[bnishanth]

Totally agree with y'all here...

Whenever a newbie takes a plunge into buying a DSLR, his / her first few steps would be to visit review sites and / or visit a nearby camera shop. In the UK the first thing you do is visit Jessops. I remember just before the K20D launch they were selling K10D kit at £999.. This was the launch price of K10D kit and they never bothered to revise it, simply because no-one showed their interest on it maybe. I also doubt that if someone comes asking for info on D-SLR's they would pull out a Canon / Nikon off the shelf and not even bother to mention other brands. This may hold good for Sony / Samsung as well.

We have a photographic club at my workplace and needless to say most are canon / nikon users. There are occasional enquiries about 'Which' D'slr's to buy in our forums and anyone who recommends other brands are immediately shrugged off by pointing faults at those brands. As much as I would have loved to give my opinion on Pentax, I just back off from such discussions which dont really end well.

I was cautioned by someone not to buy anything apart from Canon / Nikon when I was looking for one. Gladly I was asking opinions and was not expecting someone else to make decisions for me. When I was hunting, I even looked at older Konica Minolta models.

I dont think anyone now takes an open mind approach while deciding on a DSLR. and the word 'Open Mind' hardly exists among the hardcore Canon / Nikon users / fans.

BTW, the I showed couple of my pics taken from a M 50mm f1.7 (bought for £18 ) mounted on my K10D using the beautiful 'green' button to the man who cautioned me against non C/N brands. I could feel the pain he was facing yet his ego sealing off his mouth from uttering anything....

Long post from a Happy Pentaxian..!!!

(**PS: I dont mean to be rude towards other brands or their users, but this is a general trend that I have seen. There are exceptions as in any other case)

Cheers
Nish