moving up and settling down

I owned a K-50 last year, but only briefly.  I was shifting from the K-5 setup to a newer but less complex body style, and I missed the K-5 features that I could control on the body (e.g. metering mode).  While the Info screen makes it a pretty easy change I couldn't get comfortable.. and soon I moved on.


This time around I'm coming off a few months of K-r and K-s1 experience before picking up a red-hot K-50.  The K-s1 is definitely a step ahead for many features, but the ergonomics are no improvement.  Its selling point is compactness - and less buttons is generally good when you have fewer places to put them!

The K-r was a classic K-5 feature set in a body with fewer external controls - and really so is the K-50.  So this time I'm moving forward in the same 'enthusiast' category instead of down from a higher grade of body.  Therefore it's no surprise it feels like I'm taking a step forward in pretty much every way.  I have my weather seals back, and an AFs / AFc setting on the body - a feature I really liked even though the latest Pentax bodies have removed it!

It's funny how the same camera can feel so very different depending on where you've been in the recent past! And oh my is it red.  Curiously that depends very much on the image one sees, and the settings used on the camera that shot it.  White balance, exposure, Custom Image setting all do their part, so online images show everything from an orange-red to a deep crimson.  If it looks like the image above, I'll be quite pleased.. but please don't be orange-red!

seeking a missing mind (+ tech rants)

As I began to pack up the now-sold K-s1 camera this weekend, I felt it was going to be an easy process.  When the camera arrived I deliberately removed the camera and battery, and nothing else.  I had a charger and a spare battery from the K-r already available, and I hadn't read a Pentax manual in years.  How convenient to keep everything in its place where it would be easy to find, or re-pack!

.. and then, apparently, I blacked out.

So I pulled down the as-new K-S1 box, opened it and - it's pretty much empty.  No charger, no manual, not even the strap.  Why would this be?!?  Looking back on it I strongly suspect that the manual was packed with other tech gear for the Oregon Star Party.  So I toured the big garage, the travel trailer, and every known box with astronomy or photo gear I could find.  I even went to the other garage to look in the computer section, just in case.  Nothing, neither clue nor trail.  Inside the house I opened every camera bag, every sports bag, every suitcase - again, no sign at all.  The fact that we didn't make the star-party trip (for the sixth straight year) did not help, as everything sat in boxes for a while before being emptied; I don't even recall what I had packed my camera gear into (box, bag or camera pack) so the trail was old, and cold.  Even if the original Pentax charger was packed to come along (unlikely) and the manual added for light daytime reading: why is the strap missing?  Also curious is the missing Pentax original battery; all I have now is two generic ones.  I'm frustrated beyond words, and even gestures aren't helping.

And I shall barely mention the Android tablet, now missing for two weeks (cheap replacement coming), the 3-month-old Windows tabputer that suddenly cannot do WiFi, or the fact that Android phones that had such strong signals in the house now cannot reliably make a call from anywhere on our property!
Tech sucks.

So out the door goes my spare batteries, my best charger - and out the window go a few more brain cells which I won't even miss.  The K-s2 just got a bit more expensive since much of that will need replacing at some point.  Drat.

mind flash!  I suspect the K-s1 charger went out with the K-r that I sold last month!
this would not explain the strap or owners guide though..


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10/12 update
While my mind went blank on camera gear, other tech items have also been quite decisively frustrating in the recent two weeks.

Tablet #1: I've been using an ASUS 7HD for a year or two with fine success.  Until recently of course, when it began to reboot or lock up quite frequently.  That's too bad as for the most part I really like the little thing for the basics: web, e-reading, quick updates to small spreadsheets and e-mail.  Given all its hiccups I wiped and restored it, then set about re-adding most of the apps.  For a week or two it was happy, then for two weeks or so it was rebooting again.  And now, for the past 10 days it is AWOL.  I know it was going out to the car to provide data for something, but it's not in the car, or the house, or anywhere I can think of.  Sure it's vanished for a day or two before but this is frustrating..

