Originally posted by BrianCollins But, among the great feedback I've gotten here at school is that my current gear is somewhat limiting. Another reason that I came here for input.
it's not that your equipment is limiting you, it's that you haven't been able to identify any specific scenarios where better gear would improve your photos.
so what you are asking the forum to do is come up with a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
you need to give the forum some direction; i.e., pentax autofocus isn't accurate, pentax flash system isn't exposing my photos correctly, pentax xyz lens is not sharp, etc.
or, better yet, what's the big picture look like, i.e., "i want to shoot fashion professionally, who makes the best gear for that?", or "i want to shoot sports professionally, is pentax the best system for that?", etc.
if you don't know what kind of professional work you want to do, buying into any specific platform right now could be a big mistake; i.e., "i want to shoot both stills and video professionally", is going to eliminate pentax completely, and to a large extent, nikon as well.
"i want to be a professional landscape photographer, and backpack for days on end" could eliminate all dslrs, due to weight and ovf manual focusing problems.
"i want to be a professional wedding photographer" really eliminates nothing, but you could argue for nikon, because they have a good flash system.