I realize all that. The difference is that I (capital I) spent my money on Pentax (capital Pentax). Having bought an *istD (which I was overall happy with), an *ist DS (not), a K20D (not), and a K7 (happy), which is roughly $4,250 + several new lenses. I'm not sure that was the best spent money. I could have done without the middle two and be just as happy now. I'm glad I did not purchase a K10D when it was released.
Sure I might have the same issues had I gone with another maker, but knowing that Pentax was behind the game in a number of areas, I was either benevolently generous or foolish with my money (or at least some of it). Tom C, On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 10:23 AM, William Robb <war...@gmail.com> wrote: > > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Tom C" > Subject: Re: Photokina observations... > >> What irks me and makes me NOT so excited about any new Pentax offering >> is that the K10D and K20D were released to the public with some, IMO, >> serious flaws. Flaws so serious that my K20D is a brick on the shelf >> and that I would have a hard time, as others mentioned, consider >> giving it, much less sell it to a friend. My biggest gripe was >> exposure consistency and pretty much unusable images above 800 ISO. If >> I did sell it, it would probably garner 1/5 what I paid for it. >> >> Pentax undoubtedly knew of these issues pre-release. So in the end, I >> think Pentax just wanted in my pocket (which I knew anyway). I >> haven't owned a K10D, so my words apply to the K20D, and anecdotally >> to the K10D. >> >> To be honest, I think I'm getting equal, if not better results from >> the Sony Nex5 as I'm getting from the K7. > > Tom, everyone who makes anything wants into your pocket. It's people pulling > out their wallets that keep them in business. > Do you think Nikon couldn't have made the D7000 2 years ago? I suspect they > could have, or something very similar anyway, but it was too big a jump over > what they had on the market at the time. > Canon tends to do rather small incremental changes in their lower end > cameras and releases yet another Rebel once a year, this years model having > smaller increases in performance over last years then the difference from > K10 to K20 or K7 to k5. > Like it or not, it's how companies stay afloat. > The K10 was a game changer for Pentax, for the time (and for the company) it > was a large jump over what they had on the market prior to it. IIRC, at the > time the state of the art was another stop (perhaps as much as two stops) of > performance over what was being offered by the competition. > I truly think that the K20 sensor never did perform up to the expectations > that Pentax had for it, we saw a lot of teething problems with the K20 for > the techno wonks to find fault with. The traveling hot pixels (as good a > name for a techno rock band as any) had dpReview using Pentax as a football > to punt all over the internet. > But people bought it and for the most part seemed to make decent pictures, > all it's flaws to the contrary. > > Let me ask you a question: If you bought a mid range Dell computer in early > 2008 for a thousand dollars, what would you expect to sell it for in late > 2010? > We've commoditized cameras the same way we've commoditized every other > portable electronic device. This years model turns last years into fishwrap. > Why wouldn't you get as good a picture from your Sony as the K7? It has the > same megapixel count (or it's really close), it's got the same amount of > real estate in the sensor as the K7, and frankly, it's going to have a > better sensor. > And I suspect that if you discount flare resistance, the Sony lens is > probably as good as the Pentax zooms that are out there in most of the key > parameters. > You would probably get as good a picture from a K-x as you get from a K7 > because the way you tend to shoot doesn't push the performance envelope as > hard as the imaging envelope. > Did it ever bother you that a K1000 took as good a Picture as a PZ-1p? Did > you ask yourself what was the point of spending a grand or more on a camera > that didn't take 5 times a better picture? > > I read PentaxForums from time to time. You want to see a more snivelling > bunch of airheads than them, you'd have to put 2000 little kids in a room > with a big bowl of candy, and take the bowl away before any of them get to > it. They whine because the K-x has better low light performance than the > K-7, they pillory Pentax because their entry level camera is better than the > top end one. They look at that one performance specification and build > lineal yards of scrolling around what a bunch of idiots Pentax is because in > one specification, Pentax did really well, paying no attention whatsoever to > all the other things that the camera doesn't do as well at. > It like having a whole group of ADHD anal retentives in the same room > griping about how the new caramel Mars bar isn't as nice as the white > chocolate Mars bar because there is goo inside the caramel bar. > Go over to the Canon forums and you will read pissing and moaning because > the 18mp monster isn't producing as sharp a picture as the 15 mp monster > did. > Meanwhile at Nikon, they seem to just quietly go about the business of > taking pictures with their cameras. > It's very refreshing. > I was showing my partner in studio crime the K5 specs the other day. > His comment was how does Pentax manage to come out with these really nice > camera bodies year after year while Nikon takes 4 years to come out with > another crappy camera? (this was his exact words). > Having said that, he really likes his D3X, but it's coming up on two years > old with no replacement, what the hell is going on over at Nikon? > I suspect that they haven't milked that camera for enough money yet and so > are going to leave it for another year, holding back on a new flagship until > they are pretty sure their user base is hungry enough to buy whatever they > could have released at this years Photokina, and hopefully with enough money > to buy it. > There will never be the perfect product. Companies work with the technology > they have at the time, and they have to put product on the market lest they > appear moribund. This means that sometimes flawed products hit the market. > General Motors is a poster child for this sort of crap, and cars are > commoditized even more than cameras. Today's 60k car is worth perhaps 15k in > less than 5 years as a rule, but we accept this as SOP. > When a camera company comes out with a perfect camera, they will shortly > thereafter go out of business since there will be nothing left for them to > do and their users will abandon them in droves buying flawed cameras from a > different company simply because the flawed camera is better than last > year's flawed camera and the users of the perfect camera will feel betrayed > because somehow the company hasn't managed to improve on their perfection. > > William Robb > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
