[VaughnA]

I bought a closeout *ist DL from Ritz about 2 months ago and I'm loving it. I now have 3 Lenses (18-55,50-200,50 F:2 A, and 1.7x Telecpnvertere. I'm really enjoying using the camera, especially for bird shots in the backyard. I've been considering getting a longer (70-300) zoom for better birding but I'm thinking that I may be better off using my current lenses and going to a K200d,K10d, or K2000 body to get SR and a few more MP to have some room for cropping? I actually think I'd rather have a 200d or K10 over the K2000 for the features that I'm used to on the *ist. I doubt the missus would go for the price of a K20 but that would be the dream option.

Would I get more bang for my buck with a bigger lens or a few more MP with SR?

Man this stuff is as addicting as crack.

[MrApollinax]

More MP gives you a little more wiggle room in terms of cropping your photos. SR will help you on the long end with camera shake, good for birding. Try looking at your local Ritz (Wolfe etc) Camera. The local one here was selling a K100D Super for $249. I had a 70-300 and while it is a good lens on the long end it tended to be a little soft and was prone to Purple Fringing. But knowing that you can work around some of those issues.

If you can get a good price on a new cam i'd jump on it. You could wait for the new flagship to be released and see if you can find a good deal on the used bodies that will be filling the market shortly afterwards.

[VaughnA]

More MP gives you a little more wiggle room in terms of cropping your photos. SR will help you on the long end with camera shake, good for birding. Try looking at your local Ritz (Wolfe etc) Camera. The local one here was selling a K100D Super for $249. I had a 70-300 and while it is a good lens on the long end it tended to be a little soft and was prone to Purple Fringing. But knowing that you can work around some of those issues.

If you can get a good price on a new cam i'd jump on it. You could wait for the new flagship to be released and see if you can find a good deal on the used bodies that will be filling the market shortly afterwards.

Our local ritz had the same deal but it's still 6.1 mp. I'd rather get the wiggle room from the 10mp if I'm going to upgrade.

[rfortson]

I, too, jumped on the Ritz deal for the *ist DL. I use it as a backup to my K20D. It's a great kit, and I love the image quality. However, I do miss shake reduction.

So....yesterday I was trolling my local Wolfe Camera (same company as Ritz) and saw a K100D Super on clearance for $349. I thought about it for about 5 minutes and then decided to get it. It has the 6mp sensor that I love, it has shake reduction that I want, and (the cherry on top) it works with my SDM lenses. And here's the best part. Since it was a display model, they knocked another $105 off the price so my price before tax was $244. As for it being a display model, you know it never got handled anyway because no one at Ritz or Wolfe would ever suggest a Pentax product.

So, while I really like the *ist DL (it has great ergonomics, better than the K100D in my opinion), I'll be selling it shortly and now have my perfect backup camera.

As for the more megapixels, it can be useful for cropping, but I found that 10mp wasn't that much of a jump. Going to the 14.6mp of the K20D actually does give you a noticeable difference. I also didn't like the image quality of the K10D as much as I did the K100D or *ist DL. The K20D slightly surpasses the IQ of the K100D or *ist DL (again, my subjective opinion). The K200D or the K2000 may be better, given that they have newer processing engines inside.

I'd stick with the 6mp and just get the shake reduction. If you can find the K100D Super, then you'll have all you need.

[Erik]

Our local ritz had the same deal but it's still 6.1 mp. I'd rather get the wiggle room from the 10mp if I'm going to upgrade.

The difference between 6 and 10 megapixels is pretty negligible, especially if you have lenses that aren't super sharp like the 18-55 (old version) and 50-200. You're looking at a 28% increase in linear resolution. That doesn't make for a huge difference in croppability.

If I had a DL my main incentive for upgrade to a newer body would be SR, because SR is very useful with longer lenses, but honestly, you shouldn't be looking at the sensor resolution and thinking that 800-odd more pixels horizontally would solve your problems. I'm also not sure that the fairly cheap consumer zooms you have would resolve that much more detail on a 10MP sensor.

If you're going to do this, go K10D for all the usability improvements it has. I use a K100D Super privately and a K200D at work, and my impression is that the K200D isn't enough of an upgrade over the 6 MP bodies to be worth it.

Or, as some posters above have said, go with the K100D Super for the SR, invest the rest of the money in a Sigma 70-300, and then get a K20D once you start feeling really limited by your camera and when they've gone down in price enough. The K100Ds is a great camera by all means, and is a stop faster at base ISO than the K10D/K200D (goes 200-3200 instead of 100-1600)

[VaughnA]

Thanks, I may go take a look at the K100D at the local ritz. The wife would probably be a bit more accepting of 300 bucks vs. 5-600. With that price I'd be able to keep the DL as my bike ride camera.

[Erik]

Or you could probably sell the DL for $200 and get a pretty decent upgrade for those 100 bucks. The K100D Super has enough improvements to make that worth it, in my opinion -- then buy a 70-300 and shoot some more birds!





(Sigma 70-300, K100D Super)

[MrApollinax]

Or Cats:





Or Bugs/Plants:





K100D Super + Quantaray 70-300 (rebranded Sigma)

[Sailor]

As others have said, the resolution increase in going from 6 to 10 MP is quite modest and the price in lost high iso performance is pretty high - at least based on what I saw with my DS2 and K10D. In my view, the resolution-noise compromise of the 6 MP is probably better for the kind of eclectic, amateur photography that I do than is that in the 10 MP one. To me if you really want a bump in resolution you need to go to a K20D, which produces detail while generating very managable noise at ISO 800 and 1600.

