I mean, my K20d doesn't expose properly. I think pentax could have gotten much more attention and been a bigger player in the camera market if they had just focused (no pun intendended) on the basics... light metering, autofocus, etc. LIke everyone who uses pentax, when I first got mine, I wonderred why they didnt have that reputation that other cameras have because they are pretty good. They feel great in your hand. I'll give them that. I remember when I took my istds (not weather sealed to my knowledge) on a school field and it actually got rained on a little bit and it still works fine to this day.
Quote: You know, I was out in the hills with my Jeep the other day and spotted a large hawk circling intently over something in the canyon below. I immediately slammed on my brakes and grabbed my K-01. Of course I still had the 31mm on it which certainly wasn't enough for this shot. So I jumped out of the Jeep and started rummaging around in the back until I found my A400mm. Ahh, just the thing for this shot. Rats, where's that tripod (I somehow have horrible luck handholding this thing). Finally found the tripod, hooked up the camera, attached the lens, spun around and set it up and looked up.
Where is that bird??
Darn this camera!! If I only had a Nikon this would have worked out a lot better.
That doesn't really have much to do with af.
Originally posted by northcoastreg: Better dynamic range than what? The problem here is not that you want to switch to Nikon, but that you're trying to justify your switch with ill-informed reasons. No APS-C camera currently available has "significantly" better dynamic range than any other. The Pentax and Nikon APS-C DSLRs are a bit better than the Canon APS-C DSLRs. But they're not significantly better. You're images are not going to automatically become better because you shoot a Nikon. If you're comparing DSLRs with the same sensor size, the quality of the lens is going to play a much bigger part in image quality than the camera.
Better than similarly priced pentax cameras. Even mid ranges ones. Again, I dont have any intention of getting the 3200. Only using it as an example to show how one of nikon's cheapest offerings outperforms much of pentax's lineup. Here is the D3200 vs the K-5
(from dpreview)
All APS-C sized sensors aren't the same. Nikon developes their own sensors and from what i can see, likewise with pentax. There are other factos too, like the image processing and I suspect pentax is also somewhat behind here as well.
Quote: Didn't the K20D, from 2008, have live view mode? Or was that an "improper" implementation of live view?
I dont really use the live view on my k20. Its pretty "tacked on" compared to whats seen in other cameras. There is no af or info displayed. Its pretty bare bones. Pentax didnt seem to have given much thought to whether it was going to be practical, which i find is an issue with a lot of the features they have. Alot of the things they have like the the odd 5 second, do it yourself, soundless "movie" mode just seem like they are there so that pentax can claim an extra feature. Alot of these things simple seem like they were done without much thought as to how they would make the photographers life easier or give them more creative freedom.
Originally posted by GibbyTheMole: That could indeed be tedious... if you spend hours changing your LCD color schemes.
You're missing the point. It shouldn't be so complicated to do something simple.
Originally posted by GibbyTheMole: There's this thing that comes with your camera.. It's typically made of paper, and is in book-form. It's called a manual. Spend a couple of minutes with it sometime.
Like I said, you shouldn't need a manual to know how to peroform basic tasks. From what I can see, one of the chief problems with pentax menus is simply that it simplly takes too long to do things. Often, we would have to do things in class like change the white balance and people with nikons would be able do these kind of basic things in a snap but i was still buried in the menus while other people were shooting away. Take the back of the k20d. It is not immediately clear how to change things like white balance or iso, whereas with nikons it is obvious right off the bat. With nikon you
don't have to read the manual to know how to do these things. The aforementioned 5 second movie mode actually further complicates things because its easy to get it mixed up with bursts shooting in the menu. Not to mention that there isn't exactly much to distinguish it. Now I havent used newer Pentax's such as the K30 or K3 but this is exactly what im talking about what when i say unintuitive.
I have lost many shots also because pentax's shutters tend to have a hell of "bang", so much that they actually shake the camera. Their DSLRs seem to be a nod back to their classic days of film cameras, where it was all about being built like a tank. In some ways this is a good thing. I mean, I can put my camera down on the ground when I can doing a shoot and not have to worry about it, but i think pentax could benefit from a little more.. well shall we say finesse. Ive played around nd with friends nikons and canon's in class and pentax has, by far, some of the most difficult to use controls. A great example of this is dial for af point adjustment on the K20 which is so awkward to use i frankly never bother with it.
Yes, as some have pointed out fewer controls means more menu options, but you can however make reasonable assumptions about things that users will need the most and make those more easily accessible. Plus, I find Pentax's on camera controls to just be harder to use than the competition.
Originally posted by GibbyTheMole: Considering you bought your first camera a scant 3 years ago, you're still a newbie. I've been at it for about 30. And a lot of guys here have been at it much longer than I. If it makes you happy, buy your Nikon. You may feel like a pro for a few days, but you'll find out soon enough that the name stamped on your camera doesn't make you one.
That still doesn't change the fact that pentax has yet to catch up to nikon/canon in many ways. It doesnt take 30 years of experience to see that a picture is not being properly exposed, or that pictures just seem so much more vibrant because of better dynamic range, or that in general a camera is just easier to use. Why do you think so few professionals use pentax? Yes, I have only been taking pictures for 3 years, but i ve been at it almost constantly.