[Marc Sabatella]

Q: who said they *aren't* "pro"? Seems those are the people to ask. Others *do* consider them "pro".

But some of the things I can imagine people using as distinguishing features are frame rate, FF or not, dual control wheels or not, dual card slots or not (I wouldn't have thought of that myself), weather sealed or not. Also, Pentax is doomed to be considered not "pro" by some until it offers more longer/faster telephoto lenses, or more extensive flash capabilities, etc.

Support - Support - Support- Service - Service - Accessories Accessories

A pro can usually not afford to have a camera in service for 8 weeks.
A pro may sometimes need to rent gear locally for a special shoot.
A pro may need lenses that are not in the current limited pentax line up.

FLASH FLASH FLASH --- The pentax pttl flash system is not all that good compared to the Nicanons.


But can pro's use the Pentax's to sell their photos... of course they can!

Some pros I am aware of, use Point and Shoot bridge cams and make a good living... It is all about what you shoot and what you sell.

[Photomy]

Pro camera is the most reliable, most durable, highest quality, offering all possible features that a pro would want, that money can buy

AND similar specs for flash and complete lens system

AND full pro support for quick repair turn around

Pentax is a notch below this and does not have pro support system

[Steve Beswick]

Don't worry, the 645D won't be considered pro either.

[Ratmagiclady]

A pro camera is what you can make money on.

It's kind of about knowing what you need, too: with the kind of work I do (And the halting pace at which I can do it) it wouldn't make a lot of sense for me to lay out for a multi-thousand dollar system, for instance: the nice thing about Pentax is, you can have something like a K20d for the price of someone else's stuff that's oriented toward less-serious photographers: you can have your full controls and weathersealing and as good of glass as you can afford: for me, the service network would be of less importance, too: it'd make more sense for me to simply get a backup if I were relying on the camera for pay. I'm pretty much about basics, so I don't need high FPS performance and the like, so if there's a limited selection of really long glass, that doesn't bother me. As long as what I do need exists, we're good.

The Pentax flash system certainly leaves a lot to be desired, but I was always an automation resister, anyway: once upon a time, I never used a dedicated flash to begin with. I walked into that with my eyes open, if without great enthusiasm on that count: I'm not as quick on the calculator dial as I used to be, so there'd be a lot of appeal if they could work some true TTL in.

It used to be that the 'pro' cameras weren't even the ones with all the highest specifications and the most high-tech to them: 'pro' meant it was durable and had the best viewfinder. For a while now, Nikon and Canon have been pretty much defining what a 'pro' camera is in the first place: what's not apparently been the priority to them is something like what Pentax'll give you: something smallish and modular with a nice finder, with good build quality, proper manual controls, your weathersealing, and suchlike.

Knowing the right tool for the right job is one of those 'professional' skills. Personally, if I bootstrap together my enterprise here and find my performance or other practical needs exceed what Pentax can provide, well, I'm not out any more than I would have been if I'd bought 'amateur' grade stuff from Nikon or Canon.

The prices of everybody's stuff have gone up since then, but when I got a chance to go digital, my own math meant that I'd have spent as much to be working with a used d70, and just about all I'd be spending to get that system going would be spent on stuff I'd be guaranteed to be wanting to upgrade and having to live with the meanwhile, anyway, so it wouldn't really be helping me or saving any money to start my digital off with that system. When all's said and done in getting what I need in Pentax, it'll have all come in for about the price of a d300 body, (as it was then, anyway: out of reach, anyway) which would have been what I'd consider 'sufficient for the forseeable future.'

Which is a long way of saying, if I end up needing (and having the budget for) more, it wouldn't be any more 'professional' a move to be trading in entry level Nikon stuff than if I had to trade in Pentax stuff. (not something I'm in a hurry to do, actually. *cling.* ) And in the meantime I wouldn't have been shooting what I wanted to be shooting.

But it all really depends on what you're doing.

[Ash]

So I guess if a "Pro" uses a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 P&S camera because it offers specs that meet his demands its now good enough to be called a pro camera.

Answer is in these rhetorical questions:
How many pros do you know use this P&S in their professional shoots?

And if people such as Benjikan and Peter Zack use such sub-par gear such as the K20D, which according to many people here is not a "pro" camera, then are these photogs not considered pro?

[jgredline]

If you have a K100Ds or an ME SUPER, and you took a photo with it and sold the photo for $1:00, you just became a pro and hence the camera is now a pro camera in your hands....It is that simple...

[Ratmagiclady]

Answer is in these rhetorical questions:
How many pros do you know use this P&S in their professional shoots?

And if people such as Benjikan and Peter Zack use such sub-par gear such as the K20D, which according to many people here is not a "pro" camera, then are these photogs not considered pro?

Unfortunately, Ash, where people *do* turn gear into status symbols, (some 'pros' would do this, but not usually the ones that prove to be worth talking to, especially back in the days when a nice camera and nice glass were nice cameras and nice glass, but there wasn't much room to blame the tools if you missed focus or something,) ...it can sometimes affect things. Not rightly so, really, but it can.

Back in the day, the nice stuff was actually quite nice, but if they sneered at the gear you had in hand, (Back then it was also a way to express disapproval if you stepped in the 'boys' club,' but in actual fact, the differences were minor, compared to your skills, ) you could just blow their doors off.

Or they'd be, 'You shouldn't be using that for this, honey,' I'dbe like, 'Yeah, well, if you ask *him...* ' (pointing in other direction from where the shot was.) I'd be ten steps closer to position by the time they looked back.

Not that I couldn't appreciate the finer points, but the brand snobbery goes back further than when there were such major differences, (And, now, the differences are again becoming narrower and narrower) or an Internet to geek out about them on.

You use what you got. It is of course lame when someone, particularly someone writing the checks, says, 'You must really suck if you can't have already bought this pricey kit,' but that's really about 'pros and schmoes.'

My 'Rule One' of 'professional photography' is 'Get the Shot.' If the bystander with the Instamatic gets the shot and you don't, well, they get paid, not you.

At least before they got computers involved, you could burn a 'brand snob' on that count nearly every time.

[ozlizard]

This question drifts in the ever shifting sands of change....the constant advancement of technology. Go back 5 years and the K20 would definately have been touted as a PRO camera. Back in 1998 I was using a 1.44 megapixel Olympus as a pro photographer doing children's photos...this definately wasnt considered a pro camera by photographers but it was by the general public. Later I upgraded to a Camedia 2.5 megapixel, I think it cost me about $3,000, just think what you could buy for that money right now!