[Nicolas06]

Thanks for all your replies. Micro Center had the K50 with wr kit lens for $359 with a free 4gig eyefi card. Seemed for most bang for the buck.

Look like a good choice !

To me between K50 and KS2 the key differentiator is more sharpness if your are after that for the K-S2 and the screen. But you also pay more.

The KS1 is clearly a step back, at least to me because of its ergonomics, K50 & KS2 have great ergonomics, with KS1 Ricoh tried something new... and you lost the wheels, that's quite anoying.

[Nicolas06]

You're gonna enjoy it. Wait until you start comparing high ISO images. The K-50 will blow you away. My K-50 at ISO 3200 puts out far better images than my old 10 MP Sony A200 DSLR at ISO 800. The K-50 at ISO 12800 & A200 at ISO 800 are almost comparable.

Now I'm looking at getting either a K-3 or a K-5IIs. More than likely I'll end up with a K-3, since old new stock of K-5IIs cameras are going for an arm & a leg on eBay, Amazon, or anyone else that still carries them. I'm waiting to see what "Black Friday" will bring about. Maybe a K-3 body for +- $400? Who knows.

Honestly going from a K50 getting a K5-IIs is not that much of an upgrade. A bit more sharpness, a better finish and a top LCD screen. In exchange a more ancient processing software, no focus peaking and more expensive.

There no point to update to a K5-IIs really when you already have a K50, counting the K3 is much better, has much more and is not that much more expensive.

The K3 has even more pixels/sharpness with great cropping capability, more accurate white balance and metering, much much much better AF, a bit more clear viewfinder, don't share the flash bug the K5 familly had for exposure, has focus peaking, support for 2 SD card, wifi with flu card and so on.

Likely that K3 and K3-II will be available at a quite low bargain when the new APSC body will arrive in a few months.

[solatana]

My guess is since the KS2 and KS1 share the same shutter as the K50 there is a good chance they have the same aperture control mechanisms too.

Out of 3 different K30's I've owned all had over 6000 actuations and never had the aperture problem. One had a pop up flash die and was exchanged though.

I think the problem could be overblown since out of thousands of K30's and K50's produced the only ones that had the failure would definitely post it here and I've only seen less than a dozen post about it.

Just found this thread today and read through it as I had the shuttercount problem with my K-S1:

Now in the year 2017 it shows:

many K30 and K50 cameras produced this failure
first K-S1's (mine) and K-S2's (a friends) produce now this failure.
It is a small inductive magnet (fieldcoil it was named in old days) which is exactly the same one on K30-50-500 and K-S1 and K-S2

[Scorpio71GR]

I have a K50 and it is a great little camera, however the K-S2 is a much more advanced camera. If this is your only camera the K-S2 will offer you more in the long run.

[solatana]

I have a K50 and it is a great little camera, however the K-S2 is a much more advanced camera. If this is your only camera the K-S2 will offer you more in the long run.

K-S2 is more or less same electronics as K-S1. I use K-S1 when travel light with limited lens such as DA40,DA21 and K35/3.5.

My main camera is this venerable K-3. Also I use K5 with Katzeye screen for manual lens only, which now is heavely used with about shuttercount of 20.000. Never made any problem.

I actually don't think that K-S1 and K-S2 is so much better than K50. K50, if it can stay healthy, I would at times prefer over K-S1.
K-S2 has better monitor, is WR and has two wheels which I miss on K-S1.
But I will not buy K-S2 because it uses same solenoid like is used in K30 and K50 and starting to fail now in first K-S1 and K-S2 models.
Too sad. Otherwise happily I would exchange K-S1 against K-S2 just for 2 wheels and tilting monitor.

Maybe in RAW I can find more resolution in IQ with K-S1 but in lowlight K50 has advantage. Less noice.
Same I have found with K5II against K3. K3 more resolution but K5II less noice.
Not so easy. But AF of K3 is superior to all.

[kjfishman]

I did end of with the K-50 for a bargain price and have not had any issues. I did unintentional test the WR feature and it really works!

[fotograffiti]

I own both the K-50 and the K-S2. They're both great cameras, but different beasts. DXO rates the K-50 higher, even though it has fewer megapixels. I like the articulated screen on the K-S2, but I like the feel of the body better on the K-50. The K-S2 feels more angular and metallic somehow. It's hard to open the screen on the K-S2, and you can't set many things (like ISO) until you open it, so the camera is dead until you get it opened up and set up. But then, on the K-50, you almost need tweezers to get the SD card out.

But, minor complaints aside, they both take great pictures, accept just about any old lens you can throw at them, and produce really fine images all the way up to ISO 1600. So now I've got two camera bodies that outshoot the Nikon D5500 and for less money than the Nikon. I love the dual dials on Pentax bodies, because I shoot manual a lot.

I've got m-42 lenses and old SMC Pentax-M lenses and I'm a happy camper.