Tablet #2: While the 7" screen of tablet #1 has been nice, there were times it wasn't quite nice enough.  I bought an early model ASUS TransformerBook on clearance in town and I wanted to see how it would do as replacement for both tablet and laptop .  It came with Windows 8.1 which I bumped up to Win 10, and added Office 2010 to it - and the thing performs just fine. 
Well, it did for a while.
First off it's too big as a tablet.  The back is too smooth to hold easily, and covers for the T100 model are almost impossible to find.  Once snapped on to its keyboard it's a viable option, but definitely not a clean exchange for the 7HD.
And now it's dead too.  Not literally, just the WiFi part - so indeed pretty much literally.  It wavered a time or two but rebooting would bring the connection back up.. but those days passed about the same time the 7HD disappeared.  
Clearly a tech dark cloud has descended on our household (more on that later).

Cell phones #1-4: We are now both running iPhone 4s bodies.  My wife really likes the concept but has not done much executing, so that's a clear victory.  For myself though I prefer the Android ways of doing things.  Yes I'm up to iOS 9.0.x on my copy and it does fine, but some features just bug me since I know how easy they are on the 'droids.  So over the past two weeks I've been popping between my 4s, the 4.5" Android I had bought (and liked) for myself, and even the 5" galaxy-clone that I'd picked up for my wife before we had the iTalk.
That should have resulted in two happy people, not in lock-step with our phones but each doing what they like a phone to do best.  Only mine doesn't actually make calls any more.  That's odd since our Androids had a very good signal a year ago when we moved here, and before the iInvasion I could make a call from any room but one or two.  Now they are all flaky, even the porch outside gives me no clear signal.  Yes, that tech cloud again - somehow wreaking havoc with cell signals and WiFi tablet signals.  Bizarre.

And so here's our status:

• Two iPhone 4s are in action: for now I surrender on this front!

• I'll be calling ASUS about the Transformer soon, to see what can be done there.  In the end though,

  

  from tabletmonkeys site - cool name!

  neither is quite the answer I had quite hoped for.  Like Goldilocks I have ordered the 'just right' middle option: a new/other Lenovo 8" Android tablet.  My mind apparently is more compatible with Android than Win 10 or iOS 9, and the extra bit of real estate will help with reading, the size of my virtual keyboard and general visiblilty - while still keeping battery life pretty high.  I still like ASUS products but one reboots and one broke down, so trying another company isn't a bad idea.  Furthermore ASUS now has their ZEN UI that is obviously amazing - another layer of stuff atop Android may not be me-compatible though so I shall just say no.  I had considered (even ordered) a lower-spec bargain but these are old enough to be a low price with decent screen and chipset, so it will arrive in a few days to try out.

As always, WSS about how this turns out.  Hopefully I'll like my porridge, bed and 8-inch tablet!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10/14 update

Yet another bizarre turn or two in my tech world! 

• On Tuesday while dropping by my mailbox I encountered no mail - but my 7" tablet was resting atop the box in a large ziploc bag.  I know of no one in my neighborhood that knew this to be mine - but somehow it has returned.  However, it refuses to power up and removing the gel cover revealed plenty of water.  Something tells me it sat outside during our recent ¼-inch rainstorm.  It's been missing for over a week, so a heavy dew-fall or two would have done similar damage.  So the tablet is visible, but dead: long live the next tablet!  

•  Closely related topic: USPS site says the 8" tablet arrives Thursday, but eBay says Monday - so I expect it will arrive neither day, and probably Saturday.*  Why have online ship estimates been getting worse recently?  It's been a while since a package reached me 'on time', but the disagreement is four USPS work days!  Yet another reason to wonder why I spend so much time at the computer pretending that I will learn something useful.

• And now the iPhone is being stubborn about making calls in our home, just like the recent Androids!  the 4s is also more annoying when a call fails, beeping thrice loudly in my headset. It seems pretty clear that a cell tower has moved, or several trees have grown just enough to be troublesome.  And so I return to the 4.5" Android with all its little eccentricities that I prefer over Apple's little eccentricities..

