Greetings, all!
There is always a lot of hand-wringing over the Pentax market share, and I think most who frequent this forum would like to see them doing better (other than the trolls). I think it is important to find out from the people who CHOSE Pentax, exactly WHY they chose them. Different people will have different reasons, priorities and backgrounds, but developing a profile of your likely buyers (perhaps even by Country) should prove valuable to the marketing and development of any company.
After doing a good amount of research, I chose the Pentax K200D over the other guys. Here's why:
My background: I'm a old-school (U.S.) film shooter. I was on the High School yearbook staff and learned darkroom there. We shot with Pentax Spotmatics. When I graduated High School in 1977 I used gift money to purchase my own first DSLR and chose a Canon AE-1. After being unable to shoot outdoors in the winter due to the battery getting cold, I looked for a camera that needed no electronics to fire the shutter and eventually got an Olympus OM-1. Before long, a cousin's father-in-law died and I was presented with a couple of Mamiya C33s with 65mm lenses. I've worked at professional photography studios and then did my own professional photography for a number of years. I'm now in I.T. Services with a small university and you'd have to call me a Mac Guy (having owned Macs since 1989).
I have been longing for a DSLR for a long time, and trying to keep up with developments. I have a son-in-law who is a newspaper prepress guy and a hobby photographer. He's now selling/licensing images from his stock and doing pretty well at it. He shoots Canon 20D. I don't have a lot of discretionary spending money. Three daughters getting married in a 2 year span will do that to a guy.
: )
I did my research. Like the majority of people, I initially was considering Canikon only. I didn't have a real inventory of any lens mount to cloud my decision. That's pretty important, as I think it is a lot harder to get people to completely change their lens inventory, as you all know.
Pentax came onto my "radar screen" thanks to a favorable review of the K200D in a recent issue of MacLife magazine. I remember reading a similar favorable review of the K100D in the same magazine, back when it first became available. As I read it I thought, "Wow. That seems like a lot of features for the money." In fact, I think this is the point that Pentax marketing really needs to get across. Even their entry level camera (K200D at the time of this writing) has features only available on the competition's semi-pro cameras (or they don't offer them at all).
My attention was immediately captured by these things:
• The weather/dust resistance (semi-pro feature)
I like to shoot in inclemate weather. Weather/dust sealing just makes sense and is a "peace-of-mind" factor.
• The stainless steel chassis and lens mount (semi-pro feature)
I may be a bit different from most people, I don't know, but I really hated the "toy", lightweight, pure plastic-y, FEEL of the Rebels. Nikon's offerings were a bit better, but not much. This camera feels more like a "real" camera and more like a 20D than a Rebel.
• The in-body shake reduction system (not available on Canikon, but is on 4/3 systems like Sony/Olympus).
The jury is out on which system is "better" (IS lenses vs in-body) but anybody can tell you which system will cost its owner less money AND work with more lenses. HUGE advantage: in-body shake reduction
• Uses non-proprietary (AA) batteries (simply a great idea)
Proprietary batteries mean proprietary chargers and in a pinch you could even use Alkalines and keep shooting. I get to use excellent (and low cost) Sanyo Eneloops and spend way less overall.
As I looked into it even more these additional things were added to the "Pentax advantages" list:
• ergonomics (the way it fits in your hand, control layout, and the fact that there are some functions taken off of the menus and put on buttons/switches — also not too many buttons/controls to get overly confusing).
• the fact that I could use any K-mount lens made over the last three decades, and even M42 lenses with an adapter. (Granted, this is not a consideration for most people, but I saw it as a nice way of adding some focal lengths without breaking the bank.)
• spot metering (this is HUGE and not offered in the comparable cameras). Again, most P&S upgraders won't have a clue, but for an experienced photographer understands how useful that can be. A friend with a Canon 20D says if he could add just one feature his camera, it would be spot metering.
