thinking about upgrading to Pentax...your thoughts please?

[julip]

Hi,
I am thinking of upgrading and I was hoping to draw on the collective genius here to help get a better picture...

I have an Olympus E510 that I've had for about 2.5yrs. I came to it second hand and its been brilliant for teaching me the basics and I have enjoyed using it a lot.

I have recently been finding the quality of my pictures is being limited by the camera, which is frustrating. My friend has a nikon D90 which I have used in situations where my 510 has been struggling and found it to be great.

Now I am in a position to upgrade, and using the D90 as my benchmark, I have short listed some cameras to try in a shop. My favorite of which would be the pentax k5 on paper. I know its not out yet and I would try a k7 in the first instance as an idea but I don't know any pentax users personally and was hoping for some words of wisdom from here about the k7 and k5 to help me make a more informed choice.

Thanks all in advance for any help!

Julip

[chris-p]

Hi Julia

It's a tough choice actually. I've got a D90 and am always extolling it's virtues. It's getting a bit long in the tooth now though and a replacement was rumoured to be imminent. The D7000 that arrived isn't a replacement though, and is considerably more expensive than a K-5.

Having said that, the K-5 is a better camera on paper. For me it would depend on the implementation of the systems on the Pentax. If the AF system is user friendly perhaps, or how the ergonomics and button layout suit you.

[julip]

Hi Chris-p,

Thank you for your reply! The ergonomic thing is something I worry about because I have quite small hands (and am a bit of a weakling!) and find the D90 to be reallly quite heavy and difficult to manipulate with one hand....which isnt so much of a problem most of the time but....

I "accidentally" found myself in a London Camera Exchange yesterday and tried a Canon 60D (no 50Ds....or charged batteries to be had!) and a k7 and I was surprised how much easier they were to hold for me than the D90. The 60D felt lovely but I can't afford one of them and the k7 was good too.

I dont know how good Pentax are with their AF systems as the k5 has a different one to the k7 I think...I might have a hunt about on the internet and see what people say about pentax AF systems because its one of the things that annoys me most about my 510 and I love about the D90!

Thanks again,

Julia

[chris-p]

According to Engadget.com the AF system in the K-5 is supposed to be "much faster". I presume this must be "much faster" than the K-7 but you never know...

This thread on the Pentax User forum looks like it might be interesting.

[matt wilson]

If you like the feel of the 60 d then try and handle a 50 d .I am biased to to me it's all just right .

There is the argument that it's older technology .May be true but I won't be upgrading any time soon.It's going to work out an awful lot cheaper though .

If it were me it would depend on any Pentax lenses etc I had .whether or not i changed brands .

[julip]

Hello Matt,

Funny you should mention the 50D...I went into the shop hoping to try one but they didnt have one, hence trying a camera way out of my budget.....not very sensible because it felt lovely!

I am not too worried about the old tech because so long as its still working fine and I can get the pictures I want then I dont really mind. I am trying to weigh up the k5, 50D and D90 in my head at the moment which is remarkably tricky!

I think about the brand changing thing, if I was going to stay olympus, I would go to an E30 which doesn't look nearly as good as the others on paper but I do already have the lenses so its something worth considering carefully!

Its turning out to be more complicated than I first thought, I had no idea about ergonomics till two days ago!

Thanks for your reply!

Julia

[Sue Allen]

Thoughts on your choices - based on useage of all 4 brands...
Pentax AF tends to be accurate but not very speedy. Using a DA* prime on the earlier K20D was OK but did'nt really get into Nikon territory, the optically great 55-300 was really slooooow - I really liked the idea of the K-7 which looked a perfect size, but from what I've read AF speed was'nt improved a lot. Have'nt used a 50D but the 40D was certainly a capable camera - could be a good bargain now new models are about. The D90 can be recommended in all respects - the D300s has [arguably!] the best AF of any non pro model and is a joy to use - can't say the D90 felt that much different. The D90 has rather good high Iso performance too.
As to budget - the K-5 is going to be quite pricey when released and it would probably be better to wait until prices drop a bit if you decide to go that route.

[GeoffWessex]

I like the following from PRSJNB on the Pentax Forum.....
"Whilst there is considerable satisfaction to be obtained from owning the latest model, the rational side of what's left of my brain insists that the only defensible argument for buying, in this case the K5, other than one's existing camera being damaged beyond the economic cost of repair, is that it would allow one to explore a more specialised photographic genre or, by virtue of improvements in technology and/or functionality, achieve a higher success rate in an area of photography that has been of long-standing interest."

That covers everybody, I think, including the OP of this discussion.

For me, with a Pentax K10d, the extra Pixel count (16.3), the HD Video capability, the flexible LCD, updated AF system and the higher FPS rate of the K5 are the notable differences. So, for me, the K5 offers......
16Mp - my 10Mp on the K10d gives a good enough resolution to make prints big enough for my requirements
I have no interest in video at all
the flexible LCD would certainly be useful
a good, fast AF system would be a big improvement
Higher FPS doesn't interest me.

So, that leaves two things of interest to me - a better AF system and the flexi LCD.

Just not enough for me unless my K10d were to break.

[chris-p]

Interesting points Geoff, but the OP is talking about a significant upgrade from a different camera system.

I suppose the question is, how much faster is the AF system than the K-7?

[GeoffWessex]

Yes, the first part of my post summed up my feelings on the "whether to upgrade" question, while the second looked at my own particular situation.... and I'm really happy with my K10d. Oddly, it dropped out of my backpack today, about four feet onto tarmac..... not a single problem, or even a scratch. I think it may have been thanking me for my support!