Pentax Cameras are Bargains

[Briar Lee]

For all you who say a smartphone is good enough to use as a real camera you are right! It’s even a better replacement as a video camera than a real video camera!

But for those of us who talk about the exposure triangle, ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, not because it’s easy, but because it is fun as all get out, lookie what I just bought for $150 delivered.





My main interchangeable lens camera is an Olympus OMD E-M1.2 with a bunch of native MFT lenses.

But this Pentax K-5 is another step up above and beyond my Pentax Kx DSLR I paid $100 for three years ago.

The image quality of the K-5 was the very best APC sensor camera of its day, and still competitive with new consumer APC DSLRs. It had really good 11 point cross type autofocus and shot 7 frames per second.

The K-5 was the flagship top of the line magnesium bodied weather sealed camera from Pentax in 2010, and the newest successor Pentax K-3 Mark 3 is only incrementally and not revolutionarily better, and takes the same battery. The K-5 and that 18-55 kit lens are both weather sealed. Why risk good gear in bad weather?

The K-5 uses any Pentax K or KA mount lens made since 1976 and with all functions. That 50mm SMC Auto lens will automatically adjust aperture. All the cheap Pentax glass in the pawn shops and flea markets mount right up.

Look what $30 buys, with a warranty from Robert’s Camera. This is an effective autofocus Made in Japan 35-300 equivalent native travel lens for less than a drive through meal for two.



My Kx had internal stabilization and the K-5 has much better IBIS. You can buy cheap adapters for old film lenses and they are stabilized, like my Olympus. That $30 travel lens will be stabilized, by the camera body.

A K-5 is dirt cheap, the entire kit with lens much less than any new kit lens for a modern mirrorless camera. Plus a K-5 had really good Full HD video, plus workable live view.

I remain a MFT fan, especially of Olympus, now OM Systems.

But if you want a traditional old school DSLR just because you want one, a used Pentax K-5 is hands down the best bargain on the market.

 

[Sig]

We used Pentax back in high school photography class. They were dependable and sturdy enough for use by ignorant 15 year olds.
My wife has been into photography sinse the early 90s in high school. She worked as at two of our local newspapers, then worked as an independent when those papers stopped having their staff photographers.
She also worked for ASU when she was a student there....and freelanced for local Phoenix papers.
She has bought a bunch of cameras, lenses and accessories. But now, she uses her Google Pixel phone for 95% of her pictures. She only rarely uses any of her pics professionally these days.
Her opinion is that she can take "as good" or better pictures with her phone, than she can get with her Nikon D???? Or Canon Rebel. And far better than film pictures developed by her in her darkroom.
I disagree.....I love the film pictures much better, there is a difference. Film isn't as sharp or bright, but they are "smoother" in my opinion. It's hard yo explain smooth, but I know it when I see it.

 

[Briar Lee]

We used Pentax back in high school photography class. They were dependable and sturdy enough for use by ignorant 15 year olds.
My wife has been into photography sinse the early 90s in high school. She worked as at two of our local newspapers, then worked as an independent when those papers stopped having their staff photographers.
She also worked for ASU when she was a student there....and freelanced for local Phoenix papers.
She has bought a bunch of cameras, lenses and accessories. But now, she uses her Google Pixel phone for 95% of her pictures. She only rarely uses any of her pics professionally these days.
Her opinion is that she can take "as good" or better pictures with her phone, than she can get with her Nikon D???? Or Canon Rebel. And far better than film pictures developed by her in her darkroom.
I disagree.....I love the film pictures much better, there is a difference. Film isn't as sharp or bright, but they are "smoother" in my opinion. It's hard yo explain smooth, but I know it when I see it.

Since I speak native and fluent Ozark American I can go to places that make Deliverance and Winter’s Bone look cosmopolitan.





The difference between an old hillbilly with a camera on the Caplinger Bridge and a foreigner using a cell phone is I have a real camera, never worth more than a new bait cast rig.

Really good, somewhat affordable ($1,000) DSLRs are now over two decades old, since the 2003 Canon Digital Rebel. The current version of that camera is $300 for a two lens kit, brand new.




The K-5 with kit lens was $1,750 15 years ago and the current replacement is about a thousand dollars more today.



Pentax is the last high quality DSLR left standing. The others are mirrorless, or soon will be.

If they were pipes they’d be made of aged, oil cured Pre 54 Algerian briar.

