It would appear I joined this forum some 8 years ago, made a handful of posts and then disappeared.

Back then I had just bought the Samsung GX10 which served me well for about 4 years with the kit 18-55mm lens and the then new-ish Sigma 70 -300mm APO zoom.

Then about 4 years ago I rejoined the Pentax faithful (my last film camera being Pentax) and bought the K5 with kit 18-5mm and kept the Sigma. Again very happy with the results including gig photography with that slow Sigma so needing to use ISO6400. A bit of PP and quite reasonable results.

And now I have taken the plunge and last week took delivery of a nice shiny new K3 with battery grip. This time I decided I needed to get some (hopefully) better glass. What I really wanted is way out of my budget so I ended up with the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 and the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 (still waiting for delivery - as it's discontinued it has been a real challenge to buy one). Having read loads, the Sigma lenses seem to get good results. Not up to prime quality but as I said, I have budget issues. Also, so as to not miss the extra 100mm I have also ordered the Sigma 1.4X TC to give me 280mm f4 top end.
Currently trying to work out the differences in handling and controls (and get used to the different feel of a grip) and the extra weight of the f2.8 glass. Will be interesting to see how the 70-200mm feels.

Looking back on my few posts, one thing that has definitely changed for the better is the cost of SD cards. Seems the costs were dropping and I was complaining that I had just bought a SanDisk Extreme III card for £40 and that was for 2GB.

And now I wander round with 96GB, albeit not Sandisk, just ordinary Class 10 which has not previously caused a problem.

Keith

True, altho' unlike the MAC /PC comparison under the casing the two cameras are identical

As far as accessories go, apart from the battery grip, I think I can use just about everything else. So if you ever get fed up with your 600mm I could use it (couldn't afford it but it would work). Support will probably be more of a problem. I bought a consumer product at a consumer price. I guess that makes me a consumer


Ask me again in 12 months once the Hoya takeover has been completed and the cameras are stuffed full of Samsung electronics.

Are you sure? You might very well be correct but I understood that the basic firmware was identical and only the menus were different. Oh and the Samsung doesn't have the Pentax proprietary RAW format. It's more than possible that Pentax will release updates more often but we'll have to wait and see. As for the Samsung being as different from the Pentax as the Canon - how true. Silly me, of course I don't have access to all those Pentax accessories, just as I don't have access to the Canon or Nikon accessories.

Because it's basically the same camera and, for example, the question I posed in this thread related to remote controls; which Samsung do not make as they suggest you use the Pentax remotes. Plus the fact that there were other threads that referred to Samsung. Obviously I am in the wrong forum, as my Pentax is called a Samsung and the badge is much more important than anything else!



Doubt it as "the contributers here have little or no interest in Samsung products" so why would they give a damn about the results?

This is fun, do you wind people up often?

Finally (as I doubt I'll be back, I'll find somewhere where they care about photography and not the make of camera) here is the report dated 11th October 2005, from Reuters:

Japan's Pentax Corp. said on Wednesday it has tied up with a unit of South Korea's Samsung Electronics to jointly develop digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, aiming to pool resources and cut costs.
<snip>
The alliance will bring together Samsung's strength in electronics and Pentax's expertise in lenses. Pentax also hopes the deal will allow it to accelerate product development and better weather a brutal price war in the digital camera market.
<snip>
Pentax reported a 48 percent fall in group operating profit for the 2004/05 business year, hit by sliding prices of compact digital cameras, which pushed its imaging division to an operating loss of 1.6 billion yen ($14 million).

It aims for 10 percent of the digital SLR market in the future, up from about 3 percent now.

Pentax said the alliance with Samsung could expand to eventually include procurement by Pentax of key parts such as memory chips, image sensors and displays from companies within the Samsung group.

So who knows, in a year or two you might have top buy a Samsung with Hoya glass as Pentax might be no more. Unlikely, but possible.

Enjoy the badge while you can.

Bye folks and thanks to those of you who took the time to give me good advice.

I'm intrigued; why will I want a proper Pentax in 6 months? If the Samsung is that bad I assume I will notice fairly quickly and if that's within 7 days I can return it under the Distance Selling Regulations. And if it really was that bad, why would I replace a re-badged K10D with a real K10D.

I tend to keep my cameras for at least 2 years and don't bother trying to part-exchange or sell them. I bought my last 35mm SLR (a Pentax!) 8 years ago; this replaced my trusty Practica SLR which had served me very well for a couple of decades. My first digital (a whopping 2Mp) I got a couple of years later; but I managed to drop it after about 2 years (unlike the Practica it didn't bounce) so my current 4Mp Olympus I've had for about 4 years. As I said I don't sell them I keep them, perhaps I am just an old sentimental cheapskate!

So I have never thought of a camera as having a resale value; once purchased, that's it. Therefore the £130 saving I thought I'd made turns out to be real. Which is just as well as it's almost certainly going towards the Sigma 75 - 300mm lens.

Me too, a large TV remote. Well, maybe not

Looking for a bit of advice.

Having placed the order for my camera (sorry but it's the S@ms*ng GX-10; I wanted a Pentax, honest, but was blinded by the savings I could make) I immediately started thinking about what extras I would need. The first is likely to be a remote control. So ...

... does anyone out there have a preference between wired and wireless? Strikes me that the wired remote gives a lot more flexibility but I was slightly surprised at the cost £25 upwards. Yes I know that £25 doesn't go very far nowadays and that I have just splashed several hundreds of pounds on a camera but I was wondering whether there are any alternatives to the Pentax branded remote.

I think John Sebastian (OK so I'm old enough to remember The Lovin' Spoonful) summed me up rather well in about 1969 - "Cheapo cheapo!

Oh b*gger! I also paid £40 each for 2 of these cards from 7dayshop. To make it worse I placed the order over the weekend.

I suppose the only consolation is that looking at the picstop website today they don't actually have any in stock.

Well, having been trying to decide whether I go for the Nikon D80 or a K10D/GX-10, last night I ordered the GX-10.

After scouring the net the cheapest K10D with 18-55mm lens was £670, whereas the GX-10 (a UK model) with the same (re-badged) lens was £540.

So out of that saving I could afford another 2GB SD card and still have £90 to put towards the Sigma 70-300mm zoom, if the 28-200mm from my old Pentax 35mm isn't up to it - or even if it is; that's 450mm in old money!

Am now very, very impatient . . .