I can't tell you what you should do, but you might think about it this way. Your DL was apparently new in the box and is just now only two months "old" and you're "loving it." Perhaps simply using and enjoying it for a few months is the best path. That'll give time for the Earth to turn and the price of a K20D to slip further as it - and Pentax's other current offerings - slip into the past.

Jer

[VaughnA]

I can't tell you what you should do, but you might think about it this way. Your DL was apparently new in the box and is just now only two months "old" and you're "loving it." Perhaps simply using and enjoying it for a few months is the best path. That'll give time for the Earth to turn and the price of a K20D to slip further as it - and Pentax's other current offerings - slip into the past.

Jer

I love the DL and since it looks like the Jump to 10MP isn't that great I'm still a bit torn. I'd like a longer lens for birding but for the money I could get something with SR that may help my handheld bird shots be a little sharper. Maybe the thing to do is slow down a bit and wait to see what happens. Either way, a longer lens will still be able to be used.

You know... I am with sailor, I say forget the others and get the K20d. The cropping ability on that sensor is amazing IMO and I am coming from the K100 6mp.

And if you really want that longer zoom option, wait till you can afford the Pentax55-300. I have the tamron 70-300 and mine is a good lense for the 149 bucks but the PF is too much in the birdy shots IMO. Sure you will get some great shots at times (I have) but often the Pf will just kill a whole series of shots.

[VaughnA]

You know... I am with sailor, I say forget the others and get the K20d. The cropping ability on that sensor is amazing IMO and I am coming from the K100 6mp.

And if you really want that longer zoom option, wait till you can afford the Pentax55-300. I have the tamron 70-300 and mine is a good lense for the 149 bucks but the PF is too much in the birdy shots IMO. Sure you will get some great shots at times (I have) but often the Pf will just kill a whole series of shots.

That's pretty much where I'm at after getting good advice in this thread. After looking at a few examples I think I'll spend the extra bucks for the DA55-300 and wait until I can get something along the lines of a K20.

[Marc Sabatella]

As others have said, the resolution increase in going from 6 to 10 MP is quite modest and the price in lost high iso performance is pretty high - at least based on what I saw with my DS2 and K10D.

For whatever reason, the K200D and K-m both seem to improve on the noise performance of the K10D (different ADC, other differences in circuit path, also differences in JPEG engines for those who shoot that way).

I disagree with the prevailing opinion on the difference in resolution between 6MP and 10MP. It's not *huge*, I'll grant, but definitely noticeable. More detail without cropping, and "noticeably" more cropability.

Perhaps more significantly, I find the extra pixels mean that I can - if I choose - apply more aggressive NR to my 10MP images (K200D) than I could my 6MP images (DS). With no NR applied, I'd call their noise performance similar - K200D captures more detail, and when viewed at the same size as a DS image, very similar amounts of noise. I like that - more detail, similar noise. But I also like that if I so choose, I can apply more NR to the K200D image to yield one in which the detail has been smudged away to resemble the DS image, but there is *less* noise. I can get much cleaner images at ISO 3200 or even 6400 (push processed equivalents) than I ever did with my DS for any given level of detail.

Anyhow, FWIW, no way would I have bought the DL in the first place. Not because of the sensor, but because of the lack of SR and SDM. Seems that was a camera just begging you to upgrade from day one. I'd upgrade to a camera with SR in a heartbeat. But it wouldn't particularly matter if it were K100D Super, K200D, K-m, or K20D. K10D could be worth a look too, but for me, it's kind of an odd man out. Others, I recognize, feel that way about the K200D. All comes down to what you value, I guess.

[rfortson]

Anyhow, FWIW, no way would I have bought the DL in the first place. Not because of the sensor, but because of the lack of SR and SDM. Seems that was a camera just begging you to upgrade from day one. I'd upgrade to a camera with SR in a heartbeat. But it wouldn't particularly matter if it were K100D Super, K200D, K-m, or K20D. K10D could be worth a look too, but for me, it's kind of an odd man out. Others, I recognize, feel that way about the K200D. All comes down to what you value, I guess.

Marc, logically, I agree with you. And I originally bought my DL kit as a gift for my sister. But when it arrived and I had to unbox it to set it up for her, I forgot how much I liked the 6mp sensor and the ergonomics of it. Not sure how it stacks up against the K-M, but the small size really is nice. Having the DL and the K100D Super side by side, I can confirm that I do like the DL better in terms of ergonomics. For everything else, though, the K100D Super is better to me.

Plus, for $250 for the DL kit, you just can't find anything equivalent in my opinion. Heck, I paid that much for a Canon G9 (and that was a good price for the G9). For a cheap guy like me, that's really attractive.

BTW, thanks for confirming that the later versions of the 10mp sensor have a better handle on high ISO noise. I figured as much but I don't have hands on experience with them.

[VaughnA]

Man, I'm no better off than when I started! I'm very happy for what I got with the DL kit for 260. I've more than gotten my money's worth. But it's basically been a catalyst for getting me back into 'real' photography after a 30 year hiatus. I'll take all of the recommendations and digest everything. I need to remember that I took decent photos 30 years ago with a mamiya 500DTL and a 50mm lens.

I change my mind often as you can see so I'll probably come upon a deal on lens or body and then pounce. At that point the difficult part is explaining the purchase to the wife.