* Wonder of wonders - the USPS site was correct, and the 8" tablet is Out For Delivery.  Impressive 1-day flight from Florida to Portland, guess they weren't served drinks!

And then, this -

Clearly this ongoing chat about tech could happen to anyone, and a daily update on tech woes isn't my plan for this place.  I am therfore crushing the last three posts into one to avoid cluttering the blog with such talk.

Cameras are up next - honest!

the wheels turn

I accepted a decent offer for the K-s1 yesterday.  This bonus cash will tide us over until the home loan is in place, and it frees me up to pursue a WR camera body when the $ time is right (late November, perhaps?).  I still expect the next camera to be a K-s2 with all its fine features, but K-3 prices are falling fast so we shall see.  An 18-55WR is coming soon so I can just go body only and still be ready for wet times without forcing myself to grab a 20-40 or a 16-85 ASAP.

Now to find the K-s1 owners manual.
 This is the second or third time that I've lost a manual while selling a camera - why does this keep happening?!?

http://camerasize.com/compare/#610,619

The debate continues on the two camera bodies.  The K-s2 is smaller with flip screen (I'd prefer tip over flip though), Wifi (not of great interest) and 20Mpx sensor like the K-s1 (nice!).  The K-3 has longer shutter life, more AF sensors, switches for items like metering area, and a few more pixels.  Since I've seldom passed 3000 on a shutter in my digital career that's probably not vital, but those switches are nice.  The INFO button brings up all items on both cameras anyway so what's the switch worth?  Most other items are a wash with common abilities (interval still/movie with composite settings, two dials, Flucard in hand for Wifi on the K-3).  The 'clarity' option on the K-s2 sounds interesting, but it wouldn't be a strong swing vote.

So all in all the K-s2 fits me best.  

If the K-3 price crashes though, the equations change!

and then I remembered!

oh if you just got here you missed the good part...

I'll start over:
Several months ago, after picking up two K-r bodies, I remembered just what using a penta-mirror viewfinder was like. (Hint: not good.) I sought options that would enable me to see well enough to focus manually, as at the time I owned several manual primes.  This was also the time when KatzEye bright focusing screens disappeared as the company dealt with financial issues, so the best-known option was unavailable.

So off I went to the search engines, seeking bargain alternatives.  I found a mystery auction dealer that sold one-fits-all Pentax screens for under $20 and ordered a split screen fresnel collared screen.  It took a while to get here but i jumped in when it reached me.

only to find it didn't fit!
The screen was labeled for K-7 only but I was pretty sure it was not so exclusive.  The K-r swap was new to me though, and clearly it wasn't working - so I sought to return the screen for a refund.

only I never sent it back!
So here's where you came in: today I remembered it had not left my shelf.  I still have several manual focus lenses.. but now a K-s1 body makes use of them.  Could it be possible that the old cheap screen would fit the new camera?

yes it can.
So now the K-s1 has focus peaking And a more precise focus screen.  Test images show that it aligns just fine.
Overkill perhaps, but the screen is here anyway.. so why not?

as always, just one little kit problem

While taking photos of my staircase project I could see the SMC 24mm contrast was poor.  It turned out to be a small corner of the image was showing a piece of the cloudy-bright sky, and that was enough to produce veiling flare across the image.  I re-shot with my arm covering the bright area, only to find I had too much image shake for the SR to overcome.  I learned later that I had SR set for a 180mm lens, so it was working for a telephoto lens not a wide angle.  Oopz.

All of this points to the down side of classic glass.  SR does not set itself for them, the 40-year-old SMC coating isn't the best option for modern digital sensors, and relative to other options it's easy to make silly mistakes!

On the one hand a DA21 would cure the problem nicely - but it does leave a larger gap between 21 and 50mm (return of the DA35/2.4?).  On the other hand the Sigma 18-50 covers the range with modern optics and coatings and is silent to focus unlike the DA21 (and DFA 50 for that matter).  A bit more bulk for sure, but at 21mm it just straddles the f/2.8-3.2 maximim so the DA21 is no faster.  And the zoom is already in hand - so no further expense.  The age-old conundrum of carrying a few great primes vs. a convenient zoom reappears, especially when one of the few primes is not quite "great"!  Must check the 100/2.8 for veiling flare in similar circumstances now . .

