Planning to buy a K20D

Hello,

I'm rather a 'reader' than a 'writer' kind of user - so I believe this is my first post on the forum - hello all!

I read the forum for a couple of months already and found it really nice and helpful.

Technically I'm not a Pentax user (yet) thus I had not much to say, but I plan to buy my first DSLR very soon (I had a film SLR some years ago, and used my wife's digital Konica Minolta Z6 bridge recently and my daughter's compact Fuji f40fd). After some 'research' and reading forums, I'm convinced to K20D - it's seems to be really good camera, the kind I like, with SR built into the body, fitting nicely in my hands.
I've already learned from the forum that the place to go is SRS so probably soon (after Christmas or in January) I'll order my new camera in there.

However, I cannot really decide on the kit yet. It seems that the body + Pentax 16-45mm Lens + Pentax 50-200mm Lens + grip would be a good starter kit (there's body + 16-45mm Lens + Pentax Grip offer from SRS for £775 and Pentax 50-200mm from Jessops for about £30 (a real bargain I must say)) but then... Is 16-45mm much better than 18-55mm MkII lens? It would go well with 55-300mm set. Considering that I use a camera mostly for family pictures, often going to some old castles, gardens etc, sometimes mountains or seashore. I also do some flowers pictures (macro mode) and pictures on school plays - often without flash, but from a distance (children...). Nothing professional, really (far from the skills). I used my previous SLR years ago, and actually hadn't used many lenses - just fisheye, macro, standard and telephoto and no zoom at all). Now I'm a bit overwhelmed with a choice. I'd prefer Pentax lens, but I really cannot decide which. My budget is up to £1000, but preferably within £800.

Then, recently I read about the new Pentax addon - GPS module. Will it work together with a grip? Or maybe it's better to buy a spare battery instead of the grip? How useful the grip is?

I hope it's not too many questions, I realise it's difficult to advise, and I know I'm a bit excited - my wife already looks at me in a strange way when I start talking about my planned camera but any help is appreciated.

Kind regards,
Michal R. Hoffmann
('wannabie' Pentax user)

Hello Michael,

Welcome. The 18-55 lens is really pretty good for the money, and if you don't want to spend too much it'll do you fine for a year or two, after which you might find that what you really need is a good portrait lens, and you'll be glad you have some money in hand.

That said, there's nothing wrong with the 16-45.

Bear in mind you also need to spend money on memory cards; perhaps a computer upgrade (more hard disk space); perhaps some software.

In your place I'd keep the initial investment low, and leave cash for other things you'll soon find that you can't live without.

Good luck.

G

By the way. where are you? It's helpful to know your approximate location. You can change it in "My settings". Top right.

G

The 50-200mm lens may seem very attractive at £30 (and indeed it is, its probably worth it for that price) but one thing you may ask yourself - do you need a long lens? (I've never owned one)

From what you've said, I would get the K20D + Grip + 16-45 bundle, and then a 90/100/105mm macro lens.

This would work out at £775 for the bundle, with £125 cashback - £650. The macro lens would be around £300 new, but you could easily find a second hand one, or even an older manual one (if you are used to manually focussing). This would allow you to shoot those macros, and also as you mentioned, school plays (those macro lenses are F/2.8 and deadly sharp when stopped down). They are nice for portraits too, if slightly long.

Then again, my advice may be rubbish, seeing as I don't own a lens longer than 55mm, and rarely use one over 50mm Ive just never lusted after a long lens. Well, only the 50-135..

Make sure you buy before the cashback promotion runs out!

That's very true. Prices are going about considerably in January. Get your order in ASAP.

G

For the sake of £30 I'd get one of those 50-200's from Jessops before they're all gone!

I'd then get the K20D + 18-55 MkII bundle (£579 - £100 cashback), forget the grip (nice for balancing heavier lenses but not really neccessary with any of those on your list) and buy a Pentax D-FA 100 Macro (£351.36 - £50 cashback) for all the reasons ikillrocknroll states above.

This would come to a total of around £810 after the cashback and you'd have two reasonable zooms covering 18-200mm and a very good fast mid-telephoto lens that happens to shoot true 1:1 macro as a bonus.

Spend the rest of your money on a spare battery, camera case and a couple of good quality memory cards and start saving your pennies for a tripod. And a flash. And more lenses. And a remote. And... You get the picture.

Thanks, yes, I realise the cashback will end in January (and probably prices will go up as well with new stock - at least this I understood from Chris from SRS post on lenses forum), this hurries me up - initially I planned to buy a camera in February.

Hmmm, so what difference I'll really notice between 16-45mm Pentax lens and 18-55mm MkII Pentax lens?

And what about a grip - actually I think you might be right, to save a bit on some expenses now and buy what I'll find I need later.

George,
On the PC side I'm not so worried; I'll just probably invest in another 1TB harddrive and some fast SD card - but this is planned anyway. With software - on my primary PC I use Linux - so have most of the software free. I thought about buying Lightroom but first I have to test if it will work on Linux, then if I really need it. Possibly I can do with software I have available in the distro I use.

ikillrocknroll,
I got used to telephoto lens using the Konica-Minolta (which has up to 420mm 35mm equivalent). I found it really useful ie making pictures of my children playing outdoors (so I don't need to run after them ). I considered even the 55-300mm lens Pentax...

