Sigma ILC for amateur photographer

Hello everyone,

I'm pretty much a photography-newbie. My current experience is limited to taking pictures with smartphones and non-interchangeable lens compacts. However, recently I'm determined to get more involved with the hobby and learn 'proper' photography.

My friend, who is a pentaxian, recommended one of the Pentax DSLRs as a great stuff for an ambitious amateur (I like to label myself as such :P) and I was considering getting a K-70 with some lens - potentially third-party Tamron, or well, Sigma. I have done some more research on Sigma lenses (which are apparently both great and affordable) and found out something about Sigma cameras and great images made with Foveon sensor.

I read some reviews on SD1 Merrill DSLR and newer SD Quattro mirrorless, and they generally say that these cameras are very slow, don't handle low light, lack a lot of modern features and in general, encourage a slow-paced approach and a lot of thinking before taking each shot.

Well, sounds like a style of photography that would suit me. I plan to shoot mostly landscapes and architecture, cityscapes... basic travel stuff. I don't mind if camera is not suited for fast action, and as I slowly pick up the basics of light-metering, focusing, setting correct exposure and post-production, my 'workflow' will be very slow anyway

So, I'd like to ask, do you consider SD1M or SDQuattro a decent equipment for learning photography? It seems both SD1M and SDQuattro are quite affordable (the former around 1k EUR, not sure if it's a fair price for 6 year old tech though...) and so are Sigma lenses. I thought about getting SD1M and a 17-70 2.8-4.0 Macro OS Contemporary lens, what do you think about this package? Also, did SD1 Merrill get any significant improvements through all the firmware updates?

Cheers and sorry for crap English,

Barney