[Miguel]

One thing that rarely seems to be mentioned in these discussions is the demands on autofocus of event photography -- weddings, parties, conventions and the like.

I have shot a fair number of events (though no weddings) with Pentax gear (K-5 IIs + 16-50 DA*, 21/3.2 Limited and 70/2.4 Limited) and with Canon (6D plus 24-70/4 L IS and 28/2.8 IS). The Canon rig is enough faster -- and the 6D is actually dissed in the Canon world for its mediocre autofocus! -- that I've pretty much given up using Pentax for events.

Doesn't sound like this kind of photography should be as challenging as birds in flight or running halfbacks. But perfect expressions are exceedingly fleeting, and the light is often challenging. The Pentax rig is too often still trying to grab focus as the picture disappears in front of my eyes. Canon basically always gets it.

And, yes, I rented the K-3 for a week to try it out. It's better, but not enough to sway me. A big bottleneck for Pentax, I think, is the lethargic SDM on the 16-50 and 50-135 lenses -- which should really be the pro workhorse pair. Hope they manage to fix that.

Interesting. Years ago I transitioned shooting corporate events from using a Pentax K20D with a Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 and the DA* 50-135mm f2.8 to a Canon 7D with the same basic two lenses--the Tokina 50-135mm being very close.

I didn't find the AF differences in this context (sports OTOH, forget it) to be that much different. What was profoundly different was the flash system effectiveness. Exposure was so much more accurate, aesthetically pleasing, and free of hassle. So liberating of mind I could concentrate more freely on getting the shot and not working around PTTL. This mattered more than AF.

M