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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-18-2016, 04:04 PM
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Thanks to Skodadriver I now know that my "new" K10D has firmware version 1.30 loaded on it, but according to the review of the camera here at PF, the current version is 1.31. So I will see about upgrading it in the next week or so.
I uploaded the first image I took with it to https://www.camerashuttercount.com, and it answered back that the shutter count is: 36800. If that is correct, it's pretty high. On the other hand, if the camera has that much use and looks as good as it does, it must have been taken pretty good care of most of that time.
Here's the best shot I've taken so far. It's an in camera JPEG with the color set on Natural and the Saturation, Sharpness, and Contrast set on the center settings:
 
Bee Balm flower. K10D, SMC Pentax-A f/4-5.6 35-80mm at 80mm, iso 100, 1/125 sec, f/4.5.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-18-2016, 12:58 PM
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Skodadriver, that's a good suggestion, and if I find some issue I can't sort out, I'll hit the reset! I did change some of the previous user's settings as I went through the menu. For some reason he had the image quality set at one star, so I bumped it up to three. The camera was also set to shake the dust off of the sensor every time it was turned on. That seemed like overkill to me; besides, before I figured out what was causing it, having something in the camera thud a couple of times each time I turned it on was rather unnerving! Also, at first the shutter wasn't working, apparently because I was trying to use manual focus without setting the switch on the front that way. It said MF in the viewfinder, and I thought that reflected the switch already being set that way. No problem since I corrected the switch setting.
I can't find, so far, how to get the camera to display what firmware version is loaded. I guess I have to look at the exif of a picture (outside of the camera) to determine the shutter count.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-18-2016, 09:48 AM
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Well, I must finally confess that I pulled the trigger and bought a K10D. In fact, it happened just before skodadriver first posted about getting his Samsung version of it, but I thought I'd better wait to report until after the one I bought actually arrived and turned out to be in advertised condition.
What made me go for one so soon, when I had been prepared to save up money for months? I had been keeping an eye on what some of the body-only K10Ds in good condition seemed to be selling for, and I was seeing prices in the $120-140 range, more with a lens or lenses. One of the best deals seemed to be one KEH had for around $120, fully tested, along with battery and charger. Those were prices to save up for. Then I saw this auction nearing an end about 8 days ago on ebay. A body-only K10D, with battery and a charger (minus its cord). The seller had a 100% approval rating. The camera was listed as used but fully functional. The pictures showed only a little dirt or scuffing to the exterior, but no real damage. Nearing the end, the bids were still under $50, so I thought I would throw in a bid right at the end, assuming that one of the other bidders had a much higher maximum bid on file, and the price would skip instantly past mine. But that didn't happen. I won with a bid of $51 (a bit over $64 with shipping). Then I just had to wait to see if it was all too good to be true.
The camera arrived today. It was the most terrible job of packing a delicate electronic device I have seen in years. The camera and charger were in one bottom corner of the box with some of those clear plastic sheets with the large inflated sections piled in on top -- but not enough of them to keep either item snugly in place. In its travels from California to Illinois, it must have been handled by the tenderest angels of the United States Postal Service, bless their souls, for neither the camera nor the charger seem to have gotten damaged from sliding or bouncing around in the box and against one another! The flash popped up on the camera, but didn't get snapped off, as might have happened.
The internal battery still had a charge, so after inserting and formatting an Sd card and mounting a lens, I have been able to take a few test pictures, and go through all of the menus and adjust a few settings. I'm not finding anything wrong with the camera, though as with my K100D I can't test it with an AF lens, since I don't have one. It turned out to be cleaner than I thought it would be, having only a little dust in crevices, which has been easy to clean. There is a tiny amount of scuffing just behind the on/off switch, and nowhere else! I had a cord that fit the charger, so I'm topping off the charge on the battery.
I feel extremely lucky, not only because of the terrific bargain price, but also because the camera didn't get damaged because of the poor packing by the seller. Whewwwwwwww!
I'm going to go more carefully through the pdf of the manual I have, so that I can more carefully check out whether features I'm not familiar with might be functioning properly. Later I'll post a pic or two.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-12-2016, 03:15 PM
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Mark, it's good to know about those Magic Lantern guides, especially if they read well and go helpfully beyond manual basics. Springfield is only about 1 1/2 hours drive south of here on Illinois Rt. 97. Longer if you stop to take pictures along the way, of course.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-12-2016, 08:13 AM
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skodadriver, great to hear of your good luck with the Samsung GX-10! I read, I think in the K10D Club thread, of the Gx10 being a "rebadged" K10D, but wondered if there were any subtle differences. It's good that you described the differences for anyone else who might get interested in the GX-10. In an earlier ebay search to see what price the K10D and some other Pentax dslrs were being offered at, I also searched for listings of the GX-10, and unfortunately for me (not you) the couple of them I saw listed where only in the UK. Consequently the shipping charge put them out of cost competition with any K10Ds in the USA.