DA15, K24, DFA50, M100, DAL55-300 on K-s1; Sigma 18-50 above.

While updating the group photo I noticed another new thing: not only does the K-s1 not come in the Pentax 'stormtrooper/panda' White and Black trim (it has grey trim), its white is not in fact white!  I know this because I put my broken white DAL 18-55 next to the camera and it's clearly not a good match - the lens is more intensely white than the body.  That saves me some effort, as I have a black DAL with a good mount which I could use to repair the white lens' cracked mount.  Now that I know the colors would look really wrong it saves me the effort.  To spare the fashion-conscious I left the hideous, clashing lens out of the photo.

the Home Team

Here is the shooting team as it stand today.. at 4:30PM.. Pacific Time!*

The starting five: DA 15/4 Limited, SMC 24/2.8, DFA 50/2.8 macro, M100/2.8 and DAL 55-300

Support crew: Vivitar 35-105, DAL18-55, Hanimar 400/6.3, JCPenney 80-200/3.5 (and 2x TC)

Not shown here: the K-r and SMC-A 50/2 that took the photo!

* Still valid as of early August - that might be a record :·p 
One more may be coming though -- stay tuned?

QuickChanges

• Just like that: I decided, posted and sold the DA40 in about an hour 
• Also one copy of the 18-55wr is leaving soon* 
• and The K-s1 white body arrived while I was packing up the lenses!  

I'll be back in learning mode for a while with the new K-s1 - maybe I'll even read the manual!  It's a small and solid camera, with control dial and 4-way pad crowding each other but everything else looks good (buttons are not where I expect - yet).  After ten minutes the settings are where I like them, but no doubt a few new ones await my discovery.  A firmware update is already out so that's up next.

It's handy that my K-r battery fits, no waiting just plug & play!  Another nice update: the nearly-ubiquitous micro USB port instead of having a micro-D cable for cameras only.  Well done!  USB3 would have been nice but this will do fine.

• Just like that II: 18-55 is sold, and
• I picked up a 'used' FluCard for the K-s1!

The FluCard is Pentax' wireless-transfer mechanism for a few recent cameras, now endangered thanks to the K-s2 and its interal WiFi.  This card also allows for remove viewing/shooting via smartphone.  I barely touched that option on the NX300 but it could be fun for kittens and other critters.  And oh yeah, the FluCard is also a 'normal' 16GB memory card so it's not all wireless fun!

* Why sell the 18-55WR?  I already own a white 18-55 DAL that would almost match the K-s1 - but it has a broken mount.  I found a spare online for $19, not an awful price  but a black DAL lens cost $20! Easy choice = another kit zoom in the closet, a WR kit lens became available to sell and the price was right.

Goodbye Hello

A few 'last' changes to the gear just came about.  Reasons are complicated but sound, not merely an excuse to acquire .. not this time!

I broke down and bought a white K-s1 body after refusing the siren call a few times as the price drifted lower.  This is not the body or the color I would choose if all options were open, but financially this was an easy call.  It was the last one in stock so acquired an extra 20% discount which dropped the price below $280.  Memories of the white K-01 come to mind: it fell to about $235 when I picked it up a few years back. Today a similar price nabs a nice AA-free 20Mpx camera with full viewfinder in a baby body.  Sure it has a few compromises, but if the K-r is acceptable the K-s1 definitely will serve me well!

This camera brings me to the end of my Samsung days.  That's a shame as the NX300 is a great little camera and the 16+30 pancake primes are most excellent.  I now have the Pentax 15+40 Limited lenses though, so optically I lose very little and logistically I have just one mount to consider going forward.  The nx300 sold in about three hours, so the price must have been on the slightly low side of just right.. or the ideal person read my note at just the right time!

