Originally posted by steve500 Today I went to inkley's pondering at lenses.
There wasn't much of a wide available selection, even knowing its a GIANT store I was in. They had endless selections in Sony, Nikon, Canon, etc... but pentax was very neglected.
These are tough times for bricks and mortar stores. For most of them, the only inventory that makes sense is the stuff that they know for sure they can sell, the stuff that their customers want to buy. That they don't carry Pentax does reflect the fact that Pentax is not a top seller (no news there). It does NOT mean that Pentax is no good.
If you use Pentax cameras, you need to get familiar with the big online stores: Amazon, B&H, Adorama (and Tamron4Less and Sigma4Less.com).
Quote: Talk me out of switching to nikon. What am I giving up?
You'll be giving up compatibility with all those old lenses. This is important for some Pentax shooters, although it means absolutely nothing to me, and may mean nothing to you.
You'll also be giving up the personal advantages of whatever you know now about Pentax. Nikon has its own history, its own quirks, compatibility issues, etc. This lens won't auto-focus on that camera - that sort of thing.
Pentax has some other distinctions - those pancake lenses, 14.6 megapixels, that nice red "Pentax" logo - but these aren't critical for most of us. I could easily live with 12 MP, and I don't own any pancake lenses. I might add here that if you give up the Pentax brand, well, you lose whatever good customer vibes you might have about the brand. Some people just like Pentax, end of story. That's fine, but if you're tempted to switch to Nikon or whatever, I guess your good vibe about Pentax isn't really a big factor in your thought process.
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The main tangible or objective advantage of Pentax is the cost. Nikon doesn't have in-camera stabilization but of course it does have VR lenses and Nikon folks claim in-lens stabilization is superior - it just costs more. The Pentax K20D is really well built but you can get a well-built Nikon body, too, if you're willing to pay enough for it. Pentax primes are great - but Nikon (and Zeiss et al.) make some great primes for the Nikon mounts; and if you are interested in zooms rather than primes, well, you'll have a lot more choices if you're a Nikon shooter.
When you're wrestling with this temptation, I think it's really important to remember that one thing you
won't get from Nikon is better photographs, not most of the time. Of course, the engineering differences aren't insignificant. If your livelihood depends on being able to shoot at ISO 6400 much of the time or to shoot 14 fps or having a 600mm zoom lens, well, perhaps you really do need to switch to Nikon or Canon. But for most photographers - most serious photographers and even most pros - these issues are NOT critical. "Nice to have" isn't the same thing as "must have to survive."
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These threads arise fairly regularly here. I think I started one myself a year ago. More than once, I've said that if I win the Texas Lottery, I'm going to buy a Nikon system. Maybe I would, I mean, if I'm rich, why not?
But money isn't everything. Unless I win the lottery, I doubt I'm ever going to have the money to justify buying the latest $5K camera every time a new one comes out. I shoot weddings and portraits - as well as vacations and kids' sports - just fine with my Pentax gear. If I were a Nikon shooter, I certainly wouldn't be using a D3 ($4300 body only, from Amazon today), and I probably wouldn't even be using a D300 ($1500, body only). I'd probably be shooting a D90 ($890, body only), so I could spend more on lenses - and so I could afford to buy the D90's successor when it comes out. I only recently came to think about it this way, but it's made a big difference to me. Let's say you have $1500 a year to spend on photography. You're going to continue to get more for that $1500 if you're shooting Pentax than if you're shooting Nikon. And the less you have to spend, the more sense Pentax makes.
And even if I did win the lottery - say I had enough money to buy the top of the line cameras from Sony, Pentax, Nikon, Canon, Olympus - what then? Well, I might switch to Nikon. But perhaps I wouldn't. I'm comfortable with my Pentax system now and I'm taking some good photos with it. Why would I want a new system? There's always something better on the market and even if I had the money, I don't have the time to keep up with it all. I find it disconcerting even now to shoot with my old Pentax *ist DS because I'm so used to the ergonomics of the K10D/K20D. I'm a photographer, not a camera collector and not a hardware reviewer, so having the latest and greatest of everything would simply confuse me. Best to commit to something good and get comfortable with it. Ken Rockwell says that, although he can shoot with anything, unless he's really got a good reason to pick up something else, he picks up the Nikon D40 because he likes it. Me, I think he's a bit crazy and I wish I could get him interested in a Pentax K20D. But he's got a good basic point.
The more expensive Nikon bodies are good, better than the Pentax K20D in a number of respects. That's a fact. But it's not the body that takes the photo. Nikon lenses are NOT better than the best lenses you can get for your K20D. If you switch to Nikon, you'll soon find that you're lusting for the latest from Canon - or envying the latest innovations from Sony or Olympus or whoever's got something new and exciting. It's hopeless.
Will