36, everything that i shoot with is a native lens that covers the 24x36 sensor.

there are a lot of ff a-mount lenses that work in autofocus mode, with an lea4 adapter:
List of Sony A-mount lenses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alpha A-mount and E-mount lenses guide

the hottest zoom lens on the market right now is the tamron 150-600... it doesn't come in a pentax mount, but you can order an a-mount version of it:
Tamron 150-600 | B&H Photo Video

that's right, a-mount is one of the big three... b&h lists 77 new ff a-mount lenses:
SLR Lenses, DSLR Lenses | B&H Photo Video

126 pentax lenses for sale at b&h, but only 49 of 'em are ff:
SLR Lenses, DSLR Lenses | B&H Photo Video

i'd guess that a-mount and k-mount both evolved and got better as time went on, so the a-mount/lea4 isn't for everyone... native e-mount would be the best approach, just like the latest k-mount is, and sony is taking major heat for not having enough e-mount glass on the market.

This is really the native (as in without converter) lenses I'am refering to.

I do understand the converter to be interresting if you already own Sony glass in other mount or don't care of AF.

Still, I don't see buying new Sony Alpha lenses to use them on an FE body with a converter as satisfying.

First it decrease the price adventage of the body... The converter being already quite expensive. Then it add the the final size, negating part of the gain by having shorter registration distance. Finally some already think that FE mount make a-mount part of history. I don't want to invest in a mount (a-mount) Sony will not support in the future anymore.

Still out the 7 FF lenses sony provide, there only 2 affordable lenses, a 3.5-5.6 kit zoom and a 35mm f/2.8. For the expensive lenses, there only one fast lense: the 55mm f/1.8... A focal lens where even pentax has a f/1.4 offer.

FE mount lack at minimum:
- affordable f/2.8 constant zooms (24-70 & 70-200). We need to wait for sigma/tamron to provide it as it is unlikely Sony will ever do that.
- 2-3 affordable primes in the 100-300€ range for classical focal lenses like 28, 35, 50, 85, 100, 135mm. I have the feeling through by looking at current prime offering that Sony is planing to do like Pentax and ask premium price for average entry level apperture in their prime range. How much Sony is going to ask for an FA77 equivalent ? 1500-2000$ for a 85mm f/1.8 ? It look like that when we see their 55mm offering !
- a few more high end primes like a 24mm, 85mm, 135mm. A 55mm f/1.8 & 35 f/2.8 are not enough !
- some real telezoom at least up to 300mm consumer grade (sub 500€) + high end version
- a TC to make more use of f/4 and wider apperture lenses.

[Mikesul]

since film is also 24x36, everything that i shoot with is a native lens that covers the 24x36 sensor.


126 pentax lenses for sale at b&h, but only 49 of 'em are ff:
SLR Lenses, DSLR Lenses | B&H Photo Video

i'd guess that a-mount and k-mount both evolved and got better as time went on, so the a-mount/lea4 isn't for everyone... native e-mount would be the best approach, just like the latest k-mount is, and sony is taking major heat for not having enough e-mount glass on the market.

This is an interesting and informative post, OSV, but ONLY 49? That is a lot for a mount which has not had a new FF for well over a decade.

[osv]

only 49 for k-mount vs. only 77 for a-mount, which contradicts the rather absurd "FE mount make a-mount part of history" that people are parroting all over the internet.

would tamron commit the new 150-600 to an a-mount that was going away? no... they probably picked a-mount over k-mount because the a-mount market is bigger than the k-mount market.

they might have also wondered about pentax, a company that's been bought and sold a couple of times, and doesn't appear to have the engineering resources to rise above it's obsolete dslr/ovf background.

as innovative as the k-3 is, it's engineering accomplishments don't begin to compare to what sony is doing with the a7 series bodies... sony created game-changers, that no other company has been able to touch, at a manufacturing price point that no dslr company can ever hope to compete with... why pay $1k more for a d810 that has the same pq as the a7r? why pay $1k more for a heavy pig of a d810, that is useless for manual focusing, because it's ovf?

flip side is that the sony f60m flash has overheating problems, it won't do p-ttl type of metering when the flash is pointed straight up, it's xlnt as an occasional brute force flamethrower, but unfortunately it's too big to actually mount on the a7 series, etc.

the lea4 gives you pdaf, i think, but it has fewer centered-only sensors? i don't see how it will fully compare to k-3/e-mount autofocus capability, and it'll cost you 1/3rd of a stop in light loss?

earlier this month i worked a paid gig shooting video, and i brought the a7r as a second camera... while it has better video than anything that pentax offers, the video record button is buried in the middle of the hand grip, so you have to let go of the camera to start/stop video recording... i have an extensive video background, so this horrible button location really pissed me off!! lol... how could sony screw this up so badly?

[Nicolas06]

as innovative as the k-3 is, it's engineering accomplishments don't begin to compare to what sony is doing with the a7 series bodies... sony created game-changers, that no other company has been able to touch, at a manufacturing price point that no dslr company can ever hope to compete with... why pay $1k more for a d810 that has the same pq as the a7r? why pay $1k more for a heavy pig of a d810, that is useless for manual focusing, because it's ovf?

I agree with you no other company provide you an FF sensor in a mirrorless interchangeable lenses body. Other do provide all sort of sensor size and do propose lot of mirorless. But not this exact combination. That's true. I agree that pentax did provide mirorless in APSC format & 1/1.7 format but both lack EVF, and that's not smart for Pentax to not have any EVF option for now. Other mirorless solution exist in 1", m4/3, APSC on other brand and they come with EVF and are cheaper than the Sony... The barrier to entry to provide a mirrorless solution with FF sensor? None for the body part, that's trivial... But you need to build a solid native, without adapter lenses echosystem. And sorry nobody is here yet.

But what it make out of Sony with theses FE bodies? Just like another Fujifilm, Olympus or Pana... With a bigger sensor but slower, more expensive, bigger and far less choice on the native lenses offering. As for manual lenses, they all support without any problem. That's not unique or a differenciator.

Adding the converter + going A-mount is not something smart to me at least, and I think many will think the same... Except if you have theses a-mount lenses already. The converter make things bulkier and add to the body price, negatig most of the price difference. Add that it easy to get cheaper, high quality lenses in Nikon/Pentax/Canon classical mounts and the whole price adventage is against Sony.

I agree with you Sony has a pretty solid manual focus solution with this system and that fantastic for exclusive manual shooters. But AF is something many expect from their camera for something like 40 years.

For now if I want a small mirrorless with nice small lenses and a good overall experience, I'am to choose Fujifilm or Olympus.
For now if I want ultimate FF experience with a nice native choice of lenses, I think Nikon... Not Sony.
If I am a birder/wildlife/sport photographer I'am for sure to avoid thoses FE bodies at all cost. First the smaller form factor is not an asset but a drawback for big lenses. Second there lot of choice in Canon & Nikon echosystem. if I want the 150-600 and do wildlife with it, I'd consider switching to Nikon... Maybe Sony alpha if I didn't have the impression they more focussed on FE now... But no way I get an FE body.

No for FE I see your case, as strictly manual focus or as a good secondary body if money is not a problem and I can spend 3000$ on the dedicated lenses... This would not be because of the size, the lenses are too big. For size I would go Fuji. No this would be for an EVF on FF. If EVF is not critical for me, and still want FF, I'd favor Canikon, the lenses are no bigger for same apperture, and there far more native choices.