Pentax vs nikon

Reading a lot of internet discussions it would be easy to gain the impression that the only important thing to worry about for your next camera upgrade is how much noise it's sensor will generate at ISO 12,800 and above ! From my point of view there's a lot more to a great camera than that, and I'm very happy that my Pentax model provides it all in spades, and at a price that the competition can't get near.

There's a survey, I think from 2012, that indicated that regarding customer satisfaction, the highest approval rating was Pentax. A Google search should dredge up the table.

Following on from Daronl's link it would appear that the FF could be a game-changer in persuading some other brand users to switch to Pentax, much like the 645Z. Presumably there will be a new FF kit lens or lenses launched at the same time and we are seeing the brand working hard to expand the FF lens range in the popular sizes. The professional market will be much harder to crack for all the reasons given, and Canon have such a huge advantage for professional nature photographers with their back-up and specialist lenses that mean they will stay loyal whatever - google Arthur Morris to see what I mean. Pentax really needs a body of high profile ambassadors to help promote the brand like in the current Fujifilm promotion.

I have the K-3 and D7100..

people say the flash system on Nikon is superior - but Speedlights esp the SB900 are prone to overheating
people say the AF system on Nikon is superior - AF-S might be quicker but it is no more accurate

I was at Goodwood for the racing and flying displays - somewhere where my Nikon should do well...not if you are tracking lots of Spitfires across the sky, 5 shots on the D7100 and the buffer is full, then you have to wait what seems like an eternity for it to clear...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obRn__ZBq2A

Not a fan of Pentax but he might be swung by this.

Regards Ian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n23Qjz--5w

interesting comments thanks

"Owned by Rycoff" !?
► https://youtu.be/-n23Qjz--5w?t=384

Personally, I don't believe this guy is very familiar with Pentax at all. At least twice he mentions the max flash sync speed is *160th* (even prints it on screen). And makes several other questionable comments.

I see Amazon in the US is selling the K-S2 body only for $449.95 now, down from the release price of $699.95
Checking back this was released in Feb 2015, so that's a 36% price drop in 6 months or so.

I'm not sure how this compares to Canikon product lifecycle pricing, nor which models this pitched the K-S2 against at the release price, but presumably this would be up against different comparison products now?

Today I opted to take my Nikons out to the Battle of Britain display at Goodwood.....

D7100 - click, click, click, click, click, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, click, PAUSE, click, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE
D3 - click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE,click, click, click, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE, PAUSE.

Sunday watching the spitfires and hurricanes

K-3 - click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, PAUSE, PAUSE, click, click, click, click, click, PAUSE, click, click, click, click, click,

You really counted those?!

all the clicks yes....basically on both Nikons you get a second at high speed continuous with RAW + JPEG...

with the K-3 you could track the spits across the sky

Do they both have the same sort of memory card? This sort of difference could easily be down to thewrite spead of the card rather than the camera...

speed of card makes no difference to the D7100. even programmed it to use Card 2 as overwrite as that is judged one way of improving the number of shots, but I do use the same cards in the K-3/K-5/D7100 (Flucard excepted)

I don't know anything about the D7100 or any other Nikon camera and to be honest I don't really care. It's great to read about comparisons between various models / brands, but really the only thing that matters is 'are we happy with the performance of what we have'? I like Pentax ergonomics, I like Pentax build quality, I like Pentax lenses, I'm not 100% convinced about Pentax AF, but I will live with it.

I don't want to follow a crowd, I want to do what I want to do. I haven't seen much evidence of other Brands producing better images for the same financial input and I don't think that moving to another brand makes anyone a better photographer. I can understand the needs of professional photographers who need and demand a certain standard of performance in specific areas, but I suspect most of us on here don't fall into that category.

It would be better if more of us concentrated on honing our skills and artistic creativity to take better images and process them to the best we can, rather than worrying about what brand of camera we take them on (or even about what model within a particular Brand, harking back to previous debates about K-5 vs K-5iis and K-5 vs K-3)!

It's not life or death, it's a hobby (or profession) we all enjoy.

Cheers
David