Pentax or Olympus?
Hi. My name is Stan, and I have way too much Pentax gear. Thank you for allowing me to join you at this evening’s meeting of those suffering from Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
But seriously… Within a few months I hope to get back to my occasional travels to foreign/scenic/exotic places. And I have been giving a lot of thought as to what gear to take and how to use it. One K-1ii or both of them. 645Z? But that probably means the tripod as well. I hate not having a back-up camera… And the APS-C format is nice for bird shots.
All of this musing led me to purchase a K-3iii. After a few months, about 1000 images, I sold it. This may not be relevant for others, but my issue was with the menu structure and the heavy use of touch-screen in lieu of hierarchical lists under the Menu button. I’ll confess that I probably just did not give it enough serious study, and I coulda shoulda set up a few User settings so that I wouldn’t need to worry about the menu details. But I sold it, bought a used K-3ii for about 25% the price of the K-3iii.
If I were to switch to a different brand Olympus would be high on my list just because long long ago, before my ME-Super, I had the OM-1 and was very pleased with everything about it except the match-needle exposure was off and my brother convinced me to try the Pentax. I would also consider some version of Nikon just because the last time I looked the menus/buttons etc. were similar to Pentax. But I cannot imagine that any brand camera at this point would be a bad choice, in terms of quality. For me, as with the K-3iii the choice would come down to usability.
stan
On Nov 17, 2021, at 4:37 PM, John Francis johnf@panix.com wrote:
The recent posts about the K3-III got me to wondering again about whether I'll stick with Pentax and get a K3-III, or switch brands.
I know a few of the posters here have already moved over - I'd appreciate it if you could share with me (either here on PDML or by direct email) your experiences - positive or negative - with any particular Olympus model (I'm thinking of an OM-D of some kind).
And if there are any other people here who are considering switching (or have considered it in the past) I'd like to hear your thoughts, too.
The main reason I'm considering the switch is because I'm not getting any younger, and it's getting increasingly more tiring to lug around a camera bag full of gear. Switching to a smaller format should go some way to reducing the weight.
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On Nov 17, 2021, at 6:01 PM, Paul Stenquist pnstenquist@comcast.net wrote:
Switch to an iPhone 13 Pro Max. It will provide excellent 11 megapixel photos with wide, normal and short tele lenses. Lots of nice features like portrait and panorama modes. Excellent video too. Good in camera editing as well. Oh, and it has phone and web browser functions, When you need big glass or higher res use your Pentax,
Experience with the amazing—to me, of course—Fuji XQ1 compact, which I purchased to keep my kit light for a 2015 bike tour in Italy, caused me to start graduating away from Pentax. I kept the XQ1, purchased a Fuji XM1 and a Fuji XF 27/2.8 lens, and gradually sold off my Pentax bodies and lenses.
Subsequently, when on a month spent on the Blue ridge Parkway I found myself without batteries for the Fuji equipment when both of the battery chargers purchased for the trip failed to work, I resorted to my iPhone 6s as my backup camera and was stunned at the quality of the images I got.
On three trips to the Big Bend area since then the iPhone has been my only camera. I have one photo from those trips enlarged and framed on my wall now. There could be more. The only thing I longed for with the 6s was a telephoto lens to bring some of the distant landscape scenes of Big Bend up closer.
Recently I upgraded the 6s to an iPhone 12 Pro, mainly for the telephoto lens it provides. I find it helpful in other settings but it won’t meet the need I feel in Big Bend landscapes. Should I get the opportunity to return to Big Bend I will consider going back to Pentax for this: https://us.ricoh-imaging.com/product/vm-6x21-wp-monocular/
It’ll perhaps be admitting my lack of technical sophistication, but I find the editing capabilities of iPhone cameras and Apple’s Photos app fully adequate to my needs. I will hang onto LightRoom as a way of preserving the editing I did with my Pentax and Fuji photos but rely on Photos from here on out as my primary photo editing and organizing software.
What were you referring to, Paul, when you mentioned the 13 Pro Max’s “phone and web browser functions”?
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA USA
eeweir@comcast.net
"It has all been combustion.”
- W.G. Sebald
Ooh, wow! Love it. All of it.