Never the same-  DA40 and 15, M135*, K24 A50* and M100 with zooms behind.  Shot with *NX300 (* =departing soon).

The M135 departs with the Samsung along with NX adapters.  That leaves 15-24-/40-55/-100 plus 55-300 zoom, along with a spare 18-55 & a few old zooms to play with.  The M100 f/2.8 just arrived from KEH (mounted on the K-r) and yet again their Ugly rating is vastly underrated; it's in great condition with only a few meaningless cleaning-marks on the front element.

The new small kit also earns a new small camera bag*, a sling type that can hold a small dSLR 4 primes and a zoom.  My days of needing a pack that can hold camera and bike gear plus laptop and spare work clothes are long gone, after all.

image from pentaxforums.com

Never last and surely not least: Adorama offered up a VG-grade DFA 50/2.8 1:1 macro,  a well-regarded macro lens that I have not tried.  If this works well the DA40 can go for more than the 50's cost, adding a smidge more money to the bank for future use.  Hope it's a keeper, as it has AF + quick shift; that will result in precise and fairly speedy focus yet still allow for precise touch-up.  The Tamron push-pull MF design really didn't fit my mind - so I'm thinking this will feel a lot better!
In any case the smc-A 50mm f/2 can depart; the DA40 or FA50 will do the job.

 - -  - -  - -  - -  - -  - -  - -  - -  - -  - -
* so much for camera bags from China.  I ordered the pack above in Gold only to hear back that the seller only had black, was that OK?  Hmm, the company has two separate listings for gold models but only have black - oh and a few red (but no listings show the red version).  No thanks - refunded.  I then found this blue one, identical to the other store and also in China.  Yay?  No they have no blue - just black, and a few red.  This group Also has no red one showing online, so I got another refund.  This time I saved $20 and just bought an insert that will pad the bottom parts of my hydration pack.
You guessed it: I bought it in red!  That will match my red/black pack but at least I know what this red pack looks like!!

K-s1: what do we know 'for sure'?

On the Ricoh Japan site, we know this -
2014年9月11日までにご注文いただくと、発売日（2014年9月26日）

Other sites say shipping in September, so the 9/26 date seems more likely than the 11th - especially since it's the 12th now and I have no confirmation e-mail :^(  Originally the blue/white/black were supposed to ship two weeks earlier than the other colors, so these might be correct ship dates - for Japan!

 edit.. the translated page says 'Come out in 2014.09.26'

Given that it's hard to reshape a camera body, we presume that the sensor, SR, button availability & layout, and other hardware bits are well-known quantities.  Oddly we haven't heard the shutter fire in any videos, so some of the inner hardware is still a mystery; will it be fairly K-5 silent, or more K-50 'clacky'? 
Edit - Adam at pentaxforums says it's very much a K-50 clack, not a K-5 swoosh.

So what's on 'paper' from Ricoh?

