Red-headed stepchildren of the photographic world.

If we are the "red-headed step-children" of the photography world, who's our daddy?

Last time I checked, the only person I was accountable to for the photography that I produced was ME. If I were a pro (which I used to be) then my images would need to be pleasing to my clients (but I would assume that if they were pleasing to ME, then they would be pleasing to the client).

My choice of Pentax had nothing to do with what others thought was popular. I compared features and went with what I thought was the most bang-for-the-buck. That was (and still is) Pentax, whether you are talking APS-C or medium format. (We must obviously reserve judgement on the coming full frame).

Pentax made the right decision when they put image stabilization in the body. They made the right decision (for me) when they maintained backwards compatibility with lens mounts. They kept the same flange to film/sensor distance as the early screwmount lenses. All of that added up to lots and lots of lens choices for me. They made the right decision when they focused on Weather Resistance/Dust sealing in bodies and some lenses. All of this would mean nothing if they didn't deliver great image quality, and they do. Probably thanks to Sony's lossy RAW compression, Pentax gets MORE out of Sony sensors than Sony does in their cameras.

I could care less if others think I'm wacked for carrying a Pentax rather than some other brand. As long as Pentax keeps making the right decisions, I'm sticking with Pentax - as  I have since 2006.

The ONLY place where this "step-child" mentality could hurt us is in Third Party lens manufacturer support. I do hate seeing great lenses, like the Tamron VR lenses, not even available in Pentax mount. Hopefully the full frame camera's success will help make some of those companies rethink their support for Pentax mount.