[Reportage]

With regards to the K20D..isnt it odd that the High Speed is 3fps and Low Speed is 2.3fps?

the 1D3 does 10fps on High and 3fps on low.
the 50D does 6.5fps on High and 3fps on low.

The way it looks. The K20D could have been 5~6fps but may have been purposely slowed down to 3fps and i am guessing Pentax may not be releasing anymore updates for it. Improved AF speed + fps speed boost may eat into the K7`s sales.

Does anyone know of any group who are working on firmware to at least release the 3fps limit on the K20D.

[kenyee]

errr...the fps is a mechanical limit of shutter speed...

[Marc Sabatella]

Well, not just shutter speed, but the whole assembly - mirror up/down, etc. Sure, there is an image processing element to it as well, but the notion that that Pentax would deliberately put an arbitrary limit on the frame rate of the K20D that could be lifted by a simply firmware change is not really plausible. What on earth would they have had to gian by doing so? Sometimes a company might deliberately cripple a lower priced camera to maintain an artificially distinction in specs to encourage people to upgrade, but Pentax had nothing to upgrade to when the K20D came out.

[flyer]

The FPS rate has a lot to do with how fast you can collect the information from the sensor. On the K-7, the main reason Pentax was able to bring FPS up was by doubling the channels (on the sensor) that transmits the information.

[woof]

Sometimes a company might deliberately cripple a lower priced camera to maintain an artificially distinction in specs to encourage people to upgrade, but Pentax had nothing to upgrade to when the K20D came out.

[Aside]

Heh. Pentax did just that with several models in the M42 era. The H1/S1 for example was given a shutter speed of 1/500 when the up-market H3/S3 had a speed of 1000. The fun part is that the 1/500th on the H1 was cosmetic. The 1/1000th speed existed, it just was not marked on the dial. You can select it simply by going a click past the 1/500th.

In this manner they were able to implement the marketing trick without actually increasing the cost of tooling - sure, they needed a new top plate engraving and a speed dial without the 1000th, but that is nothing compared to actually producing two mechanisms.

[/aside]

This is not meant to bolster the idea that the K20D was purposefully crippled. It was the flagship and if they could have done 6.5 they would have, and the K7 would be that good or better. They have been concentrating on other things. like producing one of the most featured-packed camera in any price range.

woof!