• a kit lens that you don't have to be embarrassed over (this is such a big competitive advantage for Pentax that hardly seems to get mentioned).
• an 11 point AF system, where the others are 7.
• the dust alert and removal system
• a second (TOP) LCD display (no other entry-level camera offers this).
• 23 custom-programmable functions
Now for the biggie: The $100 rebate (U.S.). This means that a kit that was priced at $650 would really only be costing me $550. The number of features above (that were important/factors to me) made the Pentax a value-added camera for the same price as Canon XT or XTi (some people say the XTi is actually a worse camera than the XT in most respects) or the Nikon D40/D60. We call that "more bang for the buck".
Image Quality is always mentioned on the Pentax models, and it also gets praise on the noise issue, in general. And just look at the Pentax K200D's Reader Reviews at Amazon.com. People LOVE it. 5 stars. This is way more important to me than the reviews of mags like Popular Photography, etc. who appear to be afraid to rank Pentax higher than their big advertisers: Canon and Nikon, even when the Pentax is clearly features ahead (as outlined above).
Now the things that some people might consider negatives:
• Continuous shooting/buffer issue. If I were a sports/action photographer, this might put the K200D out of my consideration, but I don't see the 4-5 shots at 3 frames per second (before a short delay) to be a "deal killer".
• Supposedly slow and noisy AF. Maybe I don't know any better, but it seems plenty fast and quiet to me.
• No Live View. I think this is a weird thing to knock the K200D down for considering it's competition doesn't have it either. You have to go up to the Canon XSi to get Live View and I think comparing those two cameras is apples to oranges. (Comparing it with the Canon XS would probably be fairer, but it wasn't shipping yet when I wanted to order.) I was considering the XSi, but would have had to spend SIGNIFICANTLY more dollars to get the XSi kit, so it really isn't a fair comparison (IMHO). In any event, I think Live View is something that P&S may look for, but if you are a real SLR shooter you probably don't want it or need it, unless it is on a cantelievered screen so you can shoot off the floor or over your head or some other way where you can't get your eye on the viewfinder. Live View requires a CMOS sensor. The K200D has a CCD sensor.
• Lens options. This one is a bit of a puzzler to me. It reminds me of the old Macintosh days when people would complain about software availablility on the Mac saying "You only have 3 real word processing packages available on the Mac, while the PC has 10." Well, I'm only going to be using ONE, so as long as I have a great ONE I'm gonna get the job done. Sure more choice is good, but it appears to me that there are good choices out there for almost everything. (if you are a long telephoto shooter, Canon's L series certainly has an edge). And nobody disses Pentax optics.
I've only had my K200D for a couple of weeks, and frankly, I'm still learning how to get the most out of it, but I'm extremely happy with it thus far. It feels very comfortable (and substantial) in my hand, which is really satisfying. I'm very interested in learning post-processing and will almost always be a RAW+JPEG shooter. I like the fact that Pentax gives you the choice of choosing the Adobe RGB or sRGB colorspaces. (again, this is something that the P&S buyer isn't going to know or care beans about, but is a sign of the level of detail and the way Pentax provides for more serious photographers — even in their entry level camera.
If they want to offer an even cheaper DSLR to transition P&S buyers into the Pentax line, then a K2000D that removes some of these semi-pro features would probably be the way to do it. I think we'll see that at Photokina. Strategically (marketshare-wise), it is waaaay more important than a FF body (IMHO).
The other place the Pentax needs to make inroads is in the camera stores. I've heard from many Pentax DSLR buyers who (even in stores that carried it) were pushed towards Canikon by the salesperson. I think this is because the salesperson is unfamiliar with the Pentax and risks looking stupid if even asked about it. It is radical, perhaps, but I think that Pentax should make a free (in store) demo camera available to any outlet, as an inducement to carry the Pentax line. They also should have a real program of education that is directed directly at the people who sell cameras for a living.
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My opinions are free and you get what you pay for.