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snipenekkid · 11-29-2010, 10:08 PM

cool!!! If you learned on Pentax and Minolta then I could see you looking at both Pentax (now owned by Hoya) and Sony (they bought Minolta/Konica). If you have any of that old Pentax glass around the good news it will still work on any of the new bodies. If it's M42 glass you will need an adapter but that is no big deal. However the viewfinders are not close to even the ME Super (I actually loved that body!! and still have mine.) As for shooting film, yeah it's the whole dealing with a darkroom, finding film as many of your old favorite films are not made anymore and the existing options are decreasing every year. But you'll still want to look at something like Lightroom and another app like Photoshop for more advanced editing needs. But I find I use Lightroom 99% of the time in fact I stopped upgrading Photoshop at CS3 and they are on CS5 now.

About the image format oh, you were meaning the video format. I suppose he was saying that it can save something like AVI if you set it to whatever Quicktime uses as a native format but it will be a user option not set in stone. That is a totally different thing all together. I actually have yet to do ANYTHING with video on a DSLR. To me it still feels like an abomination. But some folks do amazing video with their DSLR's.

BTW, I would agree that the Rebel's are, well, not shining examples of DSLR's and they feel really cheap in my hands. I hate to say it but so does the Nikon D5000. I read the D7000 is a completely different feel, in a good way.

Cool ya went to London Drug. I spend enough time on PentaxForums.com to know there are a LOT of Pentax shooters in Canada. So that is why I knew about London Drug. If you decide to order online check out ProDigital2000 (I think they only sell via ebay but might also have a web site) as they are one of the higher volume DSLR sellers in Canada, often offering free 7-year Mack warranties on the gear they sell. That is a nice deal for sure and hard to beat. Oh, don't overlook what service for a given brand is like in Canada as this can vary greatly by country as well as regions within some countries.

For me it is also a serious hobby which is why I asked. I enjoy the challenge of shooting with prime lenses over zooms as a rule, but I grew up with primes. Unfortunately, with Pentax there are only two sealed prime lenses but both are excellent lenses. One is the DA* 55mm f1.4 SDM lense and the other is a GREAT macro that doubles as a medium tele portrait lens in the DFA 100mm/2.8 Macro. It uses the in-body screw drive for AF as opposed to the in lense SDM AF motor.

Oh, something else about both Sony and Pentax, they have in body stabilization as opposed to Canon and Nikon which use in lens stabilization (IS and VR respectively). While the in lens stabilization can be a bit more efficient, sometimes 2-stops more stabilization, the in body stabilization has the advantage of giving you stabilization for all of your lenses rather than just the lenses you spend the extra on to get the feature. See there is so much to consider I completely overlooked that aspect of the decision.

With my K20D and K5 I would say I get about 2-3 stops added ability to hand hold shots. I can reliably hand hold my 35ltd down to about 1/8th sec shutter speed. Remember the rule of thumb has always been about 1/focal-length of the lens to prevent blur from lens motion.

Anyway, the weather sealing is a conundrum for a lot of us because it also takes many of our favorite lenses out of the equation in poor weather. So ya want to be certain there are sealed lenses which not only fit your shooting preferences and style, but also fit your budget. If there are no lenses which work then the sealed body is somewhat wasted but not 100% wasted as it still helps keep out dust, except for lens changes.

I made the switch from Canon to Pentax not only because I really like the build of the body and the lenses plus the ability to use pretty much any lens made for a Pentax camera since about 1950 with stabilization thanks to that in body stabilization. I chose it over Sony for a variety of reasons not limited to the fact it's Minolta/Konica mount just does not have a lot of good legacy glass. There is also a lot of older Voightlander glass in the Pentax K-mount as well. All manual focus of course but man it's great glass.

I have to admit I also have had an eye on the Sony A55 but there aren't any solid reviews yet plus it would be yet another brand switch as there is no way I am able to afford to maintain two systems.

Just too much LBA (lens buying addiction).

Plus the tech used in the A33/A55 is first generation so I would likely wait until the kinks are worked out. And remember it's mirrorless so you don't have an optical viewfinder meaning it will always be a slight delay between what you see and live action. But I haven't handled one so I don't know how that lag feels.

If it helps...it took me over a year to decide on which DSLR to begin with and that was after about 7-years shooting my still trust worthy Sony DSC-S70! Heck I did not even learn about the whole over hyped megapixel thing. It's more about dynamic range and color depth than MP's. Of course you'll notice I have not even mentioned the different sensor sizes...sigh...it's just, well, it's complicated.

Do feel free to PM me if you have questions. I am very neutral about brands so I would not steer you toward my preference without first pointing out that it is a personal preference over anything concrete.

It does indeed help that you are familiar with the nice compact size of Pentax bodies. Really once you hold one of the newer Pentax upper end bodies like the K10D (old and somewhat too out of date)/K20D which share the same body or the K7 or K5 (oddly the newer version of that body line). But the quality and solid feel of these bodies really can make other options feel, well, cheap by comparison. But I also liked my Canon bodies. I have handled the D90 and did not care for the feel but the D300s was not too bad. The Canon 7D is a larger body for sure but also it's a proven winner with sealing as well.

I really better stop as I will ramble on forever about this...it's fun to find someone shopping for their first DSLR after shooting film years ago. It's so much the same but so very different at the same time. One reason is the sensor size thing I mentioned earlier. Good old Wikipedia saves the day there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APS-C

All you really need to know about how the sensor influences the effective focal length of a lens, it's field of view AND the DOF at a given aperture. I added this since you want to get back into it on a serious basis...so have fun with info overload. Hope it gets easier.

I promise, my final post about this topic...I blather on too much about it...sorry.

