One advantage of dSLR that I'd forgotten...

I've been using largely mirrorless in recent years and had missed the more immersive experience of using a dSLR. So I took the K3iii with me to a theatre dress rehearsal in St Albans last week and was generally very pleased with how it all went.

Highlight metering is brilliant in these circumstances, not a single blown highlight in any of my images, generally low ISOs (I usually use TAv mode) and pictures which with ISO invariance can be post processed with minimal noise issues.

The AF is generally serviceable and I got many more hits than misses - but not really quite as good as mirrorless, and with the K3iii it really is quite difficult in dark conditions to see what it is focusing on, especially in AFC. You have to learn to trust it, and a lot of the time, it's fine. But you do need to use the joy stick to point things in the right direction - left to its own devices in full auto AF, the camera, well, mine doesn't always make the most obvious choice of what to focus on!

But what I'd really forgotten was battery life. The same battery had been in the camera for many days before I went to the theatre and several hundred shots seems to be no problem at all - you certainly don't need to carry a pocket full of spare batteries like you do with some mirrorless systems. And the K3iii battery life is meh compared to some other dSLRs!

It's nice to be using a dSLR again - I had to work a little bit harder, but I think sometimes the images end up being a little better as a result.

So to finish off, a couple of shots from the dress rehearsal of Elgar and Alice at the Abbey Theatre in St Albans - just down the road from SRS Microsystems people! And proof that Pentaxes can actually be used indoors, and for something other than outdoor/landscape work in inclement weather!

An interesting read and useful given your experience with Mirrorless as well.

Some good observations and the two images are very well taken and nicely composed.

Battery life is one of my favourite and I think often under valued benefit of a Pentax DSLR...particularly if using MF a lot as well...can often go all day (1000+ shots ) on just one battery.

Regards

Karlo

As to batteries, the K3ii just gobbles them up but your point about Pentaxes being suited to inside work is a good one. I was official photographer at a candle-lit choral event in a large parish church last Christmas season. I had to creep round and be unobtrusive. The camera performed admirably throughout.

Yes battery life is excellent on dslr, my K1ii also ( have two Pentax original batteries) and as well as the available Live view screen option, can be very handy in tricky light for optimum exposure and then easy to flick back to the viewfinder mode for framing and timing of the photograph. Never had an issue with battery life but then I don't burst shoot 20 odd frames at a time. I gave all that up, too much time looking in a screen to figure out the best or sharpest shot to edit