First of all, thanks to everyone for the nice replies here! I kinda expected a lot of denials, but man, there's a lot of agreement with what I've found as the limits of Pentax. It doesn't make the whole system bad because nothing is perfect, but as my capabilities have evolved, so have my expectations and needs.
One last tick on AF: one thing that's also brought me to this point is I do a ton of big groups. My models are pretty patient (and no one has ever left me because of it), but it's a bit disheartening to hear a few sighs when we line up 10-14 girls in pose for a big group shot, take a few clicks, and then I review and.... "Ok, we need to get everyone in pose again! Focus isn't good enough...." It just takes so much time away to have to redo stuff.
But to offset some of my negativity, let me highlight a few things Pentax does really well. Or rather, features I'm going to miss:
1) The K-1 is the best feeling camera I've ever held. It is solid and simply a wonder to hold. Canon's stuff feel like toys and even this Nikon D850 has a plasticy feel to it in various places.
2) IBIS. I'm going to miss this a lot. It has let me do things others cannot, like shooting at low ISO for super clean images while others have had to use higher ones.
3) Backward compatibility. Pentax is nice about using SD cards and batteries over. I wasn't pleased to drop over $200 for a pair of QXD cards for the 850 just so I can use dual cards. And I still need one or two more so I don't run out of space on long shoots/trips. :/
Originally posted by c.a.m For completeness, would you mind letting us know what gear you are thinking of getting to replace your Pentax kit? And does your business model provide for regular equipment upgrades, whatever they may be in the future?
I have a Nikon D850 for the body and the Tamron 85mm f/1.8 and 35mm f/1.8 and the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 for my lenses. We will find out how they do this weekend!
It does! I try stuff out and see how it does for me. If I'm liking it and it's doing what I need it to do, I keep it. I only look to replace stuff when there's something it's not doing for me I want it to do.
Originally posted by foivosloxias What does Pentax offer? Slow, very slow and noisy focusing lenses designed 15+ years ago, or very expensive and not really good silent focusing lenses. Well if slow is better, I can still use my Canon A-1 with a 55mm f/1.2 and I do, just to remind myself of how it used to be back in 80's, that is 40 years ago.
Yeah, it's not the best selling point, to say the least.
Originally posted by biz-engineer Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba was photographed and filmed in 1957 with film equipment without autofocus. Usually, for this kind of shots, the skilled photographer doesn't try to track the rapid subject motion, the skilled photographer will set his camera shutter speed to 1/50th sec. in order to obtain a blur of the moving part that convey the sense of fast motion into a photographs. See example below:
Aikido - Wikipedia But he also wasn't viewing his images on 4K monitors with tons of resolution. We just have higher expectations these days because we can.
Originally posted by victormeldrew I think not even the greatest Pentax fan can deny that the company's development progress since releasing the K-1 has been lacklustre at best, woefully inadequate at worst. To offer a shiny new FF DSLR and then point at a stable of decades-old lenses and expect buyers to be content wth making do with them for a decade while they get their act together is short sighted in the extreme.
To fail to address the age-old AF issue - regardless of how possible it is with skill, patience and luck to work around it - is just technical laziness. Something that is also borne out in other areas, such as their inability or unwillingness to develop working companion apps for things like the GR. Stuff that, given a few hundred developer hours could quicky and easily put them in the same ballpark as other manufacturers, even if being ahead is too much to ask. Instead it seems acceptable to them that your shiny new £500 camera comes with an app that won't even load images without crashing, let alone perform basic remote control.
Well, I can name a few names on the forum who might deny your initial point
Yeah, it's just like "How is this not fixed yet?" And skill and technique help no matter what, but the point is that sometimes, easier is better. I'm not great with motion focusing because I don't do it often. Sure, if I practice a ton I could master it, but I don't and instead, the one or two times per year I use that, I just want to be able to get something good enough without jumping through hoops. It's sad to not be able to get something that the parents with their iPhones next to me can get!
Originally posted by ChristianRock The OP doesn't seem to mind 3rd party lenses, citing Tamron as a future option. So my question is why the Sigma 35mm Art isn't an option for that focal range.
And I wish the OP all the best in his photography journey!
I've owned four Sigma lenses: the 17-70 contemporary, the 18-35 Art, the 70-200 HSM II, and the 150-500. Every one of them has had something wrong or strange with them. The 17-70 had some strange focal length misreporting that made it not work right with shake reduction and led to blurred images (until this was fixed with firmware). The 18-35 focused like it was using a dartboard. The 70-200 was fine on my K-5 but wouldn't focus AT ALL on the K-1. And the 150-500....well, I'm not sure about it, but it seems miscalibrated or misfocusing at certain focal lengths but is completely fine at others. I'm just done with Sigma after all this. I don't trust their products anymore. I won't buy one for Nikon either.
And thanks for the well wishes.
Originally posted by gaweidert I my opinion, this the make or break year for Pentax. If all they do is come out with rehashed models with 100th Anniversary stamps on them it shows what Ricoh is thinking of the brand and of us. I am still hopeful, but the "years down the road approach" that Pentax has taken has been extremely frustrating. It is like they simply do not want to continue to move the brand forward or even continue it. I often wonder if they are trying to sell it on the side. That seems to be how they are acting.
That's a rather dire stance, to say the least, but yes, I agree that "eventually" stops being an answer people will accept after a while. If I were a camera article writer, it would be really hard for me to recommend Pentax because there's more promises than products.
Originally posted by jsherman999 You write:
"... I love my 77--it's my favorite lens--but it doesn't have the resolving power of the lenses my peers are using and in a semi-competitive environment, falling behind is not terribly fun."
I'm wondering what photographic application would expose the resolution difference between, say, a Nikon 85mm 1.4 (or whatever lens you were referring to) and the Pentax 77ltd?
In my experience, the 77ltd it exceptionally sharp. Copy variation?
Oh, it's quite a sharp lens! I think it's very good. But it's even outclassed, although slightly, in fine detail and resolution by the DA*55. When I was looking at some of my buddy's Fuji images at full res...wow, I couldn't believe how much detail they had. Just zoom to 100% and the finest details are stunning. The 77 is nice, but it can't quite match these modern computer-aided designs and high precision optics. It's utterly amazing what new stuff can do.
Originally posted by reh321 I don't understand all these issues with focus. Were you using paper-thin DOF? My style depends on providing context, so I typically use F/4 or narrower, and virtually none of my human subjects are out-of-focus ......
I'm usually at f/2.8. It's quite thin with a 77mm focal length. I define my own style but some potential models actually pass on me because I don't have enough "super bokeh" in my work. I think it's overblown and a bit cliche (and people are obsessed with it rather sillily), but people do actually think I don't know
how to do those kinds of shots because I don't do them. I'd actually like to try f/2.2 or f/2.5 even from time to time. The biggest reason I don't? I don't trust the AF system to nail the focus below f/2.8.