Sorry to hear that, Stu; I guess you discovered the limits of Pentax's weather sealing. Try the Rokinon 14mm. I'm using it on full frame. Manual focus is easy - look at this shot which was set at infinity and f8... everything's in focus except for maybe the first foot and half of grass...




I used to have the Sigma 10-20mm... I only used it when I wanted the crazy ultrawide look, so nearly all the shots were at 10mm... I'm not sure the zoom is that crucial.

When the K3 series came out, Nikon users were saying pretty much the same things; they wanted Nikon to stop neglecting their high end APSC line up. The D500 is Nikon's answer, but it took a while. You should be happy in Nikon's system, but if you are constantly looking at the competition, in time you'll find frustrations there too. Not having IBIS is a big one obviously.

I don't think they are ugly. But they are pinched and fiddly compared to a DSLR. The K1 is about as small as I would like... but I think I preferred the K10D I had for a while. It's funny, I really *thought* I wanted a small camera, and I had the K7; but having the K10D for a while was a revelation.

People do literally change systems because of bragging rights, it's bizarre. There was a guy on here who switched from Nikon to Pentax and back about four times; I wasn't sure if he had unrealistic expectations about his new kit or he just missed this forum...

What happened to your K1? How did you get on with your search for an ultrawide lens?

To be fair, Sony were a bit pants until recently. They were OK for mucking about with manual lenses using adapters and focus peaking, but they've only really got their AF sorted out recently. I've just got a Nikon camera, and in Nikon world everyone's ditching their full frame DSLRs and getting Sony FF mirrorless bodies, or so the forum hype suggests

Pentax got it basically right on their first iteration and has fluffed around the edges since then. That's the difference between a company like Pentax, which understands cameras and their users, and a tech company like Sony.

But Sony are listening to their users, and generally speaking the A7iii has caught up to / exceeded the DSLR competion this time. I doubt the controls are as photographically intuitive as a Pentax or Nikon camera yet, but I think they're getting there.

Here you go - Sony pixel shift vs Pentax... we've got this one guys!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3cXnnmfi4w

The Sony's now have eye focus, which seems to work pretty well.

And although the camera isn't 'psychic', the focus system actually does seem to do a good job of keeping track of moving subjects across the frame.

Pentax aren't going to go full mirrorless but there's a lot of tech that Pentax could be adding. They've already added sensor based AF (hybrid AF) on the K70, and integrated wifi with a smartphone app - beating Nikon in that regard. The camera users I see freaking out most about the A7iii are Nikon users! And they also all complain about the lack of recent innovation in Nikon cameras... Pentax have probably put more innovation into their cameras in recent years (it's just a shame they still seem unable to get the normal autofocus quite up to par).

The EVF has a lot of upsides (especially for legacy glass), and the Sony system has a lot going for it. Doubtful that Pentax has the resources to compete head to head in mirrorless full frame; but we can mount any Pentax lens to E-mount cameras so you could have one foot in both systems if you wanted.