 

[anantaandroscoggin]

While I still have a couple of K1000s (for which no film and developing is available for - to my access anyway) my latest Pentax is a Kr. And one nice thing with the Pentax lenses, every one they made is still usable on their latest SLRs with an adapter, just with varying levels of auto-control depending on the tech when they were released.

 

[troutface]

I used to carry two Pentax MX bodies and 5 fixed lenses when I went backpacking in my youth. I think in '08 I bought the K10D. Built like a tank, but too many buttons and switches for this old school guy. The phone camera works fine these days.

 

[Chasing Embers]

The phone camera works fine these days.

I was a Canon fanatic for years but phone cameras replaced all of that for me.

 

[sablebrush52]

Pentax camera were nice cameras with quality glass. On occasion I used to rent a Pentax 6x7 set up to shoot location references, which could be blown up and printed out as a backing for used in some miniature/matte painting set ups.

 

[Chasing Embers]

But for those of us who talk about the exposure triangle, ISO, aperture, and shutter speed,

Phone cameras have all of that now as well.

 

[Briar Lee]

Phone cameras have all of that now as well.

I suppose you could always load a program, but the best news is the iPhone 16 Pro I own is the best point and shoot camera I’ve ever dreamed of.



This is truly amazing it can do it, at all.


There are 8 billion people on earth who own 5 billion smartphones with an average life of something like 3 years.

But not a one of those phones has a strap to show off your camera, nor a slew of buttons, dials and switches to impress people of your photography skills.

And of course, none need a bag full of lenses.

If smartphone cameras were pipes they’d be factory made filter cigarettes, not even home stuffed Buoy Golds.

But seriously, there are countless billions of excellent photographs taken every day, probably more than all the 35mm film ever developed. Everybody but everybody owns a digital camera better than anything imaginable even twenty years ago.

But anyone who’d like to dabble in amateur photography can buy a $150 Pentax K-5 with a kit lens and own a truly modern and useful DSLR.

If you are really, really frugal a $100 K-X is a great starter camera (but not in the same league as a K-5).



Modern Pentax DSLRs, since the 2009 K-X allow any of the millions and millions of K Mount Pentax lenses in drawers and old camera bags and flea markets to be used again.

They even allow ISO, aperture, shutter speed and focus to be all manual, or push a green button and they’ll have all the automatic features they had on a film Pentax.

And about the time of the Pentax K-5 the top end DSLRs sort of peaked in image quality. A K-5 will beat a smart phone if you blow up the photos. A 2025 K-3 Mark 3 beats it a little more.

Real cameras are better for sports and wildlife and weddings and reunions and such.

But to keep in the car for shooting swans in the park a Pentax K-5 is the best old geezer with a tripod camera on the market.


Try putting your smart phone, on a tripod.

 

[pappymac]

I MISS FILM PHOTOGRAPHY!
When I started my journey as a Coast Guard photojournalist, I had the journalism part down but had to be taught the photo part. They started me out with an old 35mm Pentax without a in camera light meter (or else it didn't work) and a hand held light meter. This was in 1975. A few weeks later the petty officer teaching me accused me of lying about not having any photo experience because I was progressing too fast. He then threw me a curve ball by making me shoot underway vessel photos from a helicopter with a 4x5 Speed Graphic.
My favorite medium format camera was a Pentax 6x7 which was basically a 35mm on steroids. It was also great for shooting aerials.

I also became very good with a both the Mamiya and Rollei Twin Lens reflex cameras. I had a sadistic instructor when I attended the Air Force Still Photo School in Denver. He assigned me a C330 to shoot a football game.

 

[Briar Lee]

Error in posting

 

[huntertrw]

As a former semi-professional photographer (mostly weddings and some advertisements) I own a variety of film cameras from 35mm to 2.25x2.25 to 4x5. With the advent of digital photography and editing I haven't used any of them in a long time. Your post makes me think I should break out the 35mms.

 

[Briar Lee]

As a former semi-professional photographer (mostly weddings and some advertisements) I own a variety of film cameras from 35mm to 2.25x2.25 to 4x5. With the advent of digital photography and editing I haven't used any of them in a long time. Your post makes me think I should break out the 35mms.

If you want dependable images use your phone.

iPhone 16 Pro hand held point and shoot in the dead of night.

ISO 2500, Aperture f1.8 Shutter 2.2 Seconds!



But any new SUV is more reliable than any 396 Chevelle ever was, too.

Someday the camera makers will apply all that magical AI tech to real cameras.

