Today I want to talk a little bit about Pentax.
Pentax.. Pentax.. Pentax.. Pentax.. Pentax..
I notice recently that it is the hundredth year of Pentax. I started off
with Pentax... just wanted to talk about it.
(Japanese language)
Make a little joke here and there.
I noticed some news recently where Sigma is stopping all of their production, all of
their development for Pentax k-mount lenses. The shift to mirrorless is probably
the main issue, but that's pretty bad, in my opinion. Some users will say they only
use Pentax. That's fine. I did use a lot of Pentax glass when I had that system.
I started off with the *ist DS camera for Pentax. That was in 2005 or something
like that. My first DSLR. Pretty nice camera. It had some issues with the grip
was not super comfortable. The camera, function wise, at the time was compared
to like the original Canon Rebel DSLR and the viewfinder was significantly better on the
Pentax. A few things here and there were definitely better. Autofocus was not one
of them. But that is one issue with Pentax that they've had for a long
time is auto focus.
(Japanese language)
Let's talk about what I think Pentax did well and what they haven't done well. First off with
the good stuff. I think they were really focused on the rugged decently featured
kind of nature oriented cameras. So you've got decent build quality. Now, I
did have some issues with my Pentax cameras. The front dial the back dial
would eventually stop working well. The *ist DS, K-7, those had issues with the
dial. I think it was just.. they didn't have a good life to them and they just
eventually stopped working too well. So wouldn't say that they were ultra
rugged to some extreme idealistic level, but they were very well rugged (rugged). But I
do think they were decently rugged they started making some really unusual
looking cameras. Tried to keep the weather resistance in the cheaper
cameras, which I think was a good option. Good way to go about it. Also gonna talk
about their first mirrorless larger camera. Of course, they had the Q system,
which didn't work out for them.
Pentax transformation...
(Japanese language)
With their original mirrorless k-mount camera... I did buy one it
was called a K-01.
This camera...
So this guy Marc... They had him design the exterior of
the camera. I don't really know what their goal was with this. It was a large
departure from what I thought their main focus was with the rugged cameras and
it's just not economically sound. Not decent looking from that like rugged
perspective. No weather resistance, no EVF, but that was fine just to start off. Had
a good function set to it. It was basically like a K-5 with all the stuff pulled out
of it. And you've got that mirrorless version. I think there was some potential
with that setup. If they had continued with it. If they had skipped their goofy
little artistic design and just made a rugged mirrorless camera without a view-
finder, you know, I think it could have been something.
There's no mirrorless on the horizon as far as I know. They do have full frame
now, which was the reason that I switched to Nikon (Nikon). But after going to the D600
eventually Pentax released their full-frame camera. And now they have the
version 1 and the version 2 of the K-1.
(Japanese language)
I'll always have a fondness for Pentax. My first video on this channel
was about a Pentax piece of equipment. A lot of my original videos.. that look
pretty rough.. you know I using sheets in the background instead of this nice
curtain. And it just.. those videos a pretty rough, but if you want to see it they're
there. A lot of Pentax stuff. And I think the K-7 and the K-5.. really really liked
those cameras besides of course the quirks of Pentax themselves like the
autofocus. That those cameras were really nice. Especially with a grip. Good.. good in
the hands. I do think the main turning point with Pentax was when the
company sold off to Hoya. Development probably went down. A lot of resources
went away. At that point then they went to Ricoh. Again, with all of these
switches... Probably a lot of the internal workings of the company had issues and
now we see them with not a ton of development. They do still
make the lenses. I think it was a fifty somewhat recently that seems pretty nice.
From now I don't know if they will ever release any type of mirrorless camera
that has a standard mount, you know, larger mount larger sensor. Who knows...
Maybe they'll still be able to, but I think they might switch more to just
Ricoh stuff. You've got the GR cameras, which does have a lot of Pentax technology
inside with the shake reduction, which is really nice. I do like the GR cameras.
They look pretty interesting. Especially the current one. I would like to try it
out at some point, but who knows when I'll be able to do that. Because I don't
have any close access to them. I'd have to buy it or rent it if you can even
rent those.. who knows. Anyways, that's a little talk about Pentax at their
hundred year anniversary. Thought I might as well as my history with cameras,
DSLRs, there's a lot of Pentax.
I'm Scott from Photography Banzai. Hope you enjoyed the video.
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I still do have a Pentax camera. Bought this in Nagasaki Japan
when I dropped through the camera that I brought there.
And it worked decently well. I don't know if I'll ever get
another Pentax, but I'll try to keep this one around.