Originally posted by adamkean thanks for sharing your perspective. for me, and probably 99% of us here, a pentax k20d and current pentax lenses are enough, but, if my income was highly dependent on low light, high shutter speed, high iso, etc photos for a magizine, website, etc, i would be in the canon or nikon camp.
No problem. I guess what I'm trying to get across is that I'm not one that's moved to another brand on a whim. Nor am I into Pentax bashing now I shoot with another brand. I'm not a full-time professional, rather it is a side business for me. I shoot maybe 1-2 magazine feature articles a month and cover 3-4 sports (motor and field) events per month.
Living in a climate that has extreme variations, and many overcast days during the winter time I needed something that could handle metering in patchy, constantly changing light and also give me quite clean high ISO.
Originally posted by adamkean areas i think pentax can improve for the better for the majority of us - better flash system, and cleaner 1600/3200 iso. 3 fps is enough for me, 1/4000 shutter is more than enough, well, perhaps i could use 1/6000 outside in sunlight for action shots @ f 2.8 where i want dof
Once I watched a few of Chris's (Codiac) tutorial videos I started getting the Pentax flash system a lot more reliable, but the Nikons is very hard to fault (combined with the new SB-900). The high-iso is very clean, even with minimal NR, but I'm not going to dwell on this too much because I've never played with a K20D at high ISO. I normally lock my camera at 4FPS, but having the scope to shoot 6.5 is just genuinely very helpful in certain situations. Finally, I didn't realise how much I would use very very fast shutter speeds, but I certainly appreciate shooting 1/8000, especially when the base ISO is 200.
Originally posted by rfortson For indoor sports, or where you can get close to the sidelines, the DA*50-135 seems to be the perfect match for the K20D.
snip
Others have mentioned that the 50-135 is slow on AF. I haven't really seen that and have captured indoor rodeo with mine, which is hardly slow.
I was loaned a K20D and 50-135 when I said I was leaving Pentax and wasn't happy with it's focus speed compared to even a 30D with slow glass. But, horses for courses (is there a rodeo pun in there?
) if you shoot portraits more than sport then the 50-135 is a great lens.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella FWIW, I had the opportunity to play with a Nikon D300 for quite a while the other day.
Marc, I'm going to start off by saying the D300 is a mighty complicated bit of gear. I've had one for nearly 8 months (and 16,000 shots) and have finally got a grasp on the thing. The menu structure doesn't seem logical coming straight from Pentax, but given the scope of customisation in this body I don't know how else it could be done.
One thing that makes it look a lot worse than what it is are the multiple shooting and customisation banks. This I find very very helpful. You have 4 banks you can save for shooting settings and 4 for customisation. I have saved a Sports profile, Landscape, Portrait and a Point & Shoot mode for if someone that doesn't know photography.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella For instance, no mode dial. Changing exposure mode is a button press plus rear dial. Not a big deal to me since I use M pretty much exclusively, but still, quite surprising given how pretty much universal the mode dial is. And there were very few options in that mode menu - M, P Av, and Tv. I suspect there were option buried to enable variants - like a way to enable Auto ISO with M mode to simulate the Kx0's TAv mode, but it was hardly as straightforward as with pentax. Also, no "Green Button" to quickly set an appropriate shutter speed in M mode, nor did P mode seem to give a "hyperprogram" facility (unless that needed to be enabled by some sort of option).
I don't find the lack of a mode dial an issue, I'd rather have dedicated ISO, WB and Quality buttons. The shooting mode (S, A, M or P) is displayed in the view finder at all times so you don't need to move your head away to confirm that you're in the right mode. Yes, Auto ISO is avaialble in Manual, and unlike my experience with K10D auto ISO, it actually works, well. And there is a 'green' button, but it's buttons on the D300, one is on the left (activated with the thumb) and one near the top LCD (activated with the pointer finger).
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella Apparently unlike some Nikon DSLR's (?!), there *are* options to control typical JPEG processing parameters - sharpness, contrast, etc - but I couldn't find them. Not on the camera, not in the manual - I had to go thrugh the dpreview review to find them. Really well hidden.
These are not 'hidden', just the totally different (to Pentax) menu structure puts them in a different place. If they are settings you would like to use often there is a fully customisable shortcut menu you can add settings you change regularly into.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella Overall, looking through the menus, camera behavior just doesn't seem as customizable as even the K200D, much less the K20D.
This is where a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The customisable options are certainly equal to a K10D (I assume there weren't a great deal more options added to the K20D). Some are the same or similar, others are different. Some I miss, others I appreciate.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella I liked that there were dedicated ISO and WB buttons, as well as other controls, but overall, the body it felt *too* littered with buttons - I would imagine it would take quite a while to get accustomed to finding these buttons by feel.
It does take a while to get used to everything, as it does with any high-end electronic device, especially one from a different manufacturer. The biggest two that get me is the e-dials turn the opposite way to Pentax, and the lens mount turns to opposite way. Once you get used to the button layout and the programable Fn button (located on the front near the DOF preview button) you get used to it. One thing I do like is the ability to assign different buttons different functions depending on the shooting bank you are using. One thing I adore is the size. It is a substantially bigger body to the K10D and counters longer prime lenses far more comfortably.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella The liveview implementation was about as counter-intuitive as I could possibly imagine designing such a system. I never quite got to the point of understanding it, actually (and reading more about since she left, I understand that others find it confusing as well). Not that this is one of the K20D's strong points either, of course. Still, for soe reaosn i expected this to be better.
I read and re-read the manual with regards to live view. It took me some time to get used to how it functioned. Now I understand it I can use it quickly and easily (though I don't use it often. I have never used the K20d's live view function so cannot compare one system to the other.
Originally posted by Marc Sabatella Anyhow, I'm sure the camera has really strong points as well, and some of my confusion comes form being brainwashed into the Pentax way of settings things up. But I swear I didn't have nearly as much difficulty figuring out the DS (my first DSLR), and I'm quite sure I'd never really find the D300 controls as intuitve as those of any of the Pentax DSLR's I've handled.
I found, and still find, that the Pentax bodies are similar in control to their 35mm SLRs. This may be why you found the DS easier to pick up and use. Also bear in mind they are a far less customisable camera than the D300.
Back to the dedicated buttons and lack of mode-dial. I much prefer the buttons. I change settings far more often than I change modes and would rather these be available to me quickly. Drive mode, WB, flash mode and compensation, and ISO on the Pentax bodies require you to enter a software menu which I found was very slow in the heat of the moment. An example from the other day, I was out shooting sports, all of a sudden it came over very cloudy and dark. In two button/e-dial flicks I had adjusted WB and ISO and kept on rolling. On the Pentax you have to enter the Fn menu, left-arrow for WB, scroll up or down and hit OK. At least ISO is easy to change by holding the OK button and using the e-dial, but this is still a lot slower than the Nikon.
In summary, in the same way a metal fabricator can't just pick up an electric arc welder when he's been trained in TIG and weld something, you can't just pick up another camera and expect it to all function the same. Whilst they are both cameras (or welders) they are both different devices.