Henk, I needed reliable AF so I bought a Nikon Z5II last June. TL;DR: I
highly recommend it.

It's almost the same size, weight and handling as my K3iii. The EVF is fine
-- I was expecting more trouble than it has given me. The AF performance is
mind boggling to me. I leave face detect on almost always and it even
tracks cats and dogs eyes perfectly.

I bought it with the inexpensive Nikon 40mm f/2, and since then added two
quite marvelous Chinese lenses: the Sirui 85mm f/1.4 and its sister, the
35mm f/1.4 (also Sirui). It's a perfect portrait system and suits my style
of working to a T.

I'm hanging on to my Pentax gear but it's just gathering dust, TBH.

On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 5:44 PM Henk Terhell henk.terhell@gmail.com wrote:

--
-bmw

Thanks Bruce for this information. I'm considering first to get the
Tamron 50-400 that will focus from 0.25 m at 50 mm and would be suitable
for my butterflies and dragonflies.
Nikon just released an inexpensive Z 24-105/F4-7.1 focussing from 0.2 m
with 0.5 magnification.
There are so many options in the Z-mount.

Henk

Op 10-1-2026 om 02:53 schreef Bruce Walker:

I'm pretty much in the same place as you.

I keep my Pentax stuff around for things my Fuji can't do, but about the
only thing my K1 can do that my Fuji isn't capable of is the Astro Tracer.

Meanwhile the X-T5 has faster and more accurate auto focus, eye
detection and a decent enough electronic viewfinder that I'm able to use it.

Since I spend most of my time with the camera on a tripod anyway, I'm
using the camera more like how I used my view camera, complete with a
dark cloth, and the Fuji works better that way.

I think the problem Pentax is going to have flogging DSLRs is that it's
pretty much recognized that the ship on that technology has sailed. A
DSLR will never have the AF accuracy of a mirrorless, will never be as
responsive as a mirrorless, and will probably never have the AF speed of
a mirrorless.

When I bought into Pentax 40 years ago it was for the lenses, though
admitedly I fell in love with the LX the first time I handled one, but
even that reason has gone by the wayside as I've found that Fuji's glass
is every bit as good as Pentax and in many ways are better lenses, and
the X-T5 is as close to the LX experience as I've found in a digital camera.

As an aside, I still run into Fredauh from time to time. She and her
partner seem quite happy. They have bought an acreage in the Prince
Albert area and are quite contentedly raising chickens.

bill

On 1/9/2026 7:53 PM, Bruce Walker wrote:

On Fri, Jan 09, 2026 at 11:28:23PM +0100, Henk Terhell wrote:

I still have anm emotional attachment to Pentax (dating back to the
Spotmatic II I purchased over 50 years ago with my first paycheck
from my first full-time job), but as most of you will already know
I switched to an Olympus M1X a few years ago.
I've still got a K-5 and a bunch of lenses (and some even older stuff),
but I doubt if I'll ever use them again - I'll probably post a list of
them here to see if I've got anything someone might want.
The FA* 250-600 has already gone to a good home, though :-)

Pretty similar story here. I switched to Olympus about 10 years ago with the E-M10 and have just splashed out on an OM-5 ii. My K-5 is about to be sold and although I'm keeping the K-01 and the Q, they're hard to love without an EVF.

Brian

On 11 January 2026 7:17:06 am AEDT, John Francis johnf@panix.com wrote:

On 2026-01-10 12:17, John Francis wrote:

:-)

I'm lucky in that I just do photography for fun. I don't need the
absolute best performance available, especially when I've got cameras
with performance that would have been mind boggling not that long ago.
I'm at the point where I've got an insanely complete kit of K-mount
lenses.  The only thing I lack is the time and place to play with them.
Using my K-3 III for more actiony stuff, and the K-1 when I need a wider
angle of view, I don't find that I often miss a shot because the cameras
don't perform well enough.

If there was a good adapter to use K-mount autofocus with a mirrorless
body, I could see myself being tempted to get that setup, because there
are times that there are distinct advantages of EVF over OVF.

The way people whine about autofocus performance almost makes me wonder
how I managed to get any usable shots the first 35 years I did
photography.

