Originally posted by mattdm "Pro" is a weird fascination with photography enthusiasts. A select few pros get to do cool artistic stuff like Ben. A few more get to do other interesting largely discretionary work and make money at it. The rest are, y'know, taking pictures of kids on Santa's lap.
Now, please don't be insulted — nothing wrong with that as a vocation, but the requirements for that are way different than those for someone who enjoys taking photographs and wants a high-quality advanced-feature camera body. I imagine that if I were a pro photographer, I'd want something different for work and for pleasure.
For comparison: the standard "pro" computer is a low-powered beige desktop model with onboard graphics and sound, and a 17" low-res LCD. What's so exciting about "pro" equipment?
For me, "advanced amateur" is a much better label than the "prosumer" market term.
The meaning of the word "pro" has morphed over the past couple of decades, and now means something far different from what it used to. When I started out in photography 40 years ago, a "pro" camera had very few features (although most camera fit that description at the time), but had 100% accurate viewfinders, shutters that would give several hundred thousand actuations before wearing out, and a build quality that would allow you to hammer nails with the baseplate, were you so inclined.
I'm not sure what the word means now. For some, if the camera is used by a single, solitary professional photographer in the whole world, that's good enough to make it "pro", or if it has lots of gimmicky features, it is "pro".
What no one seems to consider anymore is things like the quality of the viewfinder (Pentax is very good here), or the ruggedness of the camera (other that being splash resistant, Pentax bodies are not good in this regard, or the number of shutter actuations the machine will give prior to the shutter cacking.
One of the boys at the studio just had his D70 shutter die on him at less than 30K shutter actuations.
To me, this is not "pro", this is jut another crappy junior built camera body with lots of cool buttons and beepers to make you think you have something.
This was a camera that was Pro utilized, in that it shot several thousand Santa photos, along with dozens of weddings, school photos and grad and family portraits during it's lifetime, and was perfectly acceptable in that job. Unfortunately, it's build quality wasn't robust enough, and now its plastic slag, not a camera.
Unfortunately, with the possible exception of the istD, there isn't a Pentax DSLR that is built for long term pro use. They are, essentially, a high end semi disposable point and shoot.