[jogiba]

I like a small camera, they are handy and a novelty of sorts...some even produce excellent results. Still, I have to wonder where is the advantage when you mount a lens that makes it just as bulky as a DSLR, for all practical purposes? It's like buying a Mini Cooper and outfitting it up to tow a Motor Home. Sure, you still have a small car, but where was your gain in size saving?

Regards!

I use my NEX-3N with 16=50mm PZ OSS zoom that is very compact and I bet the Pentax Q with kit zoom lens is not much smaller and has a tiny sensor compared to the APS-C NEX and putting the 50mm F1.4 Pentax with PK-Lens Turbo adapter makes it work like a 35mm F1.0 lens and is still a compact combo. Try getting an APS-C DSLR with zoom or 35mm F1.0 this small.

Pentax Q w/8.5mm lens vs NEX-3N w/16-50mm PZ OSS zoom :

[jogiba]

Five years ago, in Q2 2008, Nokia was still the No. .1 smartphone maker in the world, with a market share of 47.5%. Blackberry had increased market share dramatically to 17.4% - No. 2.

Gartner noted that Apple market share actually decreased to just 2.8% in the quarter. Some say Apple will never achieve significant business usage because it lacks important enterprise features and does not have a hardware keyboard.

At business conferences etc., I doubt you will see many carrying an iPhone. Although there may have been a cute girl carrying a white Windows phone.

BlackBerry, HTC eat into Nokia Q2 market share ? The Register

Blackberry is done, stick a fork in them.
Apple joins Google in quest for BlackBerry engineers | TweakTown

[Winder]

Blackberry is done, stick a fork in them.
Apple joins Google in quest for BlackBerry engineers | TweakTown

They have been dead for 3 years. They just didn't know it.

[Shanti]

I wonder are hands getting smaller or what??! the K5II has near perfect ergonomics,esp. for the DA300 lens(with grip of course) I can see the new A7 as a great landscape cam to compliment the K5/K3 's ..but they are are tools..one must find what's right for each job at hand..but at $1400 for the FF A7 it will be a game changer..and lots of nice Pentax glass to use on it

[RyanW]

I've only ever seen Pentax shooters, in the wild, when I didn't have my camera with me.

LOL - made me think up a quick joke.

What's the difference between a Pentax shooter and sasquatch? We need good documentary evidence of Pentax shooter's existence.

[RyanW]

I suppose it does get a bit grainy, but i've always been able to compose. My biggest gripe with the EVF is that the focus peaking doesn't work as well in the EVF as it does on the back LCD, that's quite frustrating to me.

The Oly E-M1 has an excellent viewfinder. I've hear some folks saying even though it has focus peaking they are able to focus it via the evf with high accuracy.

I said in another post though with regard to mirrorless and evf. I want to go to sleep for 5 years and step back into a mature market that has worked out the growing pains.

[jsherman999]

But with $1,000 dollar cameras like the GX-7 and $3,000 bodies like the coming Sony A7 line, mirrorless are moving up the market.

I have yet to see a mirrorless that can track a bride and groom running back down the isle after the ceremony. Olympus is getting close, but they are not there yet. The K-5 can't even track something as simple as the bride and groom running with the level of consistency most professionals find acceptable. I hope the K-3 can bring Pentax to that level.

If mirrorless solves the AF issue with on-sensor PDAF (or something equivalent) and non-lag, excellent EVFs appear, we may see Nikon/Canon in trouble - but odds are, when that time arrives, they'll just as likely be the ones to deliver it.

In the meantime, I think anyone who can get what they need AF-wise from a current mirrorless body really didn't 'need' much in the first place, and a DSLR was an over-purchase for their use-cases. Much like PCs were over-purchases for most folks - they can get what they really needed with a tablet, or phone.

I said in another post though with regard to mirrorless and evf. I want to go to sleep for 5 years and step back into a mature market that has worked out the growing pains.

Exactly... and you may be buying a CaNikon (or Pentax!) mirrorless by then.


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Last edited by jsherman999; 10-15-2013 at 02:20 PM.

[Winder]

I think anyone who can get what they need AF-wise from a current mirrorless body really didn't 'need' much in the first place, and a DSLR was an over-purchase for their use-cases.

According to several members on this board who have the NEX-6 and K-5, the NEX-6 has fast AF and better C-AF tracking and no lag. The A7 will be just as fast if not faster. From what I have read the Olympus E-M1 is faster than anything Pentax has ever made. Apparently Pentax users have never "needed" much in the first place.

