brainiac wrote:
Just as we share 90+% of our DNA with chimps, so these two cameras are overwhlmingly more similar than different.
If the two cameras are as similar as humans are to chimps, I begin to see the picture. You need to go to the zoo more often...
To claim that any advantage that a non-Canon camera has vs. a Canon is irrelevant to photography makes Ken Rockwell's comparison of the 5D to a camera phone look like science. Your arguments also obsolete an advanced p&s like the G10. It has after all the same sensor as most other, much cheaper digicams.
m-a-x wrote:
DubiousDrewski: in the collection behind your first link are some of the most aesthetic photos I ever have seen! Absolutely captivating! newmikey wrote:
I just wanted to remark that I had a look at your website and I was awestruck by the images! They are absolutely amazing, one by one and I did not want to leave that unsaid here.
Thanks guys! You're awesome.
>To claim that any advantage that a non-Canon camera has vs. a Canon is irrelevant to photography makes Ken Rockwell's comparison of the 5D to a camera phone look like science.
That's a straw man argument, because that's not what I claimed. And Ken Rockwell loves his 5D(2).
anthonygh wrote:
Is anyone on here into creating worthwhile images or is pixel peeking the name of the game?
Maybe it's because I'm a poor UK resident but some of the posts on this site border on pathetic. "I can't do this..so i will trade in my megga bucks Canon kit so I can get a better shot of a duck taking off...oh..that doesn't work so time to up-grade...maybe two bodies would help"...and so on!
Some people on here are sacrificing ( via their need to trade in and upgrade ) more money than some families in some parts of the world have to feed themselves for a year.
People need to get a perspective on life and what is important...noise levels and pixel peeping is a rich persons indulgence...and has almost nothing to do with photographic creativity or image creation!...Show more →
Stop hanging out in a "... Gear Forum"... ok? Seriously.
brainiac wrote:
That's a straw man argument, because that's not what I claimed. And Ken Rockwell loves his 5D(2).
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)
Dual-wheel interface with primarily physical controls
100% Pentaprism finder
15 RAW buffer
1/8000 max shutter speed
Magnesium body shell
In-body IS
Sensor leveling
1.8 fps faster drive (5.2fps vs 3.4)
Wireless flash control on the popup.
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.
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.
Of course Ken Rockwell likes his 5D. It's a good camera, and Ken is apparently a pragmatic, down-to-earth kind of guy. He just makes some slightly off-beat and rather unscientific tests now and then.
i had $10K of Pentax gear when i started buying Nikon because AF was so bad. noise on the *istD was OK but still, AF was what mattered at the time. i could afford and bought a D2X with a set of lenses. i still have about that now in Pentax gear with a different lens and body lineup but i have way more in Nikon gear now. the K10D was a huge disappointment in image quality except megapixels. AF was better than the *istD but not enough to matter. VPN drove me nuts. the K20D was slightly better in noise and AF but basically still not adequate. thermal noise in the sensor drove me nuts for long exposures.
i shot a friend for their fashion modeling portfolio and i used my K20D. the lenses are superb and for wide to short tele primes, way better than the Nikon offerings. most of the images were slightly front or back focused by about an inch or so. when shooting the 55/1.4 or 77/1.8 wide open to get the good bokeh, that makes or breaks the shot. if it were consistently one or the other, i could fix with a focus adjustment, but that wasn't the case. it was sometimes a little front focused, sometimes a little back. the oft-repeated statement that Pentax's AF is slower but more accurate because it checks afterwards is bogus because the other vendors have figured out how to monitor focus while the lens is in motion and don't have to check afterwards. they are checking the whole time. Pentax hadn't up until the K20D. i don't know if the K7 is any better yet.
i shoot Pentax when i am in controlled conditions where i can reshoot and use both manual exposure and manual focus. the rest of the time, i shoot my Nikons even though the lenses aren't as nice. bokeh is a secondary characteristic and important only when i get the shot first. with my K20D, i have to work extra hard to get the shot in the first place and most of the time it's not worth the effort when i can just point my D3 or D3X and know i got the shot without even looking.
Herb....
DubiousDrewski wrote:
I'm very disappointed with the noise performance of the K7. And despite the $880 (employee discounted) price tag, I might not pick one up.
I might get a D700. I have zero Nikon gear and I have ~$3000 in Pentax gear.
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.
>Dual-wheel interface with primarily physical controls
Yeah - it's not a camera without that. How could it be made to work?
>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.
>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.
1/8000 max shutter speed
Cameras didn't work before they had this.
