K-3

http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2012/09/once-verified-pentax-k-3-is-24mp-aps-c.html

I'll wait for it appear somewhere else

As expected

I look forward to seeing what it can do. And wait with baited breath for news of the K1!

A K-1 FF would make sense.

As I know the news of the K1 were hoax. An old prototype camera, the MZ-D was seen In the pictures. However, the K-3 seems more and more likely...

A couple of months ago I thought there's no way I'd ever afford whatever replaced the K-5 but since then I've had the opportunity for a lot of overtime at work and that has rather changed the picture.

However I'm still holding out for better AF performance in low light, beyond the improvement in the K-30. 24mp is expected but underwhelming - I don't need more megapixels than I already have. Plus if those extra pixels come at the price of high ISO performance of a lower standard than the K-5 I'm not interested. Low-light, high ISO photography is one of my primary areas of interest.

If the AF improvement doesn't transpire I might skip this generation and wait for the next one. That does leave me with a bit of a dilemma though, because I do want a second body sooner rather than later. The K-30 would be ideal if it did 14-bit RAW, which I have become rather accustomed to, but it's not a deal breaker I suppose. A second K-5 is not out of the question either, but I am intrigued to see if the K-30's improved AF can increase my 'hit rate' for low-light handheld shots.

We're all getting quite blase about MP these days! Just think how we might have dreamed once about sensors that reached such giddy heights...

I sometimes wonder though if advances such as these are driven by the need to improve, the need to sell a feature or the phasing out of lower resolution sensors. Maybe a bit of all three.

You can't be 100% sure that new 24Mbpix sensor will have worse noise performance than 16Mbp, I know logic says so, obvious, but couple of years ago people used to say similar for 10-12Mb vs 16Mb and then were surprised by how well/better 16Mbps found in D7000, K-5 performs .

To be honest I can't see much reasons these days to carry that big mirror box(apart of having big hands). That is the time to look at new solutions - these are new generation for me, not old boxes with newer sensors as only change. someone may argue that (contrast) AF is not up to speed on those mirrorless, yes but if you compare i.e. Olympus OM D5 e-m5 than I'm afraid it is still not worse then current Pentax offering, and new sensors with integrated phase AF may improve things even more, I still have some hopes for Sony's translucent mirror technology.

I hope that it is fantastic and what everyone wants.

Then perhaps one of you K5 owners out there will upgrade and sell me your K5 for a song.

I'm not so sure anyone will be selling a K-5 for a song. It's almost impossible to find a second hand K20D, never mind a K-5. It seems people are keeping these splendid cameras.

the last time this was put out was Pentax K-3 Announced (April Fools 2012)

The gear freak in me says to a K-3 gimme gimme gimme...

the realist in me tells me how wonderful K20D, K-5 (D3:shock, Z-1 and Z-1p, not to mention my M645Pro still are.... I really don't know how you can really improve on what is currently available, as I am spoilt when it comes to low light photography.....I really didn't think I needed the K-5 but now I have it I can't keep it down, but still pick up the K20D....

If as much energy was put into getting Pentax to enhance lens options (and Sigma, Tamron and Tokina making more lenses available in PK-AF2) then I would be inclined to buy more lenses...I have 12-24, 16-50, 60-250, 300, FA*85 and 2 Limiteds... I have appetite for more (but nothing that overlaps what I have at the moment.

Don't get me wrong, if I thought these extra megapixels would be of any use to me I'd be punching the air and whooping. 24mp is underwhelming news in the sense that for what I do, all these extra pixels are more likely to be a hindrance than a help. Even if the low noise performance is unaffected, it still means more card and hard drive memory required, longer download and processing times, and camera performance which, regardless how good it is, could have been even better if they'd stuck with less megapixels.

It seems like the need to sell a feature but I'm not sure who they're selling to to, exactly. Of the 'serious' photographers I talk to few seem to have much use for such high megapixel counts. Sure you can crop to your heart's content, but once the novelty of that wears off, who will really do it that much? I don't think anybody's about to start using 50mm lenses to photograph wildlife, thinking "I'll just crop that tiny animal in the distance out of the frame later".

There are some benefits to more MP which has become apparent with the Nokia 808.... Pixel binning. Currently sensors use one pixel per colour and take a guess at what the final colour of each pixel should be. the Nokia 808 uses it's 41MP sensor to provide for a very detailed 8MP image.

Maybe DSLRs with ever increasing MP sensor could employ the same techniques that people who have no need for an image above 8MP, which frankly is fine for most computer screen viewing, can save RW/JPGs at this size but with much netter resolution, colour rendering.

If that makes sense?

Yep, makes sense. I do some printing (but not really large) and like to have the leeway for some cropping if the framing isn't quite what I want. My wife's old Canon D30 is 8mp and I find that a touch on the low side. 12-16mp seems just fine. Then again, an 8mp image with greater detail might look just as good(?)