Originally posted by ramseybuckeye I recently bought a KP. I bought when I did because of the price, but the real reasons were the flip screen, the better low light performance, the improvements in autofocus, and other general improvements over the K-50 and K-30 that I have. I mention the autofocus because I also also bought a 55-300 PLM.lens, that combination is great and worth the upgrade. But overall faster autocus is an upgrade reason, I could have got that going to another system, but then you lose other advantages like weather sealing unless you want to spend a lot more money. I do have a Sont a6000 which had the fastest autofocus of any camera when introduced, but it really doesn't seem that much faster than Pentax cameras with the lenses I have.
If Pentax would come right out and say no future APS-c flagship was going to be produced I'd buy a K-P right now. But I suspect APS-c still out sells FF by a considerable margin. I just can't imagine Pentax would turn their back on what before the K-1 was their bread and butter, and may still be.
If Tess wanted a K-P we'd buy her one, but it's a win some lose some situation for me with the K-3. It has some things I'd like, it doesn't have some things I'd like. But that being said, it's quite possible the next APS_c camera won't be worth an upgrade for me either. The K-3 just isn't that bad.
I don't care much about all the bells and whistles everyone else has. My decision for a new purchase will be based on what I want to do that I can't figure out a way to do. When you can't do what you want to do, maybe you need a new camera. If indeed what you want to do can be done by any camera. And with some of the demands I see here on the forum, that's not a given.
Some people seem to think the camera should figure out which of the 27 for 33 focal points will give them the best hyperlocal distance for the subject they chose to focus on that moment and completely automate the AF systems and well as select the aperture for the necessary depth of field and the ISO for the desired level of noise cross referenced with the highest possible Dynamic Range for them so they get great images with no effort or forethought.
It might be possible but I'm not paying for it. If you know how to work current cameras and get what you want, there's just nothing out there that will do everything for you, so all you have to do is point the camera and shoot. Most of the stuff you have to learn now, you're always going to have to learn.