The lens refresh to new coating etc is worth calling out. OM System - new company name for Olympus cameras are in a similar place to Pentax - new releases are rehashes of existing. Likes of usb sockets changed from micro to USB-C etc

There hasn’t been anything new of substance from Pentax in a long time, and then that rather non announcement didn’t really progress anything -
other to say that they’re no longer making any of the current cameras anymore and something new may be coming? It’s been 5 years since the k-3 iii and 10 since the original k-1.

I am very sad to hear of this news.

It’s been a rather emotional time really. I’ve wanted to replace my original k-3 for a long while now and have recently been exploring test purchases of other brands to see what I like or not.

I didn’t want to look elsewhere but not being able to find any new Pentax gear for sale locally in New Zealand hasn’t made it easy. K-3 iii is 5 years old and the k-1 10?! And the recent ambiguous Pentax news of no more but something might be coming isn’t very confidence inspiring.

Add to this period classic long supporting stores like SRS ending and wow, I’m just not feeling very happy about the whole thing at the moment.

I read that an adapter would allow you to use your existing lenses.

Really is a sad day for me to be honest.

Also what a frustrating random message. I’ve seen people saying it’s great to bring clarity but I’m not really seeing any of that myself.

It’s been so long since any new camera release and to get something saying the lens mount is over but nothing else is really odd.

Me too. Unusual deep design but the results are great. Can recommend.

I too have just seen that and have similar vibes. If it's a new K-3 or even K-1 model they may have just secured me before I departed.

Love these.
More so as its currently frosty in the mornings winter here in New Zealand 🇳🇿 🥶

Hi,

Random question sorry but what way does the zoom turn, as in is it the same direction as a standard Pentax lens?

Hop that makes sense.

AI from Google: On typical Pentax lenses, you zoom in to a tighter focal length (telephoto) by rotating the zoom ring clockwise (from the perspective of holding the camera and looking through the viewfinder). To zoom out to a wider view, you rotate the ring counterclockwise.


Is this lens the same?
Thanks.

Agree. Forgot to mention as a plus the OM System prime lenses are weather sealed. This came up in another thread here recently, but I hadn’t realised the Pentax equivalents were not - which seemed a huge opportunity oversight.

Currently looking around ourselves for what’s next.

Looking at OM System and trialling the OM-5 mkii as a taster. Mix of basic lenses to get started - the 17mm prime is tiny and makes the whole thing really compact.

Miss the image quality of the Pentax but need to do a fair comparison and make sure using similar lens qualities. 4:3 is an odd aspect ratio and the smaller sensor means thinking in a different effective field of view that I’m used to > 1.6 on aps-c vs 2.0 on m43.

Overall package is much smaller than the k-3. Much more modern aspects like usb-c charging makes it ideal for travelling. I’m not a fan of the EVF. Perhaps I should compare to the flagship OM-1 camera at nearly 3x the resolution.

OM system seem almost a spiritual connection to Pentax with great ibis and weather sealing. The computational tech doesn’t seem to be gimmicky either. Likes of live ND where you see the long exposure image building up on the screen live in front of you looks really handy.

I don’t want to change, as in I would rather stay with Pentax, but it’s like they’re not playing the modern game at all anymore. I can’t even find stores selling the k-3 iii, and any of them that will it’s a back order and very very expensive, especially given it’s already quite old and discontinued.