Jman13 wrote:
It shouldn't. If it were just that the body were this size, it wouldn't be a big deal. The thing is, it uses the exact SAME lenses as Pentax DSLRs, so there is no size advantage to the mirrorless solution at all. It loses a viewfinder altogether, without providing any real advantage to doing so, and it will use an autofocus method for lenses not designed to work that way, which will mean slow autofocus.
The fact is that the camera gives you essentially none of the benefits of a mirrorless camera, so why would someone choose this over a Pentax DSLR? You can use the tiny Limited lenses on those cameras too.
The Panasonic GH2 is a big body for a mirrorless camera too, but it works because:
1) The lenses are small....the overall system is still more compact than a DSLR system with a similar size body because of the small lenses
2) Excellent EVF, which is bigger than most OVFs and provides for easy manual focus capability
3) Short registration distance, so you can adapt small rangefinder lenses and all manual SLR lenses
4) Extremely fast CDAF, since the lenses are designed to work with CDAF from the beginning.
The K-01 has exactly ZERO of the advantages of the GH2, but with the same body size drawback. It's forgivable if the size gives you something the smaller mirrorless bodies do note (built in viewfinder, better handling), but isn't when it doesn't give any advantages....Show more →
That's a good summary and I'm still scratching my head at what Pentax is hoping to achieve other than say we've got a mirroless camera too now. Canon will now be last to market, but god forbid they make this sort of mistake.
Bifurcator wrote:
sebboh,
I think you're still talking about us here. Us freaks. Lately moms, pops, and HS kids (cheerleaders or whatever) have noticed that compacts are now showing up with interchangeable lenses. So that's a pre-known advantage and a new type. That this pentax is the strongest in that advantage category for that type I guessing will mean something. And size in this regard is only a mental concept to most people. It most likely does not carry across to individual models but the type concept is there: DSLR, Compact MILC, Old style Compact. There are only 3 sizes to most buyers. ...
Very few "moms, pops and HS kids" are ever even going to think about Pentax - Pentax is the last brand that most "novice" photographers would choose. The Canon, Nikon and Sony marketing machines are all over that market for sure. Pentax would have been much better off making a FF mirrorless with a universal mount for us camera nerds.....that's a bigger market than many realize.
Nikon's made a 58/1.2, a 58/1.4 and two 60mm's in F mount, Konica made a 57mm in AR and a 60mm in M, Minolta's made 2 different fast 58's including the legendary 58/1.2, Topcon made a 58/1.4 which later was cloned by Cosina as the Voigtlander Nokton 58/1.4 SL/SLII, Zeiss and Leica both made 60mm macros which are popular for general use and Tamron makes a 60/2 Macro. And Canon made a 58mm f1.2 in FL mount.
Frankly, Pentax and Olympus are pretty much the only ones who didn't make a 58-60mm lens at some point. And the Konica 60mm is only unusual in being an RF lens, where focal lengths for normals are usually 50mm to match the framelines.
This is exactly what it seems like. It's as if Pentax said,"Well, ILC is taking off, so let's remove the mirror and OVF and give people what they want." It's really odd.
The way to look at this product is to think of it as an extension of compact DSLRs from Pentax. It is a body which is smaller than any Pentax DSLR and can use the existing set of pentax lenses which contain many compact offerings + more. So it is not there to challenge mirror-less systems like NEX etc. It is there to provide one more body option to existing k-mount DSLR users. Nothing wrong with that concept. If I was a k-mount user, I would likely buy this as a second body and use it with my limited primes for the times when I wanted a smaller setup.
However the main issue is how well will the CDAF perform with the lenses designed for PDAF. If Pentax has somehow managed to get good AF performance with existing lenses then I think it is a winner. Otherwise it is going to be rather pointless.
This camera might be rubbish,I don't know.That is the point, no one does,so how about easing up a bit till we find out.Also from what I've read the Japanese market is a different place so who knows how it will go down there.
Jonathan Martin, Pentax UK's general manager:
-The K-01 is aimed at, first and foremost, the fashion and design market, which we see as a new market for us.
-What are these mirrorless features that you don't find in a DSLR?
- ... design, really. Design.
Move along gentlemen, nothing to see here, just Pentax making a buck from the postmodern crowd.
BJP: "Why were you interested in the fashion and design audience?"
Jonathan Martin: "That's important because it's traditionally a younger audience - an audience that Pentax, traditionally, hasn't approached and hasn't managed to get hold of. So with our collaboration with Mark Newson [an Australian designer], we hope to use this exposure to actively target that audience for, probably, the first time"
http://camerasize.com/compare/#285,258
Still looks smaller than the new Fuji. Not sure about depth as there's no top view of XPro 1 available on that site.
Snopchenko wrote: http://camerasize.com/compare/#285,258
Still looks smaller than the new Fuji. Not sure about depth as there's no top view of XPro 1 available on that site.
select top view for the pentax and side view for the fuji, it should give you an idea.
k01 is 16.5mm thicker because of the (empty) mirrorbox, and also 110g heavier.
I see people in this thread talking about a 60mm lens. This lens is a 27mm (40mm effective.) Granted, it's early in the morning here...maybe I'm misunderstanding what the posts were saying on the last couple pages.
