Not sure if it's allowed to post links to a blog but I've just written a blog on my thoughts on the K3 and the cameras that preceded it (contains Pentax porn i.e. pictures of my cameras!)
http://www.jonathangorsephotography.com/blog/2015/1/a-new-pentax-camera-arrives-...

Jonathan

Thanks for the thoughtful replies and yes John - you're right it would be sort of like shooting a K5/K3 etc with an older series lens. The issue for me is that I shoot with my left hand where the aperture ring used to be anyway so while it's there I find it more intuitive to change there than by a whizzwheel on the back of the body. What I'm proposing is that when you give the aperture ring priority it would stay fully wide open when coupled to the body for focussing and composition and then stop down to the selected value during exposure. Sprinning the back dial wouldn't change anything. If you select AE on the lens aperture dial then you have in effect handed aperture control to the whizzwheel on the camera body. That way the end user would have a choice of which interface they prefer. I think the benefits are:

1. Choice
2. Easier to select half stops etc on a large ring than a small dial
3. Easier to read selected aperture with a quick glance at the lens than a top LCD screen (if even present!) between shots
4. Classic lens design
5. Availability of depth of field markings/scales
6. Ability to slam aperture ring fully open while shooting i.e. to select max aperture just turn all the way, no need to check the indications in the viewfinder or anywhere else. With a whizzwheel you never know where you are because it doesn't have an end stop for fully open and just turns endlessly. You might be at F4 on an F2.8 lens or F3.5 or F4.5 and without checking in the viewfinder or the top LCD display you can't know.

The point some of you made about the lovely large focussing screens and construction quality of the old lenses is a good one. It seems to me that most modern lenses have an awful plastic quality with very poor manual focussing action compared to the lenses of yesteryear. I have't really noticed a huge cut in prices either despite the corners cut in construction and the manufacturing in cheaper locations compared to Japan. If you consider something like a Pentax SMC-M 50mm F1.7 lens which if memory serves in the mid 1980's sold for around £50 then adjusted for inflation http://swanlowpark.co.uk/rpiannual.jsp such a lens made fully of metal and in Japan should cost today £120. The nearest equivalent in the range I can find is the 43mm F1.9 limited and that costs a whopping £499. It's built like a SMC-M series lens and has similar optical quality but despite being made in Vietnam actually costs significantly more in relative terms.

That sort of price escalation makes no sense to me even allowing for niceties like autofocus. Also why oh why do most modern lenses have such a poor manual focussing action? I know in the days of autofocus you don't need it everyday but surely it would give a competitive edge if a manufacturer like Pentax made all their lenses capable of enjoyable manual focussing?

Finally I recently took my Pentax ME Super out for a fiddle and like others I was truly astonished how large and bright the viewfinder looked and how effective the split column focussing screen was at judging focus. By comparison looking through a K3 is like viewing the world in narrowscreen. It can't surely be that hard to match the view provided through a thirty year old budget camera costing £129 then (£301 in todays money) with todays £800 K3 surely?

I'm not that old (45) but even I have to question the way that camera design has evolved in thirty years. Autofocus is wonderful and there's no doubt the K3 takes better pictures than the ME Super did (but much of that is down to me post processing the stuff myself now compared to taking my films to Boots back then) If you put some of my old slides up against my prints today in quality terms that's a lot closer to call.

As some have said are camera designers just packing in the features without thinking about the man-machine interface? I must admit something like the Nijkon DF does hold a great deal of appeal to me and full credit to Nikon for realising that designing something so pure is a flash of genius. There seems to be a real trend (Fuji rangefinders resembling Contax and the Olympus OM-D resembling classic OM's of yesteryear) of going back towards classic design. Is it mere nostalgia or were cameras just designed not to get in the way of taking photographs then?

Views?

Saxon

I was mulling over the man-machine interface between photographer and camera this morning and I have concluded that I simply do not know why camera manufacturers have got rid of aperture rings on lenses. It seems to me that being able to control shutter speed via a wheel on the body makes sense but I feel that aperture control was easier when it was still on the lens - partly because making one or two click adjustments was much easier on an aperture ring with defined click stops. That simply doesn't happen when using the body wheel.

Wouldn't it be great if Pentax launched their next camera and lens series with the option to use on lens aperture rings. Sure by all means keep the option of aperture control on body as well and allow the user to choose which overrides the other.

Anyone else feel the same?