To be honest, I did put katzeye screens in my first several Pentax DSLRs
because I did better with manual focus, and a manual focus screen than I
did with the autofocus.

A couple weeks back, after taking my OM-5 II with me on a bicycle ride,
I did post to the Pentaxian group on FB to be careful what you ask for.
In decent light my DSLRs are so much more pleasant to use than the EVIL
u4/3 EVF.  And then there is battery life.

Most of my complaints with the K-1 could be fixed by pulling in tech in
the K-3 III.  I'd like more focusing points, I'd like a faster bus so
that the image buffer didn't get filled up after just a few frames.  The
thumb selector for focus points is nice.

My biggest complaints in general, particularly with the 3-III is some
mind bogglingly bad choices that they made in the User Interface. For
example, in manual exposure being forced to bracket aperture rather than
shutter speed.  They really need to optimize the UI for people who want
to be able to control what their cameras do rather than people that just
want a large, heavy, expensive cell phone camera.

--
Larry Colen  LRC@red4est.com http://red4est.com/lrc

On 11/01/2026 00:43, Larry Colen wrote:

Such as? OVF is the real thing, EVF is AI.

My K5 (ex Mark Cassino) & a few lenses up to 500mm suit me just fine.

Alan C

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
www.avast.com

EVFs have an advantage when light levels are such that focusing through
an OVF is pure guesswork while an EVF gains up so you can see what your
doing. Yes noise goes up, but I'll take a noisy viewfinder that I can
focus with over a dark viewfinder that makes focusing impossible.

For times when critical focus is required an EVF can zoom in on the
point of critical focus (yes, a DSLR can do that in live view, which is
defacto using the camera as if it has an EVF).

For times when focus is critical an an EVF will provide focus peaking
while an OVF will at best give you a green light focus indicator that
what the camera thinks it's pointing at is in focus. DSLR AF sensors
have a bad habit of being too large, misaligned or (and the K5 was a
brutally bad example of this) colour failure of the AF sensor causing
front or rear focusing.

My own K5 had unfixable AF colour failure to the point I was unable to
use AF in the studio or any time the light colour wasn't unadulterated
daylight.

When doing head & shoulders portraits with my K1 (and every AF Pentax
I've used) putting the focus point on the subject's eye more often than
not puts critical focus on the eyebrow, meaning that if I'm trying to
control DOF with a wider aperture I'm out of focus. Not every picture
want's f8, but with Pentax that was my only solution to have some
assurance that the eye would fall into the DOF and look at least
halfways in focus.

With my Fuji I can use my 56/1.2 or 75/1.2 at f1.2 and secure critical
focus every time with a close H&S portrait. With my Pentax DFA* 85/1.2
on the K1 I have to stop down to f8 and pray, which kind of makes all
that extra money I paid for it something of a waste, especially when the
85mm focal length is considered a common portrait focal length on the
format.

Most of the time these days I'm using a Fuji X-T5, a camera that isn't
renowned for having the best AF out there. Sony and Nikon apparently are
significantly better, but the Fuji is still pretty darned good.

I can tell the camera which eye I want it focused on and it locks onto
that eye and holds focus no matter where it moves in the frame. I can
set my focus spot on a single person in a group and it will hold that
person in focus even as the person moves through a crowd.

And no, Alan, an EVF isn't AI, it's a direct representation of what the
sensor sees with no potential alignment issues causing the viewfinder to
see things the sensor isn't.

So yes, EVFs have some tremendous advantages over OVFs in some situations.

The disadvantages are that some people are sensitive to EVF flicker. I
know I am, but the manufacturers seem to have overcome this. My X-T1
gave me a blinding headache if I looked through the viewfinder for more
than half a minute at a time. My X-T5 doesn't, and it isn't even the
best viewfinder that Fuji makes. Those are reserved for the X-H# series.

Battery life suffers with an EVF, but much of this can be mitigated via
not having the viewfinder turn itself on until the viewfinder is looked
through. And obviously, carrying spare batteries

And the biggest disadvantage that I see to EVFs is religion. People have
made OVF vs EVF into some sort of God fearing issue where one or the
other is the one true way and a pox on anyone who thinks differently.

And yes, that is a two way street with zealotry on both sides.

bill

On 1/10/2026 11:26 PM, Alan Cole wrote: