[Wheatfield]

I don't necessarily agree with this. I'm sure a great photo has been taken with a less than average lens and visa versa. Some lenses are sharper than others, some cameras more technologically advanced than others. But they dont take photos, nor does the camera.. you do.

But if you are going to go Nikon, i'd listen to what some people have said in this thread and go the D300 over the D90.

I'm happy with my K200D, but not always pleased with the DA 18-250 attached to it.

In any case, its up to you. Swapping brands is legal and harms no one.. the only thing you WILL have afterwards is LESS cash, and hopefully a respect for Pentax.

(edit- OK.. less cash if you are not using it to earn money!)

If you don't think the lens makes the picture, try taking a few without one sometime.
After spending half a day taking a few blurry pinhole shots, you might decide that those lenses actually do something.
Or am I deliberately misunderstanding you the same way you deliberately misunderstood me?
Perhaps your understanding will increase if you read the entire sentence instead of parsing one phrase out of context.

[klika]

Unless you are willing to spend major $$$$, I am almost sure you will not be happy with Ni*** or Ca*** or whatever is presented to you.

Have you ever used C/N?

Agree NIk/Can has a wider glass arsenal, but to be honest, Pentax glass is top quality and its glass availability covers 99% of 99% of photographers needs. Of course, there is no 300/2.8 or anything longer than 300. but will you dump $5 grand for one...

C/N are not top quality? Not sure how you get these 99%, maybe for you , not for me, the main reason I switched to Canon is because top quality lens availability ........ I don`t wanna start another thread about upcoming DA 60-250 , but my EF 70-200 IS makes me very happy....... and cheaper then 60-250 .

I too bought my K20D at $1200 and also, to be honest, I think this price also gives me a lot of features only comparable to Can/Nik $3 grand plus bodies.

Agree! But lenses are crucial in the whole system.......

[blwnhr]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[pingflood]

Just be glad it wasn't a 1 series Canon you picked up. Talk about different controls...

[blwnhr]

Yes, I've used Mk 2 and 3's and the combination of button pushes, stand-on-one-leg, spin the dial is just bizzare.

[roentarre]

Am I happy with my new gear; most definitely. Do I wish I could have stayed with Pentax; most definitely. Would I change back to Pentax if they offered a comparative body in the future; no. Why not? Because I simply could not afford to change brands again.

P.S. No, I don't think I would have been able to get these shots with Pentax, and that's coming from a Pentax lover that tried for a very long time.

Very true.

Same goes for wedding photography (photojournalistic type). Autofocus is a main concern.

I tried Canon 500mm f4 IS L once. It was just incredibly fast with beautiful image rendering. Too different from the non-big gun type canon L primes.

[roentarre]

Yes, I've used Mk 2 and 3's and the combination of button pushes, stand-on-one-leg, spin the dial is just bizzare.

I did that with wedding and event photography. I somehow could utilise the ring finger to do the dial

[jct us101]

I don't get why any of this matters.

There are different brands for reasons, Canon has some great sports cameras, Nikon has some great professional wedding or other events cameras, Sony has some great tourist cameras, so why can't Pentax have anything? It seems like everyone in this thread just wants to throw down Pentax because it's not as good as Canon for some things. If I had the money to buy even one Canon L lens and a midrange body, I probably would. I still don't get the point though when you can get something from Pentax for so much less, along with the issue of sports shooting not even applying to me. Not everyone is a sports photographer.

[Saaby]

Aaand...6 pages later and no peep from the OP.

[Mike Cash]

Aaand...6 pages later and no peep from the OP.

Welcome to the internet.

[RiceHigh]

Canon has some great sports cameras, Nikon has some great professional wedding or other events cameras, Sony has some great tourist cameras, so why can't Pentax have anything?

So, what does Pentax have in your opinion?

[jct us101]

Don't start with me.

Pentax has everything that I need it for. The SR works great when I'm doing low light shots (I do a lot of night photography) and even the kit lens is sharper than any Canon lens I've ever had when doing macro shots. I do a lot of architecture too, and I just feel like the Pentax does much better than my XTi ever did. Pentax is definitely also a winner in landscape photography.

What does Canon have in your opinion, I'd love to know?

[Clicker]

Come on guys let's not get personal

[Clicker]

Come on guys let's not get personal, let's try and have a discussion no need to quarrel every time one of these threads pop up

[Ash]

What Pentax IS for one person is NOT for another. Doesn't make it any less of a camera, just different.

How many times do we have to go through the discussion of how Canon and Nikon are better than Pentax?