[jsherman999]

According to several members on this board who have the NEX-6 and K-5, the NEX-6 has fast AF and better C-AF tracking and no lag. The A7 will be just as fast if not faster. From what I have read the Olympus E-M1 is faster than anything Pentax has ever made. Apparently Pentax users have never "needed" much in the first place.

I've played with a NEX (kit lens), and came away with the feeling that it almost matched my K20D. I haven't personally read any accounts that say otherwise - basically pretty good for CDAF, but can't match PDAF, especially when conditions get more demanding. When it comes to focus accuracy - sure, just like CDAF/Live view is very accurate on DSLRs - but slower.

That's been the major deal-breaker for me... but I still want to find a nice MFLC or MILC as a backup to my DSLRs - my iphone is nice, but not nice enough. If it's a backup, I personally could live with a step back in AF lock speed... but not of it's a primary, DSLR replacement.

.

[kenafein]

I've played with a NEX (kit lens), and came away with the feeling that it almost matched my K20D. I haven't personally read any accounts that say otherwise - basically pretty good for CDAF, but can't match PDAF, especially when conditions get more demanding. When it comes to focus accuracy - sure, just like CDAF/Live view is very accurate on DSLRs - but slower.

That's been the major deal-breaker for me... but I still want to find a nice MFLC or MILC as a backup to my DSLRs - my iphone is nice, but not nice enough. If it's a backup, I personally could live with a step back in AF lock speed... but not of it's a primary, DSLR replacement.

.

My NEX 6 runs circles around my K-5, in tracking mode. The firmware must be updated on the lens and the camera; and it must be set to PDAF mode. You also have a small area of PDAF detection. Outside that it's CDAF, which is still better than nothing, I suppose.. Now the buffer isn't as big, and, depending on light, it might not be as fast in AF-S; but it's close. Accuracy is key. The NEX 6 nails focus most of the time. I set it to 3FPS(K20D level). 10FPS is worthless because the buffer willl fill up in less than a second. For someone used to a Pentax camera, the NEX 6 AF-C blows it away (with an updated Sony lens). I really hope the K-3 is a leap frog, in AF-C, for Pentax. Older bodies, like my 5N, are no match for a Pentax DSLR, however, I had a higher keeper rate with zone focus, on my 5N, than I did with PDAF on my K-5. In most respects, the K-5 is the superior camera, just not in tracking AF. Perhaps the K-5 II or even the K-30 can best it. The NEX 6 isn't an amazing performer, but it gives promise of what is to come.

[jogiba]

New Sony A7R Full-Frame mirrorless takes computational photography to a new level

[falconeye]

I did read and disagree with Ratcliff's opinion.

He does't seem to take two aspects into account:

1. It doesn't matter if the camera business is hosted by a larger corporation. Rather, it puts it at a risk to be shut down if too deep in the reds, even if previously earned capital is around.

2. The followers must attack the leaders, not the other way round. This is why Olympus and Sony attack, Pentax being a shameful exception now. But there is an old business rule: Never underestimate the leaders! They typically watch, learn and wait. Until they bite back. Just remember the Nikon 1, laughed at but now the best selling MILC? And the wait isn't over, more recently, SLR sales was more robust than MILC sales ...

[Tsuken]

Interesting reads - Ratcliff's post which I saw on Google+ a wee while ago, and this thread.

Personally, I went from a compact, to iPhone (that switch was because my daughter killed the little Kodak xP ), to a Lumix G-10 (mirror less micro4/3), and now to a Pentax K-30. My reason for the micro 4/3 was that I wanted interchangeable lenses, and the G-10 was cheaper than DSLR options at the time (perhaps I didn't look hard enough, or perhaps DSLRs have reduced in price lately; the price ranges of DSLRs and micro 4/3 seem to overlap significantly now).

The G10 was great. I learnt a bit about interchangeable lens systems, and about photography and camera control in general. But I still wanted a larger sensor. Better light sensitivity, shallower DoF for a given aperture - and I suspected overall better quality of lenses available.

Having got the K-30, my preliminary impression is that I was right to presume and want those things. I can even compare the same lens on my G10 and K-30 (because I had an adaptor for my Pentax 50mm), and it really is substantially better: crisper, better dynamic range, and just some sense of ... I don't know ... clarity, or "realness", or ... something. I'm still trying to work it out.

So for me, while I really do believe that the equipment is secondary (one of my best photographs was with an iPhone 3G - yay 2MP xP ) I also think it can be very important. And I have certainly noticed a significant difference between my mirrorless camera and my DSLR (and I doubt it's simply 2 years of technology making all that difference).

/end blither