Bill has a point there. Trying different camera & lens combinations inside a shop might give some subjective impressions about AF performance. You ought to use your gear in the real game and your mileage may vary.

Today all cameras have very competent AF. Sure there are some differences but not so big to be a deal breaker really. You pick a certain brand for its philosophy and overall appeal, not for the number of AF-points & the AF-motor.

As John wrote in the initial reply AF performance depends largely on chosen lens and the lighting conditions of the environment you're shooting at. Shooting fast action like dance or sports in low light can be tough for any dSLR.

I use Canon FF alongside my Pentax lineup. There is no big difference in the studio setup concerning AF performance, EF 100mm USM macro is as fast as Pentax D FA 100mm macro WR, except that Canon's ultrasonic lenses are completely silent.

I prefer to use Pentax for people shots indoor & outdoor. Pentax is also being used for anything else on location because of the WR. Canon is used only for product shots because it gives larger files, but there AF is not really of any importance as MF is used most of the time.

K20D is a great camera. How usable it is in 2016 it depends pretty much on your needs and your particular style of photography. Current entry level cameras have better high ISO performance and faster & more accurate AF. But this is an issue only if you are into available light and/or action photography. For all other stuff K20D still is very capable.

I still use it in my studio setups, it's fast enough as my strobes don't recycle that fast. Image quality is very good at ISO100-400. I don't go beyond that since noise starts to be prominent. The ergonomics are superb, especially with the vertical grip.

richandfleur, thanks for the insights on the various camera brands and their respective updates, especially those about Canon and Olympus were interesting, since we own them both but did non know about this - although I don't understand how it's even possible to extend buffer size via firmware update! Anyway, all those listed features that were added later do not look like real features to me, more like minor upgrades, but let's not argue about this here anymore.

Lets return to Pentax K-S1. Best camera ever? Probably not, but it suits my needs just perfectly. It kept me away to get into mirrorless also. And if more speed for capturing action is needed I could use K-30 with faster fps & bigger buffer. So my bottom line is: couldn't be happier with the K-S1.

If you want to moan about things Pentax is way behind you'd have to pick something else as after sales support or firmware update policy. Much better candidates would be things like their dSLR video capabilities or ancient screw drive AF on most of their premium prime lenses.

A word about Fuji and added features. Yes I've heard about that. Lots of my photographer friends jumped from dSLR over to the Fuji mirror-less camp. So probably Fuji is doing something right if people embrace their gear. Fuji is a new player and has unique philosophy not only in camera design. They take customer input very seriously but as far as I know the mentioned firmware update was unique in their respect also and was considering only one particular (non system) camera model. Canon & Nikon don't do that. Pentax does not do that. Panasonic & Sony neither do that. Olympus doesn't do it. The correct thing to say would be that all manufacturers are way behind Fuji's firmware update policy which added some new features to a 2 years old camera model.

If you buy a camera today you can't expect that it will have new features added through firmware 2 years after it came out as the production cycle has ceased. Firmware updates bring bug-fixes and add compatibility to more recent gear that was developed after the specific camera was released. This is the industry standard. Period.

Among others I've seen this video where at least the Flu-card capabilities are highlighted and also Pentax' in-camera editing is showcased. This is a rare occasion where Pentax is aware of it's strength and advantages over the competition and emphasize them. I've not seen such things in marketing for previous models so it seems something has changed over at Ricoh-Pentax. Hopefully this trend will continue.

It's right that most of the reviewers were irritated by the LEDs, but I've also haven't found one single review that wouldn't mention the superb image quality of the K-S1. I've came to the K-S1 during the fire sale much after the initial release. At that time I was after a compact camera body and have already looked closely at Olympus mirror-less. K-S1 hit that nerve in particular because it tries to look like a mirror-less and it is fairly compact. The UI is unique and works just great, illuminated controls are indeed useful at times. Yes, the grip is small and most of the palm contact area is slippery which makes the camera awkward to hold, especially if you have big hands. My solution was ditching the carrying strap and adding a hand-strap. This makes for a perfectly safe one hand operation if needed.

For the K-S1 more advertising was done as for previous Pentax camera models. The campaign was not bad, neither was the product. The problem is that the western European target audience in this segment didn't want a simplified or smaller dSLR, they simply want a dSLR that looks and performs like a dSLR. In short, they want a Canon/Nikon entry level camera. Pentax K-S1 didn't look like it wants to compete there, that's why it didn't succeed.

I wouldn't say it was a complete flop. The advertising was pretty good and camera was well received in some Asian markets. From the design viewpoint it's also an interesting camera. We don't see often that camera manufacturers experiment with the user interface, here Pentax tried it and it is interesting and fresh and it works.

I don't quite get ya, what do you mean there won't be many updates? No lenses? No new flashes? Or do you mean firmware updates? Where exactly is Pentax extremely behind?

Firmware updates fix known glitches or bugs and make the cameras compatible with newer hardware components. Pentax maybe makes fewer firmware updates because there is less new hardware coming out compared to Canon/Nikon. Firmware updates don't bring any new features, they just make the camera work with new hardware, that's all.

You need to download the Pentax RAW codec for Windows, maybe the codec for Vista might work.

http://www.ricoh-imaging.de/de/Foto-Service-Downloads.php

I'd recommend switching to DNG though, can't say if Windows Explorer will support it better, but this way you can use other software than Pentax' for processing RAW-files.

Same here, added K-S1 to my arsenal. I was after as small as possible camera, was close to go to mirrorless. Then by chance I saw K-S1 kits for such price I couldn't resist. Probably I got the very last black kit from that German retailer. I would take it also in blue.

I've got the D-S1 with the DA f2,4/35mm AL from the German retailer (AFA Fotohandel) mentioned at the start of this.

When K-S1 came out I dismissed it only on silly looking design. In black it's actually quite elegant in reality, some LEDs even have their purpose beyond the gimmickry. In hands it has solid weight yet I was struggling with secure handling at first. Finally ditched the carrying strap and put the hand strap on. Revelation! Handling is now perfectly safe, camera melts with hands. With smaller prime lenses this is a beast of a camera, much of a understatement. Buffer is low and gets locked after 4-5 RAW shots or so, with JPEGs you're good to go 20 something.

Some features are missing from previous models, most painfully missing is the wireless flash control. No interval timer on board. No multi-exposure. On the gain side is the best finder in class, magnification is such that it is possible to do manual focusing. Last but not least AA-filter simulator.

AA-filter simulation is a feature not quite understood by some people in this thread. External timer can replaced the missing interval-timer, for example. But how do you replace a missing AA-filter? Canon & Nikon simply didn't bother, sooner or later you end up with ugly moire on fabric patterns that are common on people's clothes. If you don't shoot people you might not bother also.

What Pentax did with the AA-filter simulator shows how committed they are to photography, to photographers. It once again convinced me that I have chosen the right brand.

I've had this same erratic behavior as described before on 4 generations of Pentax cameras (K-20, K-r, K-30, K-S1). It does occur on both original Pentax Li-Ion or third party (I use Hahnel).

Fully charged Li-Ion would go to half empty right after utilizing live-view or video-mode. Turning the camera off/on would reset it back to fully charged. At certain points when battery charge is not fresh anymore you don't know exactly how much juice you actually have in there!

On K-30 & K-r when AA-powered this does not happen. I got the best continuous performance with AA-lithiums, Eneloops were also consistent, only Ni-Mh were not so good, they were drained too fast.