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.
In-body IS
A great feature, but non-essential, particularly when lens IS comes bundled with much cheaper kits.
Sensor leveling
Seriously - how have we photographers survived without this? ;-)
>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.
>Wireless flash control on the popup.
This will be used by less than 0.2% of K7 buyers. How have we survived till now?
>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.
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.
kleinssz69 wrote:
Both a cloud and a watermellon contain 97% water, so I'd focus on the differences.
A cloud is mostly air. I think you have illustrated my point that when two things are primarily the same, it's easy to concentrate on the marginal differences. The price tag helps one to return to an objective view.
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 controls are faster to work with, which is one reason they're a standard differentiator between consumer and mid-range bodies.
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.
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).
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.
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).
I'll concede that point when the 50mm f1.8 IS ships.
This is the one feature that's of more use to consumers than serious shooters.
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.
...Show more →
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?
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.
...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.
Here's a West Indies Pentax Semi-Pro's thread where he's had it with the K-7 sensor problems. Weather sealing is great unless it makes the sensor run hot.
Pentax put a thermometer icon on the K-7 to warn users but still its plaguing many in different enviroments. He's rejected THREE PENTAX K-7 & Amazon won't trade him out a 4th one:
My point is getting diluted here. I'm not saying that none of these features is ever useful. I am saying that with the K7 your extra $500 gets you icing on an APS-C cake, not more cake. As such it does make sense to compare the K7's size with the popular and cheaper Nikon and Canon APS-C offerings, since it's really just one of them with icing on, and it also makes sense to consider that $500 less gets you a camera with equivalent AF and IQ at least. To some extent the $1200-$2000 bracket does mystify me a bit, and I wonder if that segment is selling well when it has to compete with A900, D700 and used 5D from above, and the excellent Canon Rebel/Nikon x000 cameras from below. Maybe there will always be enough people willing to spend money on features rather than IQ.
brainiac wrote:
Maybe there will always be enough people willing to spend money on features rather than IQ.
Yes there will be: A usable viewfinder, control layouts and tactile response, and weather resistance come to mind first, I'm sure others will have their own reasons. And if IQ was all that mattered we wouldn't be dinking around with this small-format stuff.
that makes it no different than the K20D in the sensor running hot. however, weather sealing isn't likely to have any significant effect.
Herb...
Mr.Lindy wrote:
Here's a West Indies Pentax Semi-Pro's thread where he's had it with the K-7 sensor problems. Weather sealing is great unless it makes the sensor run hot.
they aren't content with OK, they defend how the body inadequacies are either not needed or actually superior. the Pentax fanboy mantra is "it's not the camera, it's the photographer". that is a gross oversimplification. there are many images i have captured with my D3 that no other similar camera out there can reliably capture. there are many captures i wish i could make but no camera out there yet can do. in about 5 years, i think some of them will happen though.
Herb...
talexander wrote:
My biggest problem with Pentax is really the community it seems who uses them. I know that sounds really bad but when I had owned a K10D and brought the noise banding issue to forums I was warned by previous posters that I'm about to get flamed and I did. Most pentax people seem to be content with "ok."
my testing shows that the image noise level is about the same between the K7 and K20D at lowest ISO but the patterning is far less. for the kind of shooting i do with my Pentax gear, that is enough. this is from comparing PEF from the K20D with DNG from the K7 and using Lightroom. i don't care for and won't install the Pentax software.
Herb...
Jorgen Udvang wrote:
I'm surprised about what you say about noise btw. My impression was that the K7 is quieter than the K20D, but maybe that was only the shutter...
you chose just about the only example where hardware matters a lot. i bought my entire Nikon system just to get that duck shot because my Pentax system didn't enough of the time to matter. that plus basically having an unobtainable 600/4 AF lens and lousy AF performance. i spent a year trying to make it happen with Pentax and got fewer keepers as i did in a month with my D2X and 600/4.
Herb...
anthonygh wrote:
Maybe it's because I'm a poor UK resident but some of the posts on this site border on pathetic. "I can't do this..so i will trade in my megga bucks Canon kit so I can get a better shot of a duck taking off...oh..that doesn't work so time to up-grade...maybe two bodies would help"...and so on!
consistent highest quality counts. that's why i still keep a Pentax system although i do most of my shooting with Nikon. sometimes, the lenses are more important than the bodies, but getting the images in the first place counts more.
Herb...
brainiac wrote:
Unlike you I can't afford to be casual about image quality because I have responsibilities.
Absolutely captivating!