Dennis: Fair enough. I, too, cut my teeth on Pentax as a
photojournalist student some 30 years ago. I'm curious, though, why
did you give up on the Pentax K10D? I find it a great digital camera;
however, I wish my superb fully manual primes, both K and screwmount,
would meter at f stops other than wide open. My Pentax istD allows
for metering at all f-stops, and it supports TTL flashes, while my
K10D only supports P-TTL systems. Also, why Olympus over the K10D?
Curiosity here??? Don
Difficult for me to be brief, I feel I owe you an explanation, regarding my choices, because I do think highly of the Pentax 10D.
The 10D (w/kit lens and the 43mm f/1.9 Ltd) was a gift from my brother-in-law from Japan who visited us this summer along with his new E-510. He travels a lot for university research and had been through a series of Oly digicams (including 4040, 8080), bought the Pentax 10D, then bought the E510 for its relatively small size/weight. He did not know that I already had a Canon 20D system.
I was quite intrigued by the 10D, and used it heavily for several months. The kit lens was not so good, but on the other hand probably average for most anyone else’s kit lens. The 43mm was sweet, and the 10D is a very well-designed body, intuitive user interface, and some unique features. The in-body IS actually worked, too! However, as I stated before, by this time I did not have my really good legacy Takumar glass, other priorities, you know.
I had also been thinking about the small size/weight of my brother-in-law’s E510, and as I reviewed his photos and some I had taken with his E510, I was frankly amazed at the IQ of that little kit lens. I kept thinking how I would take that kit with me places when I would leave the Pentax or Canon at home. I did more research into the Oly system, and had decided that I had some choices to make: silly to have two different systems, good to have a backup body, so impressed by the Oly glass etc.
I jumped at the chance to try out the Oly E-510 for only $600 – what could I lose? Well, the rest is history, I made the jump.
As for the 10D vs Oly – the Oly system for my shooting style gives me the most bang for my dollar. I found the little Oly kit lens to be relatively superb. In my experience, I would rank the Pentax IS as a level below my Canon IS (but not all my lenses were IS!) so really the Pentax’s redeeming value was that any lens became IS on it, a tradeoff therefore. I would rank the Oly’s IS a level above my Canon IS lenses, really I was impressed (v1.2 firmware). I’m happy, and as I sell off my old stuff I’m replacing it with Oly, including an E3 w/12-60mm, and a 7-14mm. - and I still will have that tiny E510 kit to take anywhere.
Good luck with your decisions as well!
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-Dennis W.
Austin, Texas