I know the feeling of weighing tidbits from an ebay ad and trying to guess how trustworthy the seller's description is -- and sometimes struggling to assess whether the seller even knows enough about the kind of item it is to be trustworthy in describing it! I've just never been one to gamble with wild abandon. :)
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-11-2016, 03:57 PM
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Mark, thanks for the thoughtful narrative of your upgrade process and thoughts about it. I'm not a fan of proprietary batteries, but I have discovered that replacements for the one the K10D uses are rather cheap. I checked on the price for a spare proprietary battery for a Fuji point-n-shoot digital camera a few years ago and discovered that it would be a MAJOR expense.
It sounds like you got a great deal for your pristine K10D. Good condition ones, from my recent checking, usually don't go below that, and sometimes they are listed for quite a bit more, though still usually lower than K5s.
If I saved up for enough months (possibly well into next year...), I might decide to go with a K5ii. But the comments and research into the K10D, does reveal it to be a "classic" that is still holding up very well, according to current users, and something I could get without having to wait that long for.
I've downloaded a K10D manual, and find that it does seem to be set up similarly to the K110D, despite there being a number of additional features and some controls being located in different places. Getting used to one doesn't seem like too steep of a learning curve for me. I haven't yet downloaded a K-5 manual to see if it looks especially more different, complex, or difficult.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-11-2016, 07:27 AM
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A few months ago I did some webpage shopping for a used dedicated external flash, and the few that would have had the p-ttl compatibility with my K110D were awfully pricey. It looks like you got a VERY good deal.
I don't do a great deal of flash photography, so between the camera's little internal pop-up flash, and the Vivitar 2500's 3 automatic, plus manual, modes being available when needed, I'm pretty much covered.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-09-2016, 08:07 PM
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My best external flash is a Vivitar 2500. It works just fine on my K110D, via a Safe Sync adapter to protect the camera from any trigger voltage spikes.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-09-2016, 03:38 PM
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Let's just say I have an understanding of what you said that can only come from having been married for almost 42 years.
There's a lot to love about the humble K110D, especially if it was one's first opportunity to quickly get digital pictures from any old film lens one has or finds. What fun! If I could put a digital back on one of my film slrs, that would have been my first choice, but that might not have worked as well as the K110D, even if it were possible or affordable. Since I mostly use my K110D in manual modes, I probably have only scratched the surface of what it can do. I really can't complain about it as a starter dslr. And I have only just now started thinking about upgrading from it -- partly because I really want to be shooting more film, or at least I keep thinking that, and, if I do change my priority to that, a dslr (including the mere K110D) that can share lenses with film bodies can be thought of as a useful accessory, a helper, to the film photography project. Maybe the lots-more-film-shooting project is more fantasy than plan...I dunno. But the "film-like" capability of the K10D, I have learned about through this thread, does add an interesting wrinkle to both the question of dslr upgrading and to my filmy aspirations.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-08-2016, 06:39 PM
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Early in the thread, people were recommending the K-50, but not so much after I provided a specific price range. The K-5 is on occasion nudging closer to that price ceiling than the K-50 does, though it too is averaging above it.... Of course, there might be the option to raise the ceiling later.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-07-2016, 07:21 PM
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Some of the K10D users compare the colors to Velvia film. I remember looking at a number of Velvia pictures at another forum a few years ago, and I have to admit I see the resemblance.
Even if I save up enough (eventually) for a K5, it seems that the old K10D couldn't just be dismissed out of hand. It will take some pondering about how important the high iso capabilities of the K5 could be for me...and I suppose what sense of security might come from moving to a dslr less than 10 years old.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-07-2016, 10:01 AM
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Since I am unlikely to make the upgrade purchase very soon, I thought I would start spending some quality time with the K10D Club discussion thread, as well as with any comparable K5/k5ii discussions. It is interesting to discover that some of the diehard K10D users are not people who have just refused to upgrade, but are instead people who did upgrade to K5s and beyond, but find that, when lens, light, and subject matter permit the use of iso 100 (or even up to 400), the K10D is still their first choice camera to grab! Now that is quite a testimonial for a camera, which based on the date of its birth and on awareness of technological progression, might be considered long obsolete. It would seem to be for many photographers who know it an indisputable classic, and well worth using now and, as one poster put it, "until I die." This is a great site for getting to look at a lot of pictures taken with all of these camera choices, so that can be another useful part of the comparison.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-06-2016, 07:40 AM
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BrianR, I think I would be very happy with a K10D or K200D, but I'll have to save up quite a while to get to the price for one of them, so when I get close to that, it will be worth considering whether I want to hold out for a K5 or K5ii.