I updated my profile , hopefully it displays my location now - it's Grantham, UK

Well then the £30 50-200 sounds like a good option - 300mm equiv, and with the massive 14mp you can crop a bit too

Heftys suggestion is probably the best so far.
Don't buy SD cards in store (jessops, currys, etc), there are very cheap places on the internet - picstop and 7dayshop stock them cheaply if I remember correctly, I have used picstop twice for memory cards, and I know others would suggest 7dayshop.

Play.com are good as well for memory cards.

It is important to have a spare battery if you won't be charging your battery before every use (which reduces its life).

16-45 is usefully wider than the 18-55 II, and suffers less from distortion and vignetting at the wide end.

There might be a long wait before you receive a 50-200 from Jessops as they no longer have any in stock. The 55-300 will be more fun though less portable. Don't worry about the gap between 45 and 55mm if you decide on a 16-45 + 55-300 combination.

Get 2x 8GB Class 6 Transcend memory cards off of Ebay or Amazon and you are sorted... £20 outlay for oodles of RAW shooting space! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/8GB-SAMSUNG-FLASH-MEMORY-SDHC-HIGH-CAPACITY-CARD-CAMERA_W0...

As for the remote, £7.99 off of Ebay and works perfectly with AF/releasing the shutter http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/15m-Remote-control-4-Pentax-K10D-K20D-K110D-K200D-Optio_W0...

I went to Park Cameras yesterday and ended up buying the 55-300mm lens for £199 - £25 cashback and I am absoolutely delighted with it... the results are stunning even without any tweaking! These are some REALLY basic shots I did on my neighbours moggy, and as you can see it's a sharp lens and produces very nice colour pre-photoshop, on your kids running around etc it would be absolutely perfect!link

It's also MUCH lighter and portable than you may expect, and decent build quality. AF isn't the quietest but is reasonably quick and i can't see it being a problem to be honest for what I will use it for... ie: wildlife and portraits.

My next lens purchases will likely be a 17-70mm of some form and a DA* 50-135mm (gulp) and with those three lenses I should have everything covered!

I have also been offered by the wonderful Park Cameras (based in Burgess Hill) the chance of returning my 20 day old K10D and swapping it directly (and paying the difference) for a new K20D with the £100 Pentax cashback, bringing the total extra outlay to around £100... i'm just not sure whether it's really worth it or not. I have till Tuesday to decide... any advice?

The K20D is essentially the same as a K10D but with an improved sensor (more resolution, higher ISO range, better dynamic range) so the question is are you happy with what the K10D gives you? If you are then I'd say save your money and put it towards lenses instead. If you've found you're often saying to yourself, "I wish this could go all the way to ISO6400" and/or you plan to print at sizes larger than A2, then the K20D's worth the trade up.

Nice dilemma to have!

Hi and welcome Michal,
We all want you buy a pentax
I received my K20+ DA 16-45 four days ago from SRS Microsystems (£679-£100 rebate= £ 579) and a DA 50-200 mm is on 'back order' from Jessops at 38.00). DA 50-200 is a good lens, there are some good sample images at pentax gallery link
Best wishes

Well hefty increased resolution etc is all good to me, but at the moment i'm not an experienced photographer so i'm not sure it's worth shelling out an extra £100 for the K20D when i'm a) not a very experienced photographer and b) will be looking to buy something better (K30D?) by the time I am.

The K10D is a great camera, and the perfect tool for "cutting my teeth" on. I don't need a K20D to take some amazing photos, and i'm going to wring every last pennys-worth out of this K10D before I upgrade it to something else.

Having said that, I am tempted by the K20D, i'm just not sure it's for the right reasons, and whether i'd see a tangible benefit from the upgrade...

You've had loads of good advice on cameras and lenses already so I'll leave that subject alone, and offer you what tips I can on Linux photo software.

There are a few of us on here who photo edit in the free (software) world. I use the following software and while I don't claim any major expertise, it seems to work for me:

General Editing: GIMP - Whatever distro you're on, you probably already have this. Make sure you get the latest version 2.6. TBH, even on windows I consider GIMP to be the best editor available bar Photoshop CS. Certainly it's the best value for money!!

RAW photo processing: RAWTherapee - This is closed source, but free in the sense of free beer so one out of two aint bad! If you are a more dedicated free software person, you might like UFRAW which I used until recently and still use for Astronomy since it has a separate dark frame subtraction step.

Noise Reduction: Neat image under WINE. I used to use Noise Ninja, which is also excellent and is available as a Linux native program, but I lost my license code in a re-format.

Colour Management: ArgyllCMS and a Pantone Huey. Don't underestimate the importance of this if you want to print your pictures or display them on other monitors than your own. I recently replaced my monitor and the difference is amazing.

And so I did today

However the body and the other stuff have to wait till I'll get my payment

Hmmm, I never used a telephoto macro lens. Is it 150mm telephoto 35mm equivalent with macro 1:1 or do I get it wrong?
Still, I'm OK with manual focusing (well, I'm not sure how it works on Pentax - how it 'feels'), so maybe I'll look around for some cheaper solution for that. Is it OK to ask here ay further or should I rather go to lenses forum?

I know, I'm at the verge of a steep hill
Talking about the other equipment, definitely I'll buy a spare battery - you're right, I won't need the grip (yet). But with the bag - any hints? I'm used to carry a rucksack on my back all the time so that kind of a bag would be fine, but it's not very convenient to get a camera from there. On the other hand any bag I carry on my arm slips down - so I have to keep the straps most of the time.