11-29-2010, 10:08 PM	#11
snipenekkid Banned Posts: 760 Karma: 51034 Join Date: Feb 2009	cool!!! If you learned on Pentax and Minolta then I could see you looking at both Pentax (now owned by Hoya) and Sony (they bought Minolta/Konica). If you have any of that old Pentax glass around the good news it will still work on any of the new bodies. If it's M42 glass you will need an adapter but that is no big deal. However the viewfinders are not close to even the ME Super (I actually loved that body!! and still have mine.) As for shooting film, yeah it's the whole dealing with a darkroom, finding film as many of your old favorite films are not made anymore and the existing options are decreasing every year. But you'll still want to look at something like Lightroom and another app like Photoshop for more advanced editing needs. But I find I use Lightroom 99% of the time in fact I stopped upgrading Photoshop at CS3 and they are on CS5 now. About the image format oh, you were meaning the video format. I suppose he was saying that it can save something like AVI if you set it to whatever Quicktime uses as a native format but it will be a user option not set in stone. That is a totally different thing all together. I actually have yet to do ANYTHING with video on a DSLR. To me it still feels like an abomination. But some folks do amazing video with their DSLR's. BTW, I would agree that the Rebel's are, well, not shining examples of DSLR's and they feel really cheap in my hands. I hate to say it but so does the Nikon D5000. I read the D7000 is a completely different feel, in a good way. Cool ya went to London Drug. I spend enough time on PentaxForums.com to know there are a LOT of Pentax shooters in Canada. So that is why I knew about London Drug. If you decide to order online check out ProDigital2000 (I think they only sell via ebay but might also have a web site) as they are one of the higher volume DSLR sellers in Canada, often offering free 7-year Mack warranties on the gear they sell. That is a nice deal for sure and hard to beat. Oh, don't overlook what service for a given brand is like in Canada as this can vary greatly by country as well as regions within some countries. For me it is also a serious hobby which is why I asked. I enjoy the challenge of shooting with prime lenses over zooms as a rule, but I grew up with primes. Unfortunately, with Pentax there are only two sealed prime lenses but both are excellent lenses. One is the DA* 55mm f1.4 SDM lense and the other is a GREAT macro that doubles as a medium tele portrait lens in the DFA 100mm/2.8 Macro. It uses the in-body screw drive for AF as opposed to the in lense SDM AF motor. Oh, something else about both Sony and Pentax, they have in body stabilization as opposed to Canon and Nikon which use in lens stabilization (IS and VR respectively). While the in lens stabilization can be a bit more efficient, sometimes 2-stops more stabilization, the in body stabilization has the advantage of giving you stabilization for all of your lenses rather than just the lenses you spend the extra on to get the feature. See there is so much to consider I completely overlooked that aspect of the decision. With my K20D and K5 I would say I get about 2-3 stops added ability to hand hold shots. I can reliably hand hold my 35ltd down to about 1/8th sec shutter speed. Remember the rule of thumb has always been about 1/focal-length of the lens to prevent blur from lens motion. Anyway, the weather sealing is a conundrum for a lot of us because it also takes many of our favorite lenses out of the equation in poor weather. So ya want to be certain there are sealed lenses which not only fit your shooting preferences and style, but also fit your budget. If there are no lenses which work then the sealed body is somewhat wasted but not 100% wasted as it still helps keep out dust, except for lens changes. I made the switch from Canon to Pentax not only because I really like the build of the body and the lenses plus the ability to use pretty much any lens made for a Pentax camera since about 1950 with stabilization thanks to that in body stabilization. I chose it over Sony for a variety of reasons not limited to the fact it's Minolta/Konica mount just does not have a lot of good legacy glass. There is also a lot of older Voightlander glass in the Pentax K-mount as well. All manual focus of course but man it's great glass. I have to admit I also have had an eye on the Sony A55 but there aren't any solid reviews yet plus it would be yet another brand switch as there is no way I am able to afford to maintain two systems. Just too much LBA (lens buying addiction). Plus the tech used in the A33/A55 is first generation so I would likely wait until the kinks are worked out. And remember it's mirrorless so you don't have an optical viewfinder meaning it will always be a slight delay between what you see and live action. But I haven't handled one so I don't know how that lag feels. If it helps...it took me over a year to decide on which DSLR to begin with and that was after about 7-years shooting my still trust worthy Sony DSC-S70! Heck I did not even learn about the whole over hyped megapixel thing. It's more about dynamic range and color depth than MP's. Of course you'll notice I have not even mentioned the different sensor sizes...sigh...it's just, well, it's complicated. Do feel free to PM me if you have questions. I am very neutral about brands so I would not steer you toward my preference without first pointing out that it is a personal preference over anything concrete. It does indeed help that you are familiar with the nice compact size of Pentax bodies. Really once you hold one of the newer Pentax upper end bodies like the K10D (old and somewhat too out of date)/K20D which share the same body or the K7 or K5 (oddly the newer version of that body line). But the quality and solid feel of these bodies really can make other options feel, well, cheap by comparison. But I also liked my Canon bodies. I have handled the D90 and did not care for the feel but the D300s was not too bad. The Canon 7D is a larger body for sure but also it's a proven winner with sealing as well. I really better stop as I will ramble on forever about this...it's fun to find someone shopping for their first DSLR after shooting film years ago. It's so much the same but so very different at the same time. One reason is the sensor size thing I mentioned earlier. Good old Wikipedia saves the day there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APS-C All you really need to know about how the sensor influences the effective focal length of a lens, it's field of view AND the DOF at a given aperture. I added this since you want to get back into it on a serious basis...so have fun with info overload. Hope it gets easier. I promise, my final post about this topic...I blather on too much about it...sorry.