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 p.3 #22 · Massive jump-ship. What to do? | |
brainiac wrote:
Jorgen Udvang wrote:
You said: "..., I listed the features that are fundamental to the usefulness of the two cameras."
But you omitted:
Weather Sealing (K7 is fully sealed, 500D has no sealing)
I am sorry but this is a real stretch. The great majority of SLR's do not have weather sealing. How can that be an essential feature to the camera when even most K7 buyers (or 500D buyers) will never know or care that it was there? I have used countless cameras over decades, mostly pro gear, and as far as I know only three of those cameras were weather sealed. I have never had a camera fail due to water damage. This feature is required by a very small minority of camera users, most of whom are interested in systems with full frame options.
Actually that's not the case anymore. Most of the SLR's above the consumer range have some level of sealing and the K7 has among the best sealing on the market. Weather sealing is one of the major reasons to consider the K7 in the first place.
>Dual-wheel interface with primarily physical controls
Yeah - it's not a camera without that. How could it be made to work?
Dual-wheel controls are faster to work with, which is one reason they're a standard differentiator between consumer and mid-range bodies.
>100% Pentaprism finder
See my answer to the weather-sealing issue. The great majority of cameras don't have this and yet users seem to get on fine.
And yet still a standard differentiator between higher-end and lower-end cameras. Being able to accurately frame the image is not something the consumer market needs. But it's a nice feature for the pros.
>15 RAW buffer
What's wrong with 9 raws? Bursts of more than 5 raws seem excessive for the overwhelming majority of camera usage, even for professionals. If you need to hold your finger down for 15 shots in a row, then you must be really important.
Never made 3 bursts in a short period? The bigger the buffer, the less that write speeds and file sizes matter in the field. I've certainly filled 9+ frame buffers using 1-2 shot bursts (both on an EOS 10D due to glacial write speeds and on a D300 due to large file sizes in 14 bit mode).
1/8000 max shutter speed
Cameras didn't work before they had this.
The extra stop of shutter gets you an extra stop of aperture when trying to shoot shallow-DoF work in daylight. Once again, a nice feature and a standard differentiator for higher-end bodies.
Magnesium body shell
A real photographer doesn't give a toss about what the body shell is made of as long as the camera works long enough to get the job done and represent good vfm.
And often that the body doesn't fall apart under heavy use. The Rebels simply aren't well built enough to take the sort of beating that hard use can give out. The K7, on the other hand, has the build to take that sort of abuse. The VFM equation is different when you have to buy 2-3 Rebels to match the usage life of one higher-end body. Once again, the reason why pretty much all the bodies at the K7's level have either magnesium shells or very tough ploycarbonate shells (the E-3 may be polycarbonate, but it's far tougher than any Rebel).
In-body IS
A great feature, but non-essential, particularly when lens IS comes bundled with much cheaper kits.
I'll concede that point when the 50mm f1.8 IS ships.
Sensor leveling
Seriously - how have we photographers survived without this? ;-)
This is the one feature that's of more use to consumers than serious shooters.
>1.8 fps faster drive (5.2fps vs 3.4)
An issue for sports shooters, none of whom should be using either of these cameras.
Useful in a pinch. I'd suspect there's more sports shooters using both of these cameras than you'd suspect. Heck I know one working pro here in Toronto who shoots with a MF 400/2.8A* on a Pentax *istDS2.
>Wireless flash control on the popup.
This will be used by less than 0.2% of K7 buyers. How have we survived till now?
Actually, this is likely to be heavily used by the K7's target market, which is serious amateurs, part-time pros and the occasional real working pro. Look at the popularity of Strobist and tell me again that people aren't going to use this?
>9 cross type sensors in 11 points vs 1 cross type sensor in 9 points for AF
MUCH better selection of crop-oriented lenses, and pretty much all of those outperform the EF-S equivalent.
Apparently the 500D has better AF than the K7. Who cares how they do it, or what the marketing people have to say about why the inferior AF is actually better.
The 500D has better AF multi-point tracking and better centre-point AF performance, The K7 has better performance when a off-centre point is selected. Overal the 500D wins, but if you're trying anything other than the centre-point in AF-S, the K7 is going to do better.
When you omit features from a comparison, and say what you said, it is usually fair to assume that you either:
a) don't find those features relevant for the task the equipment is designed to perform
or
b) work to promote one of the product in the comparison.
...or (c) reckon that a much more expensive camera with worse image quality, inferior AF, and no upgrade path to full frame, isn't going to become the market leader through spec-list features alone.
None of the features that you list matter in the way that price, image quality, AF, and system access matter. In this digital age, even camera longevity isn't a crucial feature any more, since people expect to upgrade in a few years, like they do with phones, computers and televisions.
The K7's IQ is at least as good as the 500D's at lower ISO's, at higher ISO's the 500D's cleaner but delivers less resolution. The upgrade path to FF is in many ways irrelevant today, those who need FF are going there directly (Why buy either a 500D or a K7 when the K7's price gets you a 5D now). But most of the market has no need for FF and the K7 does have a compelling set of features for enough people to give it a solid niche.
Your entire argument here also fails on the fact that it applies essentially in its entirety to every single camera between $1000 and $2000 MSRP, not just the K7. And reality indicates that the features you write off as irrelevancies are in fact major selling points to the majority of the non-consumer market. There's a lot more to camera choice than just the AF unit and IQ.
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Absolutely captivating!