• A new 20.12Mpx sensor (let's call it twenty) for a pinch more resolution and cropping relative to the sweet-16 sensor of past models, a pinch less than the K-3, and reviews (of Sony cams) that show it to be a good performer.  It's noteworthy, a slight positive in my Book (and I'm glad it isn't 24M) so some joy but overall to me: no big deal.
• Size: for the specs this is a small and light camera, like a melded K-x mark II and a K-01 mark II with a few good K-3 parts within.  For me small is good, and my search for a small camera with indifferent small sensor ends now!  That IS a big deal to me, and I'm happy to see it.
• Weather Resistance: nope.  The price I seem to pay for smaller size is battery and WR.  I have a K-5 for wet shots though, so as a primary camera this one is just fine.  The control ring on the back means less entry points for mist on top anyway - and like most intergalactic hitch-hikers I know where my towel is!
• Li-109 battery, weaker and smaller than recent flagship cams - oh yeah this Isn't a flagship!  I can carry a spare, and I did anyway with the K-5 - so another note without complaint.  We film veterans used to go about 38 shots max before having to open up the camera, so making a battery change around 400 shots isn't really that bad :^)
• ISO 100-51200.  Several early reviewers say 102400, implying iso expansion or perhaps early firmware - but again, 'subject to change' applies, and as I type Ricoh says 51200 max.
• AF features are similar to the K-3 with AF expansion and hold functions - BUT Safox IX+ means fewer actual points, and no word on f/2.8 sensors.  Focuses to EV-1 not -3 so low-light skill is not up to K-5ii or K-3 models.  AF-A shows on the rear screen shots, so that's either a menu thing or another firmware question-mark; the switch on the side only does MF/AF and the K-3 choose-which-AF button is not present.
• One control dial.  Yes, a tragic loss - oh yeah some of my best images were taken with the K-01, K200d and Sony A200, all 1-dial cameras.  Worse yet the 2-dialers often find me spinning the wrong one (yes that's on me, I should change the way they operate.  I continue to seek My Answer on the K-5!).  So again, noted but not mourned.
• Settings dial is on the back!  And it lights up!! OK, what's wrong with me, I should be upset and all fired up - but this is fine by me, as I've heard that the lights can be turned off (but do we know that 'for sure'?). I hope I can keep the shutter LED light on though!
• Video is on the power switch and the LED lights red in video mode, green for stills.  This will be valuable to users I know (there's one in my mirror) who take very short videos unintentionally!
• PRIME M-II sensor processing.  This is a mystery that only time can resolve.  The PRIME M came with the K-01/30 intros, but the only visible change is that the video is now accessed by the power dial.  Ah, the 640x480 setting is gone too, maybe that's part of it?  Some day we will know what this means - or maybe not!  The M-II does give us compressed video with good specs, focus peaking (yay!), interval movies (not compressed!) and some other things I probably didn't notice when I owned my K-01.  Video isn't a big deal to me... yet I keep thinking it will become interesting again; in the late '90s I backpacked for a week with a DV camcorder AND an SLR, so video has been big before!  Edit: Since the pipeline went two directions with PRIME M and PRIME II, maybe all future cams will use the M II as the latest and best reunification of the component - that makes enough sense that it could be true!  We also wonder if video bit-rate quality is adjustable now; time will tell.
• The flash is a bit weaker, guide number of 10m not 12.  I often throttle back on flash to keep things more natural so that's noted but not significant to me.
• Full viewfinder, nice screen, and the usual DSLR features like a hot shoe.  Check!
• Green button, Sv, TAv, -10°C operating minimum, and other Pentax special touches.  Hooray!
• Strap lugs holding the strap to the camera, Not jingle-clips like the K-5 models have.  Thank you, thank you!
• Misc. and sundry updates include UH1 and FluCard capability, rotation-axis SR (which allows for AstroTracer with O-GPS1), multi-auto WB from Ricoh and K-3 products, and ?14-bit RAW files.   The ? is because specs show 14 and 12 bits, so that's another unsettled parameter like ISO max.

I think that will do (I don't find fonts worthy of a bullet, so there).  I added a few things that aren't clear yet: ISO range, shutter sound, and in fact everything about the firmware other than a font change.  

I downloaded the spec sheet and highlighted changes from the K-5, and many purple items are in there.  Many other features are on the K-50 but some are not, suggesting the answer to many people's question
"why buy this when the K-50 is cheaper, has two control wheels and WR??".

Or just go with the easy answer - We are not all the same.

