Pentax and other gear

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Petey

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This is the first forum I’ve posted and I’m still relatively new to the site. I just wanted to gather people’s opinions on Pentax. I recently purchased a Pentax KP from eBay for £500. The camera offers lots of features for the price, which I couldn’t find with any other camera, bar maybe the Panasonic g80 (and other mft cameras). Which I’ve also purchased for the 2nd time for less than half the cost. The features top of my list were IBIS and weather sealing. Obviously the Pentax has the larger image sensor and potentially better image quality and is a dslr rather than a CSC. I think I was drawn to it because of the larger sensor. But, I’m struggling to find lenses I like for Pentax. The auto focus can be noisy, which is often off putting and despite there being many rugged Pentax bodies, there’s really not that many weather sealed lenses. Ideally looking for something like the 16-45mm f4, but weather sealed. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve actually already put the camera up on eBay for the same price I bought it for, but I’m having no luck selling it. So, I’m wondering if I paid too much? At the time, I thought that’s not a bad price, but since I can’t seem to re-sell it, maybe it wasn’t. And as I can’t re-sell it, maybe I should re-think lens options. Trouble is… I already have a Fuji x-e2, an Olympus em10iii and now a Panasonic g80 which is already a bit too much gear for the likes of me. I clearly have GAS and can’t make up my mind.
 
Have a look how much the camera dealers sell them for, and how much they will give you for it, which is often around 2/3 of what they sell them for.
When you compare what they would give you with ebay, remember ebay and paypal fees.
For that price you could get a Panasonic G9 when they go for good prices.

Most cameras on ebay seem to follow cycles up and down, each cycle lasting 2-6 months, so may be don't give up too quickly.

They seem to have sold on ebay between 350 and 675 (didn't look at details as to why the difference)
 
Search for Pentax WR lenses.

There's currently a 16-85 WR lens on that auction site for £263/best offers. Got one myself. Ideal walk about lens and it has a quiet DC motor.

Note. I'm only bringing the lens to your attention, not recommending it per se. Caveat emptor.i have nothing to do with the seller.

Plenty of dealers still selling Pentax. Check out their sites. Or as suggested, Pentax User site.

If you check out both the UK centric Pentax User and US centric Pentax Forum sites you'll find used equipment for sale, etc, and see that the KP is well regarded. I can't comment on whether you got a good deal at £500, although a quick Google produces higher priced used examples from various dealers.

I've shot Pentax for years. Perfect? No! But which marque is?
 
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I'm a big Pentax fan, love my K3iiiM, there is a pretty good range of Pentax lenses about not to mention some older Tamron and Sigma ones in KAF mount. As John said, there are a variety of weather sealed and all weather lenses available, if you want to invest in Pentax infrastructure. Alternatively, building a M43 outfit is likely to be much cheaper and give you a wider choice of lenses and bodies to grow with, albeit with a slightly smaller sensor (but that is really not a big deal unless you plan to do very large prints or do a lot of low light shooting).
 
JohnX said:
Search for Pentax WR lenses.

There's currently a 16-85 WR lens on that auction site for £263/best offers. Got one myself. Ideal walk about lens and it has a quiet DC motor.

Note. I'm only bringing the lens to your attention, not recommending it per se. Caveat emptor.i have nothing to do with the seller.

Plenty of dealers still selling Pentax. Check out their sites. Or as suggested, Pentax User site.

If you check out both the UK centric Pentax User and US centric Pentax Forum sites you'll find used equipment for sale, etc, and see that the KP is well regarded. I can't comment on whether you got a good deal at £500, although a quick Google produces higher priced used examples from various dealers.

I've shot Pentax for years. Perfect? No! But which marque is?
Click to expand...
Have you got any examples of photos taken with the 16-85mm? How have you found it in use?
 
Just read a brief review on ephotozine and now I’m intrigued by this 16-85mm
 
I've shot Pentax since the late 1980s and still have 3... I am surprised about your comment about lack of availability of AW/WR lenses in K-mount, as the current range of DA lenses that come with the KP are all weather-sealed (18-55, 50-200 and 55-300), DA* lenses are all weather sealed - look at Canon EF-S and Nikon DX, few if not any are weather-sealed. DA* lenses are also silent drive motors but these motors are notoriously unreliable. Later lenses are much improved.

In the UK there is one dealer that stands out for Pentax gear - SRS microsystems. Although, even though they didn't start off with Pentax, MPB do trade with them. As mentioned above PentaxUser is a great forum for Pentax users and it is UK based. There are also Pentax buy and sell pages on Facebook. By all accounts the KP is an excellent camera and I am sure you will find the right lens for it.

None of my primes (FA and FA*) are weather sealed but my zooms (D-FA 15-30, 24-70 and D-FA*70-200/2.8) are WR/AW. (but not cheap!)
 
Thanks. I didn’t realise all DA* lenses were weather sealed. Although I am surprised there aren’t many small weather sealed primes like there is on the Fuji system at relatively cheap prices. 23mm f2, 35mm f2, 50mm f2, 16mm f2.8, 30mm macro to name a few. Pentax could do with taking a leaf out of their book (tbh I think all manufacturers could).
 
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