Pentax only features

I make this topic because I'm just back from the photo club and I asked why someone didn't use trailing curtain with one of her shots... how long do you think we were busy to find the trailing curtain of the build-in flash in a Canon with 3 Canon users and me... 15 minutes...
I never knew how handy the Fn button was on Pentax and also the green button which i use so many times in manual mode is so great, are there any other features that only pentax has besides these?
I believe only pentax has P and TAv mode or not?

I think you mean Sv and TAv mode. Just about all the DSLR have a "P" (dumb) mode.

I have only occasionally used Canon and Nikon dSLRs and so I am not really in a position to comment. The exception was when I wanted to use the self-timer on a Nikon I had borrowed for a short while (as I didn't have a remote release). Could I find it? Nope! I wasn't somewhere I could get to the 'net to check the manual either!

When we had a Nikon for the project the next year I insisted that my colleague had the manual as well.

I am sure regular users of other marques probably find it equally difficult to find functions on Pentax cameras. So much is what we are used to.

K.

you sure, isn't that green mode, I can be so wrong with this
Indeed Sv is pentax only as well.

Yeah but this was with 3 Canon users who have the camera over a year now...

Almost 10 clicks were needed to place the build-in flash to trailing curtain.
It's all so menu base, with Pentax all I need during shooting is under the Fn menu I don't see why they need to hide it so far away...

ps. I'm sure if I ask a new Pentax user how to set the build-in flash to trailing curtain that they know how to find it.

My K-m has a "P" mode but also green mode, in P you have control over things like white balance IIRC.

What I will say is that I only needed the manual once with my K-m in the first few weeks of ownership, and that was in order to work out how to get Pictbridge to work. The menus are highly intuitive and have meaningful captions, so providing you read the labels and use some common sense you can get around them quickly.

Quick Shift. Incredible feature.

Indeed John forgot about that one, that's indeed a super feature.
I would certainly miss that with the green button in manual mode... I think I'm bound Pentax

ps. I need to change that bunny...

Some weather proofed bodies and lenses (even at kit level)?

Trailing curtain - what's that?

Indeed Stefan, you're wrong. I can't think of an DSLR that doesn't have P,A,S and M modes.

I'm sure if you ask a new Pentax user how to set the built-in flash to trailing curtain, they're very unlikely to have a clue what you were talking about. They might find it if they knew how to adjust the flash settings, but I think you're over-estimating any new users knowledge or comprehension of some of the subtler aspects of photography. From experience I've found no-one new to DSLRs who's got the faintest idea of trailing curtain synch and why you might use it, let alone where to find it.

Dan

Lets not forget that higher end bodies have something NO other camera has, the hyper manual (or hyper program) mode, so I guess Stefans original statement of I believe only pentax has P was in a sense halfway correct.

My istD was almost permanently set to P and used "hyper manually" though since they made the command dials programmable I've stopped using it, my K bodies are now used mainly in Av with the rear dial set for aperture and the front dial set for ISO.

And yes I'm 100% behind Stefan in thinking the function button is the bees knees.

Just had a play with mine in P mode, basically it seems to allow me to tweak the auto exposure (if I turn the thumbwheel I get different combinations of shutter speed and aperture). Normally I use Av, going into P from now on!

What is trailing curtain flash anyway? I hardly ever use flash, and then it's always the built-in one to illuminate the front of a subject when ambient lighting isn't doing the trick (I assume this is "fill in flash"?)

The K7 has a 1-100 shot, 0-24 hour interval timer, The built in wireless flash has only recently been introduced to Canon and as far as i know Pentax is the only one to have the Front and Rear Infra Red remote recievers. Oh and what about Face detection? Does any other DSLR apart from K7 have that?


Regards - Pete

The explanation in the manual doesn't help all that much, either - it's far from clear.

You could probably work it out from the illustrations, I guess, which are at least the right way round. I've come across explanations in the past where they weren't!

It's not much better in the K-x manual either - basically, as I understand it, it gives you the light trail but keeps the subject [ ie a car ] in focus too .

I could of course be wrong