Sep 16, 2012 07:45 PM
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Last 6 months have been rather tumultuous for me. When my Film SLR broke down, I was devastated at the prospect of losing it and spent the best part of 3 months running to and fro Nikon service centre trying to save a piece of history. But this was only the tip of the iceberg. **The real hard part was that of the decision to branch out of Nikon, the system I had been using all along for the last decade or so, in favor of Pentax.*
Pentax traditionally had a great following in India during the film days. The Spotmatic was, and still remains one of the most frequently used cameras in classrooms for teaching Photography. However, come digital age, **Pentax pulled out of the country and like many other Companies (read Yamaha) made the Indian public literally starve for a taste of its class leading products**. As on date, it still doesn't retail its digital line of cameras in India and may not do so in the near future.
The **Pentax K-r is supposed to be an entry level camera but its performance will have you think otherwise**. At half the price of the Nikon D7000 (and I have been using the latter for almost a year and a half now) it rivals and methinks in some situations (low light and multiple exposures for example) even bests the picture quality of D7000, a camera widely regarded as the best cropped sensor Nikon DSLR available today.
*For 500$ the K-r offers a most compelling mix of features that even pros will find useful.** **The picture quality (color depth) as also high ISO(/low light) performance is stellar** and will only be beaten by hardly a couple of cameras, one of them being the K-5, Pentax flagship DSLR that retails at about 900$ at the time of writing. The **K-r can shoot at 6 fps** which makes it the only non-pro camera which an enthusiast will likely use for shooting action/wildlife/children. The camera has less startup delay than most of its competitors and **a minimal shutter lag (105ms)** something which even pro cameras don't offer (if you have missed the "**decisive moment**" in the words of Bresson because of shutter lag, you'll know how important this is). **If you are into shooting handheld at high ISOs, this is the best DSLR you can have for the money.*
*Pundits will tell you that a camera is only as good as the lens in front of it**. And this is where the Pentax system really outshines the rest of the DSLR pack. **Pentax glass has a cult following**. The lens coatings on SMC (Super Multi Coated) Pentaxes are supposed to be **the best in the business for controlling aberrations, flare and ghosting**. If you could ever see a bane turn into boon, this is it. Because Pentax doesn't have a presence in India, all the **old Pentax glass sells at a huge discount**. I got myself a near pristine copy of the SMCP 50mm 1.2, the legendary pinkish-red piece of glass that can turn night into day, for a paltry 2000 bucks !!
Pentax glass isnt the only draw. There's much more to the system than their glass. The company has had a history of encouraging innovative/creative features in their products, including :-
(1) **In body stabilisation** - which means you dont need to spend a fortune buying lenses which are VR/IS enabled. For focal lengths between 10-300 mm the in-body stabilization works as well as the in-lens stabilization offered by Nikon/Canon does, giving you a 3 stop advantage if the holding technique isn't too faulty.
(2) oddball focal lengths/f-stops on lenses e.g., a 21mm f/3.2 lens instead of the usual 20mm f/2.8. What this does is **drastically reduce weight and size (and often the pricing) without sacrificing f-speed too much**. Pancakes are the future and once again Pentax along with Olympus has taken the lead.
(3) Focusing on Manual lenses - **Pentax is the only company which has made all its lenses compatible with all its cameras**. Even M42 lenses can be mount using a cheap 2$ adapter. So you could use a 30 year old manual lens costing of a similar automatic lens and **get the same results at 1/8th the price if you are willing to focus manually. You'll get the benefit of in body stabilization and TTL metering just the same.*
The drawbacks - **The power department is perhaps the only significant count where the k-r falls behind its "pro competitors"** (read Nikon D7000 and Canon 7D). Typical of light weight entry level DSLRs, the K-r has a battery which is rated for ~450 shots and may actually last even less since it doesn't have a 2nd LCD screen and one is often forced to use the primary screen, resulting in a unnecessary drain on the battery. The saving grace is good quality OEM batteries are available at 5-10$ on ebay and can save the day. **The even bigger saving grace is that the camera can take on AA batteries with an adaptor (costing 3-4$) that dramatically increases the battery backup options.*
The second issue which might be important to many users is that being a entry level cam, there is **no second dial for f-stop/shutter speed adjustments and neither a second LCD on top**, as mentioned earlier. So every time you need to check the settings you might have to press the 'info' button and take a look at the screen.
Other "desirables", if I may put it that way, is the **lack of continuous autofocus for video mode** (which is of importance if you plan to use your DSLR for videos, something which most people seldom do), **a smaller viewfinder compared to the pro models and pentamirror instead of pentaprism** (making the viewfinder a bit darker than it would otherwise have been) and the hunger for evermore pixel count (12 Mpx is still a great pixel count if you ask me).
I suppose, **the biggest argument against getting a Pentax in India is the warranty, support and serviceability of its products.** However, while choosing Nikon/Canon over Pentax please bear in mind that the "warranty" offered by the two companies is of very little practical use because (a) it'll expire after a short time, say a year and (2) even during the warranty period Indian technicians neither have the skill nor the wherewithal to service small repairs, forget more serious ones. If your Canon/Nikon camera develops a snag, it'll likely be sent to Bombay and from there to Singapore or some other place to get it mended, leaving you camera-less for at least a few weeks, probably even months. **Most of the actual servicing in India is still done by semi-qualified technicians outside the companies.*
The good news is **sites like ebay and amazon now make it possible to buy Pentax products**, sometimes at higher prices (because of the import duty) and sometimes at roughly the same price (when its sent as a gift by the seller). Which means if you do your calculations and ordering properly, coupled with a modest lens, say a sigma 17-70 2.8-4.5 (costing $250), the Pentax k-r gives you one hell of a world beater camera combination at the price of ~800$. In fact if you are willing to spend a bit more **you could get the recently released K-30 for about ~800$ (body only)** which will hold its own against any cropped sensor DSLR today.
*Get a K-mount !** I assure you, you wont regret it !!