I did read that the autofocus system is better in the K5ii, not so much in speed as in accurately adjusting for different lenses. Not an issue for me while I have no autofocus lenses, but, if I get one eventually, having a camera that might have difficulty with that lens could be a pain in the butt.
From what I can tell, now and then a body-only K-5 (I don't know about the ii-models) might go for somewhere between $200 and the $160 I have imagined as my price ceiling. Of course with lenses and lots of other bundled goodies, they are way more.
I'd probably hang onto the K110D for a while after an upgrade. In fact doing some comparison tests, using both during the same photo outing, for example, might help me understand better how to appreciate the upgrade!,
- - -
I just ran across nomadking's post in this other thread < https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/324389-k10d-raw-...ml#post3689705 > that does seem to confirm the notion that the next real step up from the K10 is the K-5...except perhaps for diehard CCD sensor fans. They sound like people dedicated to a particular film back in the old days. I get it -- they know what they like and how to use it.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-05-2016, 02:26 PM
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It will take some time for me to save up the cash for even a K10, so I will have a lot of time to read up more on the subject. Then when the camera fund begins to approach a workable amount, more reading and comparing of what purchase options might actually be available on the marketplace here or elsewhere will be necessary.
Very recently Mark Freburg was considering upgrading from his K100D, but already knew the models he needed to compare were the K10D and the K200D:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/324525-k10d-k200d.html
Here is a K-5 review section illuminatingly comparing it to the K-7:
www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/pentax-k5/pentax-k-7-vs-k-5.html
Your responses help me realize that I need to read those pages.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-05-2016, 10:40 AM
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Skodadriver, thanks for sharing your experience and perspective, as that can sometimes be more practically illuminating that getting lost in specification charts and even long lists of user reviews!
In reading about the K-5, I learned it's predecessor was the K-7, and in reading about the K-7, I learned it's forerunner was the K-20. Just when I think I am about to have some understanding of the numbering system I discover I don't have a clue....
It seems to be known and accepted that the K10D is noisy above iso400, and the K20Ds higher limit on the iso range should be an improvement, but some of its users seem to be even more frustrated about the noise it gets at iso800 and above. Could part of the issue be people adjusting to that early generation of the CMOS sensor? The K20D is weather resistant, but unless it is cheaper than a K10D, I am thinking (-x-x edit x-x-) that a K10D is most likely the next step up from my K110.
People seem to rave about the K-X / K-R's low noise at high isos (and I need to give serious thought to how important to me that could be for some kinds of pictures), but I don't know why their bottom end is only iso 200? Why no 100? I would also have to worry about avoiding getting one in one of those infernal colors, too. I'm not trying to match my camera with my shoes or tie. If I'm not a teenager trying to look "cool," shouldn't a camera be black or silver, or some combination of those two? :)
Nobody mentioned the K-7. Is it sort of the rough draft of the K-5? On first glance its user reviews remind me of the ones for the K20D -- several people love them, but a few have more of a love-hate relationship with them.
Now I need to look up the K-3 since it has just been mentioned.
Oh, one important question --- when people talk about "autofocus confirmation" is that the same as the little red square I get in the viewfinder of my K110D, when I get a manual lens into focus (usually accompanied by a green blob on the information line at the bottom of the viewfinder)? I've gotten used to using that crutch. If some of the suggested models don't do that, it could be a mark against them for me.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-05-2016, 08:30 AM
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Okay, the comments thus far have been very generous and helpful and (I think) have begun to orient me in the dslr model number maze enough that I can begin to use the camera comparison page that I didn't earlier find. See if the following statements seem accurate:
* From my K110D, the cheapest possible upgrades affording some significant improvement in image quality potential would be either a K10D or a K200D.
* The next step up might be to a K-X or K-R.
* The next step up might be to a K-20
* A K-5 might usually be out of my price range but might be the most affordable 16mpx CMOS model I could hope for if luck or slightly better fortune smiled on me.
Does that seem to be a fair synthesis of the advice and commentary so far? Does anyone have any suggested corrections of amendments to this list? Does this list or the groupings within it suggest any additional features or points of comparison you want to point out to me?
I'm studying comparison chart printouts and may have some additional questions, too.
