K20D

As some of you know I am off in December for a trip abroad and have been feeling uncomfortable about not having a spare body!
Been checking out the prices of the K20 and SRS are selling body only for £579, but for £795 you get battery grip and 16-45, that seems a good deal, has anyone seen any better deals elsewhere?

Are those of you who have now had the K20 for sometime really impressed with its performance and if so tempt me with a few comments, please?

Also, can you confirm battery grip is compatible with K10 also?

cheers, Lilly

Hi Lilly,
After 5 weeks of looking for a K20D, SRS was the best price.
The 16-45 is dead sharp.
Yes the grips are compatible.
I moved over to Pentax after 25+ years with Nikon and I love the K20D and would not go back, it's performance in my opinion is as good if not better than the Nikon D300. My wife will also be changing over to Pentax from Nikon this month.

Regards

I'll second that!.......after a few minor setbacks I am now getting to grips with it,I also have the 16/45,a fine lens,although not that much better than my old 18/55 (which I am told is a very good one!). I use a grip on mine and it balances out just right,quite heavy but very comfortable on the hands!.Hope this helps and good luck with your choice,whatever it is!............Ken

Lilly,
I've had mine since April and I am (still) impressed. But I did upgrade from the *istD, so you might get better judgement (or more valuable to you) from people who upgraded from the K10.
One word of warning, though: There is a serious danger of getting trigger happy with it. I now had to issue a moratorium to myself as I have 1500 shots from our holiday... (It won't last long, I have a 16-50 on order )

I think you get the drift...

The 'mechanics' of the two bodies are identical, which for me was a huge plus point.

I routinely keep the 16 - 50 on one body and the 50 - 135 on the other body.

If I need to swap to another lens, then generally I would pick up the K20, as I did today for the competition.

My advice would be to give Chris @ SRS a call

Just a quick question on the lens adjustment (for FF/BF) on the K20D - the specs say it will store data for up to 20 individual lenses, but are there limitations on what type of lenses are able to utilise this function, e.g. DA, FA, F, third-party lenses etc?

Jonathan

I think all of the Pentax AF lenses can be stored. Sigma lenses are an issue because they all identify themselves as "Sigma", nothing else. If you have a number of Sigma lenses, you'll have to choose one, and all the others will be corrected the same way.

Thanks Mannesty, that's all I need to know - my 43mm seems to backfocus ever so slightly, but looks like the K20D will sort that out!

Jonathan

Peter, I haven't tested it, but judging by the EXIF data that PhotoME reveals, there are differences in the Sigma lens data. I have the 70-300 that is identified as
SIGMA 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO/DL Macro or SIGMA 55-200mm F4-5.6 DC (or SIGMA DL-II 35-80mm F4-5.6 or SIGMA 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC or SIGMA 70-300mm F4-5.6 DG APO Macro)
with the ID 3 + 255 + 0

and the 105 EX DG Macro, that is identified as
SIGMA (Model unknown)
with the ID 3 + 0 + 0

So with these two I shouldn't have a problem with the lens adjustment. But it does show that one could run into trouble having several Sigma lenses.

Prieni

I must admit I haven't used my 70-300mm Sigma for a while but both my 135-400mm and 180mm Macro show up in Lightroom as only "Sigma". Now that might simply be a limitation of Lightroom, I'm not sure, but I'll check using PhotoME.

I have a number of Sigma lenses. FF/BF is definitely remembered for each lens, although no lens list is shown on the camera (K20D).
cheers
bb2

Here's encouragement for you Lilly, "jus go for it girl"

I recently saw a photo on another forum taken buy Ishpuini, who sometimes visits here. He was on honeymoon in Namibia and had a really over exposed photo, taken with the k20D, with D range switched on. he was able to stop this photo down in Lightroom and completely retrieve it. It is an astounding thing to see. I would say get the K20D for that reason if no other.

All in Dutch, but you can see the photos here.

Is this an example of the 'expose to the right' technique?

Mike

Something like that. He screwed up on the exposure and was about to throw it out when he decided as an experiment to see how much dynamic range the K20D really offered. he stopped down 3 stops to get this result.
It was more a challenge to another forum member who has one over to a Fuji S3pro because of the better dynamic range. I found it impressive and have switched the D-range on now!