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA USA
eeweir@comcast.net
"It has all been combustion.”
- W.G. Sebald
I've more or less moved to OLympus. I still have my K-5, K-01 & istDS and a
variety of lenses but I rarely use them now. I have an E-M10 & E-M5 II and
think they are the bees knees. I really like the electronic viewfinders and
don't find them at all inferior to the optical finders of the Pentaxes.
The only negative is the fairly short battery life but a couple of spares takes
care of that.
I really wish Pentax did something like this.
Cheers
Brian
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Brian Walters
Western Sydney Australia
http://lyons-ryan.org/southernlight/
https://500px.com/supera1000/galleries
On 18 November 2021 at 08:37 John Francis johnf@panix.com wrote:
The recent posts about the K3-III got me to wondering again about whether I'll
stick with Pentax and get a K3-III, or switch brands.
I know a few of the posters here have already moved over - I'd appreciate it
if you could share with me (either here on PDML or by direct email) your
experiences - positive or negative - with any particular Olympus model (I'm
thinking of an OM-D of some kind).
And if there are any other people here who are considering switching (or have
considered it in the past) I'd like to hear your thoughts, too.
The main reason I'm considering the switch is because I'm not getting any
younger, and it's getting increasingly more tiring to lug around a camera bag
full of gear. Switching to a smaller format should go some way to reducing
the weight.
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the directions.
On 11/18/2021 11:26 AM, Toine wrote:
First images from my panasonic are excellent:
https://www.repiuk.nl/albums/new/#&gid=1&pid=006-360-1000139
f/8 1/640 sec 400mm ISO 500
It's amazing, a fancy mirrorless body and a Leica superzoom for the
price of a K3III. Sorry...
No reason to apologize. You do what you have to do to get the images you
want.
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Considering how many members of this list have moved away from Pentax, maybe we should change it to the Phalacrocoracidae Discuss Mailing List.
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Larry Colen
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You might very well think that, but I couldn't possibly cormorant.
Dan Matyola
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On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 4:32 PM Larry Colen lrc@red4est.com wrote:
Considering how many members of this list have moved away from Pentax,
maybe we should change it to the Phalacrocoracidae Discuss Mailing List.
--
Larry Colen
lrc@red4est.com
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On 18-Nov-21 11:32 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
Considering how many members of this list have moved away from Pentax, maybe we should change it to the Phalacrocoracidae Discuss Mailing List.
--
Larry Colen
lrc@red4est.com
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Thanks to all who contributed their thoughts.
It looks as though the answer is going to be Olympus.
A significant factor in that decision is that, as several people
(including my wife) pointed out to me, it doesn't matter how good
your camera is if it's sitting at home because it's too heavy to
carry around (and unfortunately you don't want to leave anything
valuable in your car at many of the tourist spots round here).
The decision was also influenced by the fact that Olympus kindly
chose to put their top-of-the-line sports & wildlife body - the
OM-D E-M1X - on sale for the next couple of weeks, so that instead
of being $3000 I could get it for less than the cost of a K-3iii.
Of course that's without any lenses ...
Fortunately I've alread got a couple of Olympus Micro 4/3 lenses
lying around - a 12-40mm and 40-150mm - that I bought some years
ago for my wife (together with an Olympus Pen EPL-1); I've got a
better 40-150 coming along with the body, but I'll be able to use
the 12-40 until I decide what to buy to cover those focal lengths.
So I guess that, assuming everything goes as planned, at some point
I'll be putting at least some of my Pentax gear up for sale.
(And yes, that will include the FA* 250-600/f5.6).
It will seem strange not to be using a Pentax as my everyday camera;
it's almost 50 years since I bought myself a Spotmatic II along with
a 50mm f1.4 lens, and I've stuck with Pentax ever since.
(MX, ME, ME Super, Super Program, PZ-1p, MZ-S, *ist-D, K10D, K5).
That doesn't mean you'll be able to kick me off the PDML, though!
On Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 02:56:57AM -0500, John Francis wrote:
That doesn't mean you'll be able to kick me off the PDML, though!
Hmm. I post that, and for over 24 hours I don't see any new messages ...