Originally posted by Fenwoodian .
I've read Thom Hogan's blog for years. I respect him a lot. In his blog today he had a thread entitled
"I See Dead Mounts". He placed the Pentax K and Q mounts in the lowest category (on-life-support).
In spite of Canon, Nikon, and Fuji recently announcing exciting new cameras, I'm not planning to sell my Pentax K-1's because they still do everything that I want from a stills camera.
But I'd have to be blind not to notice that some of the best, long-term contributors here have recently jumped to other brands (Kenspo, loveisageless, Graham, and others).
If someone were to buy all my Pentax gear tomorrow, I'd use the money to by another Pentax K-1 body. I'm stayin with Pentax for the long term for two reasons -
- Pentax does pixel shift better than anyone else
- Adapted Zeiss ZF and Leica R lenses perform brilliantly on Pentax bodies
Well, if someone were to offer to buy all of your Pentax gear tomorrow for what you've got into it, what would you do with the proceeds? Would you buy another Pentax system, or use it as an opportunity to switch brands? Very actual topic for me, so I add my 2 cents.
Pentax was my first DSLR. I chose it mostly because of great value for money, since it offered more features compared to entry-level competitors from Canon, Nikon (and Sony at that time). Only later on I actually started to like the brand. I appreciated the great ergonomics and handling (e.g. two rollers), when I started to do more landscape pictures and travelled I appreciated the weather-sealing a lot. And I appreciated the lenses, designed specifically for APSC, that allowed them to be small and light.
But as the years went on I bought most of the new lenses and was ready to buy more. But there were not enough new lenses, sadly. I am not the type who appreciates old legacy lenses (OTOH I loved the newest HD DA lenses) and I expected new modern glass (if not completely new, at least re-worked older lenses, like 16-50mm, 12-24 or 17-70mm). The same applied to camera bodies. I appreciate Pentax for being small and compact, so I had no interest in huge and heavy K-1. And since Ricoh focused on FF, the APSC line became a bit neglected. This applies to lenses as well as bodies. I had a K-5 IIs, which was an amazing camera, but I felt the K-3 wasnīt actually a worthy upgrade (e.g. the sensor was actually worse, with lower dynamic range), so I have waited for a new flagship APSC... and waited. But it is 2018 and there is no K-3 II successor. The same with APSC lenses, a focus on FF lenses is logical, however for us APSC shooters it meant no new DA lenses. The long awaited 11-18 hase been in the roadmap for years and when it finally came, it was delayed and you still cannot buy it now. So I saw no future in Pentax for me and started to look around.
I wanted a system that has the same philosophy I loved with Pentax, i.e. great APSC cameras with dedicated APSC lenses (FF is too heavy and big for me, whereas the M4/3 would be a downgrade in image quality, alhtough I respect M4/3 in all other aspects). And a smaller and lighter system meant mirrorless. So only 3 choices remained: Canon EOS M, Sony E and Fuji X. Canon is not taking itīs own system seriously and makes only lowend bodies and almost no lenses. Sony has great bodies, but not enough lenses (and their focus on FF means neglecting the APSC line). So the only producer truly dedicated to APSC was the Fuji. And I liked the Fuji style, old-school, mechanical, yet still a modern ML camera. And even more I like their lenses: the most thorough APSC lens system, all of them new /i.e. designed for modern cameras, unlike many of Pentax lenses) and majority of them with great optical quality. So exacly the philosophy of Pentax in tha past: great lenses made solely for APSC, what allowed them to be small and light.
So I sold all my Pentax gear and bought a Fuji X-T20 with 3 lenses (standard zoom 16-50mm, wideangle 14mm prime and the lovely 56mm portrait lens with f1,2). The image quality is comparable to the K-5 IIs, but with less waste (live liew allows for more precise exposition) and less work behind the computer (majority of pictures are great as OOC JPEG, only some need RAW development). And the system is much lighter and smaller (the body with the ultrafast 56mm is as heavy as K-3 body only). Plus I can look forward to great lenses that are in the lens roadmap (many nice looking lenses like the 33mm f1,0).