Advice requested.

My name is Steve and I'm a gadget addict. There. I've said it out loud. There is no cure. Put 4
LEDs, three buttons and an beep and I will have to buy three of them!

I have a bit of Pentax gear, K5, K20D and an assortment of less expensive lenses. Love the gear but technology moves on, I dislike the faff of changing lenses, and am getting a bit fed up carting a load of gear around. So, several options have a risen in order to offload some surplus cash. Here, in no particular order of preference.

1) Buy a very good bridge camera. The Sony R10iii comes to mind. (The R10iv is a bit 'rich for me at the moment)
2) Buy a better camera body. Possibly a KP or K70
3) Although the same option as (2) consider a K1
4) Stick with what I've got but buy a better lens (thinking air display photography and nature stuff)

Hi Steve,

What lenses do you have? It's possible that you have something decent already that can do the job.

For the type of photography you mention, a lens like a Sigma 150-500 could be ideal, works very well on a K5. A DA*300 is lighter and smaller but you don't have the reach.

For macro maybe the 35DA macro 2.8 if you want lightness.

Lots of people still like their K5s, if your budget can go to a KP I'd get that but for air displays and nature the K1 is a little bit too much.

Since you like gadgets, dislike the faff of changing lenses, are getting a bit fed up carting a load of gear around and are thinking nature stuff, how about having a go at macro? A single macro lens (100mm or thereabouts) would be enough to get you up and running. Beyond that, there's any amount of gear and gadgets that can give you more magnification, better lighting, rock solid stability, finer focussing etc. etc. etc. Have a look at what 'coker' achieves from his K5 and various bits of kit. And to see what fun can be had lashing together all sorts of gadgets and using them in unusual ways, have a look at the 'Penny macro contest - revisited' thread.

Steve

Nikon coolpix p1000 with megazoom or sony r10 iv second hand?

A Tamron 90 will go with a K5 very nicely and covers close macro right out to decent landscape and portrait (and you will have some cash left over). It rarely comes off my K1 these days. The only difference is that I get the full frame and you will get it cropped a bit. Lesser quality but good for all that is the Tamron A03, 28 - 200mm zoom (there is a rebadged Pentax version too). That will give the opposite to the 'macro' option. It's good enough at the long end for quite tight crops. The 90 goes for about £150 and the A03 for about £50. There's no need to pay a fortune for modern versions of the same thing!

Mmm, sounds like a super zoom candidate to me however. When I go out I usually(not always) decide on a lens, put it on the camera and that's it for the trip out. No lens changing, not lots of gear to lug, I actually enjoy the challenge of finding my shot with the one lens, whether a zoom or a fixed focal length. Going to an air show, camera, spare battery and the DA 55-300 wr and that would be it.

I'm not a huge fan of super-zooms and the closest I've got is the 16-85mm, which is superb, but it's not really long enough for air shows I suspect. The Pentax lens with the biggest range is the 18-270mm which I understand has a decent reputation and will cover focal lengths enough for 90% of all photography as long as there's decent light.

If you don't need to cover the wider focal lengths with the same lens then the 55-300mm PLM has a fantastic reputation for IQ and lightening-fast AF.

If you want to also consider a camera upgrade then any of the newer models will offer a higher pixel count which will allow greater crops. They'd also offer better AF and probably higher ISO performance, increasing IQ at the high shutter speeds I imagine you'd need for air shows or wildlife.

Food for thought. Thanks to all. To continue the thoughts, can I ask, is the practical difference between the 16mp and the 20mp sensors as big as might be thought (hoped)?

Unfortunately the PLM wont work on a K5, ( needs to be at least a K3 or newer ) there is a Pentax 55 - 300 AW ( its predecessor ) that will work on the K5

It depends on what you photograph. And on what you think and hope .

The number of mp's is only part of the story. Improved shake reduction, removing the anti-alias filter, different sensor technology etc. all contribute. I moved from a K20D (14.6mp) to K3 (24.4mp). The increase in mp certainly helped when it came to things like detail in distant birds and cropping. However, just as important, if not more so, were greater dynamic range, ability to pull detail out of shadows, improved tracking and various other things that hit me at the time but are now deep in the memory.

Steve

To compliment Lubbymans comments as above, you prob wont notice much difference between 16mp and 20mp, you will notice the omission of an " Anti Alias filter " thou particularly in improved sharpness ( slightly ) and unless your shooting a subject with lots of horizontal lines you wont notice the moiré.

A K5ii imho is excellent at low light low noise photography where as the K3 / K3ii isn't quite as good imho

The sentence above rules out 2/3/4 before you start really, with any DSLR/Mirrorless body you realistically need a minimum of 3 lenses to do what a decent bridge camera can do with one (although probably not as well)

The question is ... which is more important to you, picture quality or portability.

One way of dealing with the faff of changing lenses and carting a load of gear around is to sharpen up on what you photograph. Take one lens with you (two if you must) and take photographs which suit that lens. It isn't as restrictive as you might think. Davidwozhere was saying it about his Tamron 90mm macro. In my case, for example, I've gone out with only a long telephoto in order to take butterflies. When the butterflies didn't turn up, the lens was turned to flowers and landscape. Not what you might select for a trip to take flowers or landscape, but it was perfectly possible to take respectable pictures - and no changing lens because I only had the one with me.

In fact, taking only one lens with you is a good way to stretch and develop your photographic imagination. Take a different lens next time and you'll see the same things in a different way. The voice of experience is speaking here, I've been doing it for years with the standard dog walk. Every time I think I've seen and photographed everything there is in every possible way, I see something new or the same things in a different way. It isn't the same with a bridge camera (the voice of experience again, my first digital camera was a bridge camera and, guess what, it used to do the dog walk with me).

Steve

Different strokes and all that, but this ^^ is the key for me.
If I'm out on my own, and am happy to carry a bag of lenses, it's the DSLR.

If I'm looking to just stuff something in a coat pocket, it's the Fuji X100.
But recently my weapon of choice has been a Lumix TZ100. I take it everywhere, when I probably wouldn't bother with a camera otherwise, and the IQ I find more than acceptable in most circumstances.

Horses for courses...