ist digital

Hi all
I am in the process of moving over to Digital.......i am looking at the DS and the DL, i know they are basically the same but which one is the newer one my own belief after reading all the reviews is that the DL is the newer and better one of the two, i also know that a newer one will most likly hit the streets in a few months.......can anyone out there advise me the differance between the two as different review sites seem to drop certain items ( Jessops does not mention white balance modes on the DL) any help gratfully recieved. i have been into photograghy for 30 odd yrs so i don,t class myself as a beginner, but new to digital. (i have used a Nikon D70 a few times)

Have a look here:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0506/05060104pentaxistdl.asp

The DL is newer than the DS, but inferior in many ways, except for the larger LCD. It features a cheaper "penta-mirror" instead of a prism, to bring it into line with the quality standards of Canon and Nikon.

G

Visit the pentaximaging.com and take a look at the spex for each of them. Surprisingly the DL costs slightly more than the DS here in the US. However, DS seems to be superior.

*ist-DS2 is to be available soon. I'm not sure what the changes are.

In all the ways that really matter the DL is the same camera as the DS.
The penta-mirror viewfinder is perfectly adequate, as is the 3-point AF, the image resolution is the same. The DS is slightly more capable in terms of continuous shooting but 99% of the time, both cameras will give identical results.
Budget models normally have fewer (if any) user selectable settings but the DL is still very flexible in this regard. To be honest, there's so little difference that it's almost pointless having the two different models, so your choice really depends on price and availability.
Personally I'd wait and see what price the DS2 comes out at before making the final decision.
As far as I can tell, the DS2 is a DS with a DL LCD screen.

Just exactly what planet are Pentax designers on. They seem to be changing their designs as fast as software developers produce service packs. Why bother, they will soon have 3 digital cameras in their line-up, and it takes almost an expert to spot the differences. Do they actually call this development ? I don't. *istD was brand new in only 2003. The 'beast' we'd all been waiting for, well I had anyway, and what a machine. Since then they've added 3 very similar models to the range, but removed some of the good bits from the D. Why ? Where they not proud of what they'd done ? Why not have speant those intervening years to deliver the *istD2 ? I really don't understand them.

To my mind, they'd have been better off keeping the 'professional' attributes of the original istD, whack a bigger screen on the back, add (not substitute) an SD drive, beef up the continuous frame rate and call it the *its(whatwewantedinthefirstplace). But I guess that's too many letters. OK *ist-D2 will do.

OK . . . I'm done. That feels better.

Cheers, Pete.

Glad you feel better now

I settled for the *istDS and still would. The Pentaprism I see as an advantage, and the lower cost than the *istD brought it into my price bracket. The *istDL may have superior image processing (just) according to some testers, but I don't really want a Penta-Mirror (call me old-fashioned!)

Until we get 12MP CCDs as the norm, my interest now will be in new lenses, and the 12-24mm is looking very interesting. Tokina have just released a professional-standard 12-24mm f4 which for all we know may be one and the same as the lenses from Nikon, pentax and everybody else. I will still buy the pentax version, but I mention it because the AP review of the Tokina was very good.

Having said that, I was using a KM with SMC Pentax 55mm f1.8 today and shot 2 rolls of Velvia with it. It was so refreshingly simple that it was wonderful.....

I settled on the DS initially too, only because it seemed to have all that I needed at a price I could afford. It's a very fine camera. Also, the D was already being phased out when I bought my DS and D's were hard to find.

However I have recently acquired a broken D with a Tamron 28 - 105mm lens (see other thread) and I do like the idea of having the choice of 3 custom setups that you can fairly quickly switch between. Now that is a feature that must be purely software so why leave it out of the DS ? There are other bits about it I like but I will not have a proper 'play' until its fixed.

The D is off to the Pentax 'hospital' in Slough. I'm hoping its repair cost + buy cost add up to much less than a new one, but who knows.

It may have escaped your attention, Mannesty, but the later models were priced much lower than the D, in order to appeal to a wider market. So a reduced feature set is both reasonable, and nothing to be ashamed about.

It has been common practice for years to sell a disabled version of something at a lower price. Hence the SP500 (with a hidden 1/1000 sec top speeed), or Windows XP Home.

Of course, many people are waiting for the D Mk II, with a better feature set. Let's hope the wait isn't too long.

G

George,

I accept the reasons for the lower prices on the lower spec models. I just don't understand why we now have the choice of 1 top model (if you can find one) and 3 lesser models with very little difference in their capabilities between them, and in such a short space of time.

It could be said that Pentax were late coming to the digital SLR market, but now they have it seems their designers only want to make a few changes and call it a new model. And it seems that their software development for one model ceases with the introduction of a new one (service patches to fix problems excepted). I'd really like to know just how much the DS2 differs from the DS, firstly in the mechanical design and materials etc, and secondly, the software.

Will we, for example, be able to use DS2 firmware on our DS's. I think not.

Don't misunderstand my rantings. I've been a dedicated fan of Pentax, since the mid 80's when I bought my first Super A, and I will remain so for the foreseeable future. Their backward compatibility is legendry but we've already seen messages in this forum from people who are 'waiting' for the next model to come out. With new models being introduced so quickly in succession, Pentax is possibly delaying those users decisions to a point where they might just go to another manufacturer, becasue they can't make up their mind which one to go for.

It just makes me think that if they are bringing a new model out so soon "What's wrong with the old one ?" If the answer's nothing (or minimal) why change it so soon. That's all.

Cheers, Pete.

Points taken, Mannesty,

I think Pentax is being driven by the tactics of the copier company which seems to dominate the photography industry now. Their policy is to introduce "new" models every week or two, and because people equate newer with better they will choose the latest model they see, irrespective of its intrinsic merits.

Pentax weren't late in attacking the DSLR market. Unfortunately, the Philips chip which was intended for their first SLR (a D version of the MZ-S) was so bad that the whole project had to be abandoned. This cost Pentax a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of market share. Contax also used the same chip, with the result that they went under.

The current strategy is apparently to build a larger user base by having several choices at the bottom level, and then to introduce a higher-end model (the D MkII) which will have more pixels, more speed, and perhaps image stabilisation.

We shall see. Meanwhile, I'm happy with my two Ds (that's D plural), and like JR will be building my lens collection while waiting. Now where's that 12-24?

G

Thanks for the insight George. I wasn't aware of the Philips chip disaster. Interesting.

New lenses ? I'm still collecting old ones.

Regards, Pete.