Originally posted by Steve.Ledger It's not as bad as it sounds. It's quite convenient actually. Don't be so negative and dismissive. And how many damn lenses do you *need* (operative word there)
It works brilliantly AAMOF. And remember, it's only a half press, okay?
In what sense is it convenient to have the button pressed all the time? Even if it's only a half press. Your finger is locked into position, using the camera controls while shooting might be impaired, depending on what you want to do. You might accidentally let go, which might end up looking weird in the video. You might not assume other positions for your right hand which may be more comfortable, depending on the lens. When I'm shooting at a loud place (where an external microphone would probably draw too much attention anyway) I need to hold the right hand over the microphone in order to shield it a bit... that way the microphone doesn't hit it's limit nearly as much. The left hand carries the camera and focuses with the finger tips. Not possible if I need to press the shutter all the time.
I don't see any advantage to this, shouldn't it be possible for Pentax to send the "keep SR on" signal to the lens when shooting video?
@mamethot: The K-7, K-5, and probably K-x, K-m (?) were fully there already. They had arrived, they had a system that worked really well, and that, in hardware, still exists in the camera. If I were using a Nikon or Canon, which doesn't have the technical capabilities anyway, I wouldn't be nearly as negative about this. The problem is though that Pentax has _everything_ that is needed for great stabilization in camera, with every lens. The hardware, the software. They just don't activate it anymore, because reasons. That's like buying a car, and finding out that the manufacturer has left away a way to access the boot. It is there, there's plenty of space, and even the mechanism to open the boot exists. They have just disconnected it. And as reason they say "someone might be kidnapped and locked in the boot, and we want to avoid that." While that might theoretically happen, it is probably not a big problem, and clearly nowhere big enough to warrant such drastic measures and a loss of usability. If the car is a sports car, and simply doesn't have a boot, that is a different thing. I wouldn't complain about a sports car not having a boot (when there isn't space for one in the first place), but on a car that does have the space not giving access to it is ridiculous.