Originally posted by Blacknight659
K-5, K-5ii, K-5iis, K-3, K-3ii
You need a tough camera that can keep up with you. I think the K-5 and K-3 line will do nicely. And, you can buy one used with warranty these days, so that should help you feel more comfortable about knocking it around. Your 16-45 has a lot of love out there and I wouldn't try to talk you out of it. If you do find your self with some money after while, consider looking for a WR lens. The 18-55 WR is still a good lens, but I would steer you towards a 16-50, 20-40, or 16-85. Those lenses are fantastic and will give you an extra edge on your newer camera body.
I did forget to mention I do still have the 18-55 and 18-135 WR lenses so those should be ok if I decided on on older body, tho people are right that if I went up to something in the 24mp range I'd def need to consider upgrading the glass to make the most of that
---------- Post added 08-07-17 at 11:49 AM ----------
Originally posted by normhead
Personally, I don't think the 16-45 is up to handling a 24k sensor, but it's probably fine on a 16 MP sensor. But, it's an extra argument for a K-5, K-30, K-50 camera. It saves the cost of new lenses. Somehow I get the impression that the 16-85 on it's own is worth more than what the OP would like today for everything. My advice for the budget conscious would be, if a sensor is too good for your lenses, don't buy that camera. And as far as I'm concerned only a 24 MP or higher APS-c sensor is at any risk of out resolving an older lens.
Even my old 35-80 works great on my K-3. My FAJ 18-35 is very good on my K-1, but pretty terrible on my K-3. So I have a pretty good idea how bad a lens has to be before it falls into the "not good on abetter sensor" category. Suspect the 16-45 falls into that category. I did test one once and tried a few images. My quick and dirty conclusion was it wasn't good enough for a 24 MP sensor. Only my FA 28-200 (which I'm not convinced would be good enough for a 6 MP sensor, and FAJ 18-35 join it in that category. But there may be others who can provide better information. My information is based on less than 25 images taken with a borrowed lens.
The thing to be noted here is, unless you plan to use the images at full resolution all of the above is nonsense. At 4000 x 2300 pixels on a 4k monitor, you can't see any difference between the images in any of these lenses. Even the worst lens I own the FA 28-200 looks good at that size. Looking at the images on 4k monitor I bet the 28-200 images look as good at the best lenses made. So unless you have a venue that exceeds 4k for viewing your images, buying great glass is a waste of money. Stick with what you have.
Back in the day jsherman told me one of the reasons he had to have a D800 was someday he'd own a 4k monitor and it would make a difference. It's the first thing I checked when I got my K-1. It was nonsense. You still can't tell the difference between a K-5 and a K-1 image. You don't need the best, you only need the best for what you do. And the best for what you do is almost always much less than the best overall.
A K-3 16-45 image reduced to K-5 size will be about the same as a K-5 image using the same lens, regardless of lens used. It's only if you want to display huge images it makes any difference at all. We are reducing all our images for 99% of our sue and they have all the sharpness they can make use of. Even the 12 MP files will lose resolution when reduced to 4000x 2300. A 24 or 36 MP files loses more and ends up the same.
thanks much for your experience sharing, you are probably right in the end, unless one has the eyesight of an eagle and the requisite displays,etc most extra detail, etc will be negligable in normal viewing, especially once reduced, cropped, etc... And for me it'd def be lost since I have horrible eyesight to begin with heh. You've given me a lot to consider