.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-04-2016, 07:59 AM
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Weather-sealing is one of those assets I could go either way on. As someone pointed out, if none of my lenses have it, I'm going to be avoiding camera-risky weather anyway. On the other hand, anything that keeps any kind of crud or moisture out of the camera body can't be a bad thing. If I happened to snag a WR body with a WR lens on it, then I could risk venturing into what would be for me new photographic weathers. That's not a major goal, but might be nice to try Also, it might be reassuring just to be more prepared for the possibility of a bad weather-like mishap more than I am now.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-04-2016, 07:11 AM
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Nickrs, thanks for posting the photos. There is a kind of three-dimensionality to the dog's fur that I can't quite imagine getting out of my k110D, perhaps even were it connected to the lens you used. And, at any ISO it can make, I don't think the K110D can get that kind of inky blackness with pinholes of light, that you have in the night sky photo, or, if it can, I don't know how to set it up to do that. When I have shot pictures of the moon, the sky around it has a more sedimentary texture to it, like a wash of ultramarine if there are any watercolorists reading along.
Strong arm twisting -- enough to keep alive the pipe dream of finding a K50 priced much lower than usual!
---------- Post added 07-04-16 at 09:17 AM ----------
Nobody has mentioned the K500. I found mention of it in an article about the K50 that I was reading this morning. Supposedly it is the "entry-level" sibling of the K50 but retains nearly all of the same features. Is that so? Did they make/sell many of them? I suppose if they are rare, they might occasionally get bid higher than K50s. Or perhaps they just aren't available very often, even if they do go cheaper when they come up for sale.
The specs I saw said the K500 uses AA batteries, but I'm not sure whether the K50 can't use them. I'm not a big fan of proprietary batteries, though having to go to them is not an absolute deal breaker for me.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-04-2016, 06:35 AM
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I like the way you laid out the options, thanks.
After doing some checking, iIt looks like the K50, at its usual price, would be way out of my price range, unless I was lucky to find one that didn't get bid up that high on the auction site. K-30s also would tend to be too high for me, but might start out more often in my affordable range, increasing the chance that a real bargain might be snagged with luck. K10D/K20D might be a more reasonable expectation for me.
---------- Post added 07-04-16 at 08:43 AM ----------
I keep wondering whether using the APSC sensor doesn't actually improve the images possible from some of the old lenses, especially if they tend to be a bit soft at the edges, especially at wide apertures. Also on the positive it gives telephotos more reach. But on the negative side, it turns medium wide-angle lenses into normal ones ! :(
Price will probably keep me away from the FF sensor...unless I discover one at a yard sale.
---------- Post added 07-04-16 at 08:57 AM ----------
I got my K110D for a little less than $80 (including the shipping). My maximum for a dslr upgrade really couldn't be more than double that, and I'd have to save up for quite a while to get there. Perhaps on rare occasion a K-5 can be grabbed that low, but probably not normally.
As for manual focus, I think what gives me the most difficulty is the combination of any two of these things: a low contrast subject, low light (naturally or due to slow lens aperture), or slim depth-of-field from using a lens in close-focussing/macro mode. My main problem with magnifying the viewfinder is that I loose sight of the frame boundary and start shooting crocked pictures.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-04-2016, 06:17 AM
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While I do know that as a general rule all Pentax DSLRs are backward compatible with respect to using old K-mount and M42 lenses, what I do not know -- and my reason for noting the issue in my post -- is whether certain models among the many that have come out since the K110D might be less friendly to old lenses or less suited to using them somehow. Perhaps some model might have fewer manual exposure related settings, or perhaps some model might have a flimsier mount that could be endangered by connecting it to a lens weighing 2 pounds. I don't know those particulars about those many models, but I assumed that other Pentaxians here would know if any models had such issues, despite their being technically backward compatible.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
07-03-2016, 09:38 AM
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A few years ago I got a barely used K110D for a very good price -- and I love it. I love that its not very hard to use with old manual film lenses, and I have a few "A" lenses that can use some of its more automatic exposure features. And I really don't think having only 6 megapixel resolution is all THAT uncool. As for AF, I don't have any of those lenses yet, and the ones I see that look affordable don't seem true steps up from what I have, beyond the potential for sometimes focusing faster than I can.
However, if I w e r e to c o n s i d e r upgrading above the *istD, K100D, K110D level of Pentax DSLRs, what incremental step up would be the most affordable? In other words, what model or models, that would have some better features than my K110D (without sacrificing any backward compatibility with old lenses), might sometimes be available at real bargain basement prices. If such DSLRs exist, I might want to keep watch for them.
I should add that before asking this I did spend some time looking in the Camera information section of website, and what I was able to find didn't organize the information in a way that made it easy for me to answer this question on my own. I realize that area is being redesigned. Certainly, if there is a helpful chart of something like that I did not find, I'd be grateful for any links.
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