But for now we get to play with old school miraculous DSLRS.

 

[pappymac]

If you want dependable images use your phone.

iPhone 16 Pro hand held point and shoot in the dead of night.

ISO 2500, Aperture f1.8 Shutter 2.2 Seconds!

View attachment 385916

But any new SUV is more reliable than any 396 Chevelle ever was, too.

Someday the camera makers will apply all that magical AI tech to real cameras.

But for now we get to play with old school miraculous DSLRS.

Call me Picky.
As great as the camera are getting to be on cell phones and as great as some digital photos taken with higher resolution digital cameras, I personally find digital photography to lack "soul".
I can't remember seeing a digital photo that could match the beauty of an Ansel Adams landscape or duplicate the Zone system.
I still don't believe digital can match the rich colors and beauty that was so easily to achieve by using Kodachrome or Fujichrome.

But, I admit to being biased when it comes to film images of digital.

 

[huntertrw]

pappymac:

I used Mr. Adams' Zone System of exposure and development in my 4x5 black-and-white photography. Using my Pentax spot-meter and gray card I can tell you that it worked! As he said, "The negative is the score; the print the performance."

 

[Briar Lee]

pappymac:

I used Mr. Adams' Zone System of exposure and development in my 4x5 black-and-white photography. Using my Pentax spot-meter and gray card I can tell you that it worked! As he said, "The negative is the score; the print the performance."

A part of the magic of an Ansel Adams print is the unbelievable resolution of film versus digital.

—-

In the case of large format, 4 x 5 inch films can record approximately 298.7 million pixels, and 1,200 million pixels in the case of 8 x 10 inch film. However, as with a digital system, poor optical quality of lenses will decrease the resolving potential of a film emulsion.

—-

On the other hand, the first consumer DSLR cameras were sort of born full grown, like cell phones when they were just phones.

2004 Canon Rebel XT with kit lens



The 35mm Leica made shots like my daughter riding her horse on the first day of May possible for anybody of means.

The Argus C3 made it possible for anybody who could afford film.

There are still photographers who use GPS and antique camera equipment to stand exactly where Adams stood and try to replicate Yosemite.



And every one of us who sneak around with a real camera are trying to duplicate Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange



Part of it is sheer luck.

The Caplinger Bridge has been there since 1895 and how many times has a young girl with a German Shepard dog carrying a book walked across in the golden hour?

Olympus PL1 with kit lens



For $150 you can have a really nice weather sealed modern kit to play the game. A Pentax K5 was the best and latest camera Pentax made in 2010.

Unless you made wall size prints no other camera today is radically any better.

 

[huntertrw]

A part of the magic of an Ansel Adams print is the unbelievable resolution of film versus digital.

Due, in large part, to the fact that he photographed many of his most memorable images using an 8x10 view camera.

 

[Briar Lee]

Due, in large part, to the fact that he photographed many of his most memorable images using an 8x10 view camera.

The best medium format digital cameras have maybe 100 megapixels. Ansel’s big view cameras had 1,200 megapixel resolution plus, the tonality gradient of film is better.

Ansel Adams, like Picasso, lived until modern times. If he wanted a new Cadillac he took a photograph and sold it. Seriously.

His talent was his eye, and his darkroom skills.

On the other hand, a Dorothea Lange photograph is one because she’d see a broken down car full of pea pickers and walk right over and strike up a conversation.

She would have loved modern cameras.

 

[huntertrw]

She would have loved modern cameras.

As would, I believe, have Margaret Bourke-White and Edward Weston.

 

[Briar Lee]

As would, I believe, have Margaret Bourke-White and Edward Weston.

Modern digital cameras are as addicting as Happy Brown Bogie in a Marxman Big Boy.

I still have and use my first PL-1 Olympus but my other Olympus is an OMD EM1.2 and a bag of lenses. This is a sneaky rig.




It also is getting pricey, especially if somebody stole the bag, and I needed an entire new kit.

This Pentax K5 with a $30 Sigma travel 28-200 lens and the 18-55 kit lens and the 50mm f2 as a fast portrait lens is a $200 kit, all in, with two more batteries I ordered.

Folks living in desperate poverty are more likely to consent to being photographed with a camera worth less than their phones.

To do documentary photography you’ll live longer and sleep better first getting permission then letting them forget you are there.

Which is the best reason to keep a K5 in the trunk, you know? A K5 when you need it is worth ten fancier cameras safely at home sleeping in a drawer.