Goodbye to Sony (but not to Dyxum)

Pirate wrote: Will you be buying a MA to PK lens adapter . . . just a thought!

Brilliant!

good luck. I feel your pain about sony's direction. I have been looking at the original 1ds, can be had for less than $900, I would not get as much glass as I have with sony, but I have several bodies to progress to. I can't do anything right now, but if sony does not offer something inline with the a700 850/900 body for the future, that may be the route I go.

It would be interesting to hear how you find the Pentax glass. Sony is helping Pentax with their moves of late.

The Kx uses a Sony sensor, right? But I didn't know there was any involvement in lens projects. (or maybe I just completely misunderstood your post, it's been a long day)

It's kind of ironic that after all the bleating over lack of LV and video (and I'm not suggesting that you took part in it - just a general observation, particularly of threads over on other fora), now people are unhappy with a camera that provides it :) Maybe different crowds; maybe too many changes.

I never asked for LV or video, I don't think I'd have much use for them, but I am very anxious to see how good will Sony's implementation of video be (I consider they did a good job with LV, even if it meant sacrificing the camera viewfinders, somewhat). But you're right, it can be funny (and sad at the same time) to see the 'damned if they do, damned if they don't' attitude at work.

Will you be buying a MA to PK lens adapter . . . just a thought!

I don't think so, mostly because such adapters (if they exist) would include optical elements that degrade IQ. Second, I don't think I'd find MF comfortable with a Minolta AF lens. Plus, I had to sell all the glass I had in order to fund the Pentax buys (I'm only spending whatever I get from the sales here, nothing extra).
On the other hand, I'm looking into the possibility of a conversion to PK for the Rokkor 58/1.2

The first question I had was "Why Pentax ?", since I initially thought the move was to a different format like m-4/3 or something, that offers some solid benefits (over the Alpha APS-C dSLRs) in terms of size/portability along with great image quality, while having a roughly comparable sensor size (APS-C vs m-4/3).

m4/3 was never really appealing to me because of a) reduced sensor size (while I'm happy enough with APS-C to not crave a FF sensor, I don't want to go any lower than that with sensor size) and b) the lack of a good optical viewfinder. Call me old-fashioned (or snob, or whatever), but as long as I can get an OVF, I'll choose it over EVF any day, no matter how good the latter is.

However, to be quite honest, I personally am not too impressed with their digital direction, but as long as their current offerings meet your requirements, that is all that matters.

I respect your opinion, but I feel that the K7 is right up there with the A700, and even surpassing it in some areas. However, this is not a camera comparison thread, so I'd rather not go into details here (I may post a 'highly objective' comparison of the two bodies after spending a few days with the K7, if anyone is interested - hopefully I'll receive it tomorrow).

I tried to control him for as long as I could!

And you did a fine job at that Rich, for the last six months or so




Mladen, thank you for the kind words, it means a lot to me.

Pentax communities are a nice ones as well AFAIK (that is a better part of being "less popular") and i'm sure you will add part of yourself to one of those nicely.

I haven't spent too much time on other forums, just to check out user reports when deciding what lenses I should get now. However, I can say two things: on DPR, the Pentax forum atmosphere is much more nicer than the Sony one (strictly personal opinion). But then again, after two weeks of browsing around Pentaxforums.com... even if they are rather friendly and helpful to eachother, they don't even come close to our Dyxum community. Maybe it's because they have twice the number of registered users, and that 'gives' them twice the number of 'bad apples' or something. All I know is that they are lacking a certain feeling... dunno how to put it into words. The best thing that comes to mind now (to describe the way I feel about Dyxum and I know I won't feel about them) would be the Cheers theme song (silly but... you'll all understand what I mean, hopefully).



A lot of people have answered here (I honestly didn't expect that), and I must apologize to all those I didn't quote or directly replied to. But I swear I read every single post, and they are all very much appreciated

Thank you mate!


Now that I think about it, I should be proud of how well-regarded Pentax is amongst Dyxumers. Not because I'm switching to them, but because it denotes open-mindedness from fellow photographers.
When I decided to switch, I mentioned it in the office at work. It was sad to hear comments like 'Pentax? I think I've heard of them, a company that made some film cameras a hundred years ago, right? Didn't know they even made DSLRs!'


(I had heard similar comments when I brought Minolta glass to the office, but at least Minolta was actually out of the camera-business at the time, and it was fun to see the confused looks when I explained I'm using 20 year-old Minolta lenses on new Sony cameras)

We miss you, we hope to hear you in future.CIAO

You could still proudly carry a nice nostalgic reminder in the same way I did when I got a Pentax DSLR



(ok it's half nostalgia and half utilitarian, as the Maxxum strap is way better than the Pentax strap)

Edited by Gabriel - 11 March 2010 at 00:15

The cat thread won't be the same, just for a start... It's sad when people leave after such a long time and I'm sure most of us remember at least a few of your 2500+ posts along the way, and that you always seemed to be a positive part of the Dyxum community. So, I won't be surprised if the thread gets a little longer yet. I hope the change inspires and enthuses you.

Glad you are going to be an Emeritus. Although all knowledge is good knowledge to me, I'm not sure about the wisdom of a "highly objective" A700-K7 comparison as your first "Emeritus' post, though.

Edited by maewpa - 11 March 2010 at 04:28