---

Edit: the Ricoh page has been updated as of the 19th and more has become clear.  Only 12-bit raw is referenced now, and additions made to include AF adjustments similar to recent Pentaces.  I see playback editing includes moiré reduction, that's new to me but was probably on the K-3.  Also seen now are 'slant correction' along with different aspect-ratio crops, and all the lens corrections and custom images are here.  It's still unclear if saving custom settings is possible now; no C1/C2 setting on dial or USER option seen anywhere.  Like the K-3 it comes with the new Pentax DCU5.x software, still based on SilkyPix but a later version.
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Update.. Photkina 2014 is over, and hands-on reports are better than visual 1st impressions.  Firmware 0.3 was on test cameras and iso102400 was 'available' though no keepers were allowed.  For a camera due out in a week the firmware seems quite unsettled!
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Final edit / K-s1 update, 27.Sep
Given the ever-changing specifications online, and a bill that I did not expect, I have canceled my order.  While examining cheaper options I encountered a barely-used K50 in white for half the price of the K-s1.  Since I have the WR kit lens, and since the K50 has all the items that appear to be removed or unmentioned for K-s1 specs, this cannot be passed up.  Now the K-5 can go into the shop without worry and I have focus peaking and compressed video like my old K-01 but with a real viewfinder.  I hope the K-s1 does well without me, as I shall do without it - and the expense of it.  When Pentax can access Sony's sensor with phase-detect AF points I'll probably go shopping again.

happy ending for 55-300

though a bit sad for the white 18-55mm lens.

The DAL 55-300 arrived, and sure enough only the mount itself was broken in a couple of places - no contact-pin or aperture-lever issues at all.  I compared screw-points to other spare lenses, but Sigmas use fewer screws so the spacing was off - so that left the DAL 18-55 mount.  That's too bad as the white DAL was a fine match to the upcoming K-s1, but I have a WR version on my K-5 that makes it expendable.  I suppose it would be practical to swap my DA WR for a white DAL WR, if any K50 users are up for it; that would be pretty on the K-s1 yet functional on my K-5.  Takers, anyone?

After about a half hour of slow-motion detail work, I now have a fine copy (again) of the DAL 55-300 lens!  How nice.

p.s. I modified my K-s1 preorder to be a black body - far less effort than working in a white lens!

it's tomorrow and now.. the K-s1

Yesterday's post ended with the innocent comment about seeing 'what tomorrow will bring' Now we know... oh, boy.

in a surprise move, Pentax announced the existence of a weeklong-rumored camera, the k-s1.  Real specs appeared, and they impressed me especially since it was supposed to be an "entry level" cam.  My spouse looked over my shoulder and said it looked cool.  And so I caved.
Yup, for the first time ever I pre-ordered a camera. 

So first off, what's not really different from my current K-5?

Ricoh-imaging.co.jp's /09/19 ship 

date may mean little in the USA

Equivalent features make up the bulk of things, like TAv and Sv settings, pentaprism viewfinder, Pentax shake reduction, interval shooting and starry sky shots using the O-GPS1 attachment.  The SAFOX IX+ AF module is in essence identical.  And let's not forget top speed of 1/8000 second shutter vs.  -- well, 1/6000s.  No stopwatch needed here!

What will I miss from the K-5 series?  

• Weather seals are the big change - OK so no standing outside in heavy rain: check! * 
• better battery life
• the security of a proven camera
• second control dial is lost - bummer yet not a huge loss to my way of doing things.  
• near-silent shutter will likely go away, and that's a shame.  
• burst shooting will be slower... gee have I ever used it?  And four more Mpxls will do that.

And what do I gain?  Let us see:

• smaller and lighter body, enough that a second small cam could become unnecessary
• a gentle bump to 20 Mpixels, using a Sony sensor with a short but very good track record
• interval-movie function (lost when the K-01 was sent off) and 1080p video for our new TV
• an updated interface that is controversial online - but I will take the chance 
• exciting new fonts and timer/face-detect lights (ok not exciting :) and especially
• new tech from the K-3, like 
1. AA simulation and no physical low-pass filter, 
2. somewhat better video specs (maybe I'll use it now), 
3. focus peaking
4. AF-hold and expansion for better focus tracking
5. multi-auto white balance
6. an HDMI port

For me that's a decent net gain, for my manual primes and how I shoot.  It also gives me better AF-c shooting if I start going for pretty birds, which is in my plans at the new home.  I really enjoyed my k-x a few years ago; this is slightly smaller and massively more sophisticated.  For me, small is good.

So let's do this upgrade!!

- oh yeah, I already did. It's the one on the left. ^D

ricoh-imaging.co.jp

* and I'm keeping the K-5 so weather seals will be available when needed!