Amazon (US) read my mind
· Saturday November 29, 2008
If you’re in the market for a Pentax K20D and you live in the states (or have family there, hehe), check out Amazon’s Black Friday promotion which lasts until Monday: buy a K20D, get a free SLR bag and a free Optio A40 point & shoot— freebies worth almost $220! My order’s just gone through, and I simply cannot wait to go home for Christmas!! ... for family, of course. If you’re thinking of buying Pentax products in the UK, there is an up-to-100-pounds-cashback offer — unfortunately, if you want a body, you must also get a kit lens which didn’t appeal to me (hence the US purchase).
So I guess the cat is out of the camera bag— I’ve decided to give Pentax a go =)
Canonical comparisons
If you’ve been reading this blog or spoken to me in the past few months, you know that I’ve been planning to upgrade my camera at Christmas. I was primarily considering the Canon 450D (XSi) and the 50D. Recent conversations with a fellow member of staff at the ISVR who bought a 50D seemed to confirm what DPReview had to say about its high-ISO performance. Namely, the higher resolution sensor of the 50D produces worse noise than the 40D. This was a bit of a let-down, but one can’t really expect fancier signal processing to surpass the laws of physics. If you cram more pixels into a smaller space, you’re bound to reduce your signal-to-noise level.
So then I thought, well the 40D is a great camera and way cheaper now than the 50D, that seems like the logical choice. All the reviews I’ve seen of this body are very complimentary, and of course it’s compatible with my modest lineup of Canon lenses. How did I get from 40D to K20D?
the Pros of Pentax
I started thinking about the kind of photography I do, and what made the most sense in that context. Budget also came into consideration. There is no doubt in my mind that Canon makes some of the best lenses in the world, but almost all of the L-series lenses are well out of my budget. Many of these lenses are zooms as well.
The convenience of a zoom lens is wonderful, but it also makes you lazy (imho, hehe). No longer do you have to use your legs and mind’s eye to find the best composition, nor to instinctively ken which focal length is best suited for the image. I used Canon’s 50mm f/1.8 for quite some time, and I really felt like it taught me a great deal about photography. The strength of Pentax’s line of prime lenses is something that has always appealed to me for a number of reasons. Their optical quality is well-recognized, they’re relatively inexpensive and well-built, and they are very portability (check out the pancake lenses!).
There are a couple of other characteristics that the K20D offered that the 40D didn’t.
- full weather sealing
Weather sealing is something that is important to me. Especially after my near-disastrous experience(s) in the Yorkshire Dales .
- in-body shake reduction (IS)
I love the IS in my Canon 18-55 and 55-250 kit lenses. It’s not 100% effective, but it does help. Being able to apply shake reduction to faster prime lenses is something I’m really looking forward to having in the K20D.
- oriented to ‘regular’ photography
I think if you’re a professional photographer, it makes much more sense to go with Canon or Nikon. Even the 40D has features like > 6fps shooting, which I simply don’t need. It just seemed like the K20D’s skill-set was more in line with my own photographic needs :-)
it’s not all roses
Of course, there are downsides to working in any specific ‘camp’. For instance, a fellow Pentax-user Gerry Winterbourne has noted that they sometime run into supply issues, being a smaller company. Pentax also lack really long lenses; I don’t do any serious wildlife or sports photography, so that’s okay. Pentax make a number of zoom lenses, but their quality seems to fall slightly short of similar Canon offerings (at least on Photozone’s tests). But again, I’d kinda like to work with primes for a while.
The 18-55mm IS is most often on my 350D these days. It’s a great lens in many ways— super-cheap, light, sharp, decent IS. But there’s something that’s a bit soul-less about it. It’s hard for me to put into words, but I simply don’t get the same enjoyment out of using it as I have done out of my 50/1.8, even though the focal length is much more convenient.
We’ll see how all of this pans out in time. I’m certainly not ditching my 350D any time soon, so I’ll have a foot in each camp for a while :-)
Happy Saturday-after-Black-Friday to all!
— Emery Ku