Saxon

FWIW I too think that the gap from £1000 K3 to £7000 645Z is too large and believe it makes sound economic sense for Pentax to bridge that gap in their range.

Saxon

I'm loving my recently acquired K3 and am staggered by the sharpness of the images I'm seeing even compared to the K5. I'm watching the full frame possibility with interest although in truth I'm getting better results from the K3 than any camera I have ever owned - including full frame film cameras shooting high quality slide film. So the reality is that as a photographer I might not actually need anything better than this. Worth noting I said need, not want - of course if Pentax do launch a full frame camera then I will no doubt want to upgrade to it at some point and in truth I probably will.

The truth is though that in many ways Pentax needs full frame more than I do. As a company they can only charge so much for a DSLR camera with an APSC format sensor. That price level is driven by the market principally but I would suggest doesn't extend much beyond £1000 body only whereas full frame cameras are more expensive in the marketplace and thus a Pentax full frame DSLR can command prices in the £1500-£2000 range in my view. This is a big win for Pentax when the production cost of a pro orientated APSC body is likely not very different to a pro orientated full frame sensor one. In short if the production costs are similar but you can sell one product for 50% more than the other then as a company making the product with the higher market value makes absolute sense.

Will I or many others take significantly better pics with a full frame body - probably not. Will Pentax make more money/profit - probably yes. I thus do not understand why they haven't done it already!!

Views?

Saxon

I'm a stills photographer primarily but video is very important to me in my personal life. I got sick of carrying two systems around on holiday, on days out etc to record my family and just love the fact I can switch from stills to video and back again when on holiday with one machine that makes a superb job of both. My 3xccd Panasonic DV camera sits in a wardrobe and is simply never used anymore. The only thing I really want the Pentax to improve on is continuous autofocus in video....

Saxon

Miles,

Right now I regret buying the Flucard too. As you say connection is unreliable and worst of all it doesn't do what I thought it did. So what I want is for it to work like this video on the Eyefi card if you watch it from 1min 20 secs in you'll see all you need to see and skip all the setup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNAgzdga__0

Grateful for any views but to me looks like the Eyefi card is the one I need.

Saxon

John,

According to the instructions the Flucard should be put in slot 2 and the normal SD in slot 1. Then the camera is set to write Jpeg to slot 2 and RAW to slot 1 in RAW+ mode. What I expected to get was a tethered view of the last picture taken on my laptop or tablet but so far no joy!

I have no need for it otherwise!

Anyway if anyone has any insights that would be great and a very Merru Christmas to all!

Saxon

I am shooting RAW+ with the RAW going to a conventional card in slot 1 and a Jpeg going to the Flu card in slot 2.

Grateful for the replies but still can't undertsand where I'm going wrong!

Saxon

Chaps,

I'm hoping someone can help who has experience of the Flucard. I've just bought a K3 and also a genuine Flucard. What I wanted to do was tether the camera either to a laptop or to a cheap Google Android tablet I have just bought for the purpose. I don't want to do anything fancy to remote control the camera, all I want to do is be able to shoot pictures and see them come up as I shoot them (or a few seconds afterwards) on the tablet or PC. So far I have been unable to make it do this. Basically when I connect the two to the flucard wifi I seem to have 2 options:

1. Remote capture which seems to essentially enable you to get Liveview but on the tablet. You lose the pic through the viewfinder though and even my rear liveview screen on the K3 is blank until I take a picture and then the picture I have taken flashes up on the rear LCD for about a tenth of a second so essentially unless you're looking at the PC you're shooting blind.
2. Image view which so far just seems to provide a small clickable Jpeg of the pictures you've taken but it's useless for 'on the fly review' because you keep having to click on each image to enlarge it to see it properly - why doesn't it just display the last image taken automatically and in full screen? - I'm taking pictures, I don't want to have to keep going back to the PC or tablet after every shot!!

Unless I'm using it wrongly I think the whole thing is a complete waste of £75!! What I really wanted was to be able to see my pictures on a bigger screen as I shoot them just to be able to notice things better than I can by looking at the on camera LCD screen such as hair over eyes, missed focus or something small and distracting in the frame. In short what I want is what you get with cabled tethered shooting on a K5.

So far this is about as much use as a chocolate teapot!

Can anyone help?

Merry Christmas to all (PS tablet is a Dragon Touch Y88X running Android 4.4 on a quad core processor.

I look forward to reading your replies.

Saxon