[Blue]

. . .
Funny thing though. My brother in law (who just had a baby with my sister) made the same decision - to get a quality camera for documenting his daughter's life, and a buddy of mine, same situation. BOTH of them (separate times/days/stores/no talking to each other) got the Sony a200 after visiting the local Best Buy - I guess they were really pushing that model/brand. And that was even after I told them everything I could about the Pentax and let each of them borrow my K10D for a few days.....oh well.

Be sure and ask them how their Minoltas are working out!

[roentarre]

I think the targeting age of audience is originally bi-modal: 20s and 50s.

Lately, the km sale is probably exploring the new audience where money is no issue when it comes down to trendiness

[Blue]

I think the targeting age of audience is originally bi-modal: 20s and 50s.

Lately, the km sale is probably exploring the new audience where money is no issue when it comes down to trendiness

51 votes his hardly significant plus people on here probable lean towards the geek side , but so far it is anything but bimodal. Its close to a normal distribution.

Edit: I will guess the don't care votes are 70+

[kurt]

When moving from film to digital, I thought that this could be a right time to look around and see what other vendors can offer ... As I am here in this forums tells the result. I sold all the old stuff and getting now 'new' sometimes not so new stuff

[rayallen]

I'm in the 60-70 age group and I have only ever used Pentax SLRs. Started with a new SP1000 in 1975. I still have it and it is working as well now as the day I got it. Then got a couple of pre-loved Spotmatics and then went digital with a K10D.

So, it has been nothing but Pentax for me. Should I have tried other brands? I don't know. I really had no need to as what I had was working just fine.

[Rense]

The curve has a rather normal distribution.....

[Venturi]

The first "real" camera I could claim as my own was a K1000; I did use my dad's Clarus for a couple years before the folks bought me the Pentax. Used it in spurts of interest from '82 until late '95. I was camera-less until 2006 when I bought a Nikon P2.

When I started shopping last year to get back into the SLR game and go digital with it I was zeroed in on Nikon and was weighing pros/cons/costs of the D70 & D80. Pentax wasn't even on my radar as I hadn't seen any adverts in years and was unaware they were even in the game still. I wasn't looking either as I was totally focused on Nikon (never much liked Canon as a company much less a camera). I literally stumbled across the K10/K20 on Amazon or B&H (can't remember) and got interested. Compared the features, specs, ratings and price and here I am.

So in my case, Pentax nearly "lost me" in the market today due to lack of visibility for sure. If they had been historically more aggressive in their marketing, given my long absense from the camera world, I still likely would have given Nikon's offerings a serious look but based on bang-for-the-buck Pentax would have won me over still I'm quite sure.

Interestingly (at least to me), even though the Samsung GX10 was out there and a virtual clone of the K10D I would have never looked at Samsung if Pentax wasn't involved in there. Not because I have anything against Samsung - I have a 40" HDTV & 2 22" Samsung monitors on my desk and couldn't be happier (okay, a 52" LCD HDTV and 3x monitors would be awesome...). But to me Samsung isn't innately a camera maker (nor is Sony, nor Canon anymore) so they wouldn't have qualified as candidates for a DSLR purchase.

[Rense]

And as far as your last question goes: I choose Pentax because the guy in the store told me I'd better buy a Pentax instead of a Canon EOS 50.... when he heard I had a Pentax before. So, it's mainly because of the easy use of old glass (I don't even own new).

[Canada_Rockies]

I'm just glad there are two more age groups above mine and a don't care.

We seem to be in the same age group. I'm a 1940 model. I've used Pentax since 1961 when I bought a used original Pentax out of a pawn shop. I've never seen anything to make me want to change.

[jeenyus]

I'm 26 and just kind of stumbled into Pentax researching DSLRs out of curiousity. I was going to buy a Canon P & S, and saw stuff on DSLRs, I didn't know what the difference was, so I started learning. After about a full day worth of trying to figure it out, electronic view finder vs. the mirror system; how important are megapixels, and all that stuff, I learned that I wanted a DSLR.

Since almost every picture credited some kind of Canon or Nikon that's where I looked first, and decided on a Rebel XT. But then I found one article, I don't remember who wrote it, but it was a nature photographer who said he only shoots with Pentax, may have said some other things about the brand too, I don't remember. I'll find out what article it was. After that it was just a domino effect of liking what I found, then finding a good deal on a camera on ebay, being sold by a Wolf clearance center about a half hour away, so I could pick it up next day.

I couldn't be happier about the way it happened. But it certainly wasn't Pentax advertising, it was word of mouth, or word of magazine article, that sent me this way.

[Nanthiel]

I bought a K20D because I think it's the best you get for the money. Although I sure -wish- I had some old lenses to put on it. =P

[falconeye]

The curve has a rather normal distribution.....

It hasn't because the groups 10-19 and 20-29 were split in two.

So, the have a peak at 25 and another at 50.

[Andi Lo]

I found out about pentax from redflagdeals.ca. I wanted a "better" camera than my old lumix (a fine camera for its time) and my film photog friend said that I should just get a dslr rather than better P&S. Basically there was a good on the k100d + 18-55 + 50-200 and I needed it to build my architecture portfolio (not architecture photography portfolio). Basically there's one conversation in that forum that goes:
A: Isn't Canon better? their bodies are more expensive. And this is only 6 mpix, that is so 2 years ago.
B: No, Cannon is just more expensive. Higher price doesn't mean better. Besides 6 mpix only matters when you print above 8x10
C: *shows some pics from the K100D*

After seeing those pics i was just sold Went to the store the next day and picked up the double kit lens. Still using it to this day =) This story is soo similar to a poster above saying how pentax users speak with their pictures

PS. at the time I thought with 18-55 and 50-200 there wouldn't be anything more that I would need from a camera. I couldn't be more wrong! After a year I have accumulated the Raynox 250, AF360FGZ, 4 takumars, DA 10-17, and A 50/1.7 =) Probably already spent more that what I spent on the camera originally

[Blue]

It hasn't because the groups 10-19 and 20-29 were split in two.

So, the have a peak at 25 and another at 45.

That could be an artifact by the sampling method though. It is really hard to be certain without the mean, median and mode.

[emalvick]

33 here...

I actually started with a Minolta SLR (60's model) that I got from my father and grandfather (2 different cameras). Moved to a P&S camera in 2000 while I was in college and slowly progressed to the Pentax dSLR (K10d).

I am a person who despises the corporations that flood the market with marketing and quantity over quality and reputation. As such I actually had a pre-disposition against Canon and Nikon when I was looking for cameras (have never owned either brand) as well as Sony (not that they had a dSLR at the time I was buying).

The Pentax was appealing because of their former reputation and because of the backward compatibility with their older lenses. If Minolta had a dSLR, I probably would have gone that route to use the old lenses, but Minolta was handed to me anyway, so Pentax became my choice. I also tend to over-analyze all my purchases, so Pentax won for more than just the backward compatibility thing (I did consider Nikon at a point as during my search, my opinions on them changed a bit), but economics was huge and Pentax is the best value for the buck.