An old but very capable K-3, first experience with Pentax

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all well and having a great day.

I wanted to share my experience with you all. I have used the Pentax K-3 and two Pentax lenses for 3-4 weeks, as I wanted to try them out and see how the grass is on the other side. I must admit I liked using the camera. Very durable, and outputs some great quality images. I quite liked the 50-135mm F/2.8 lens too, it was like having a smaller FF and a 70-200 at hand I wrote my experience with them as a blog on my website, please feel free to have a look

http://www.mf-photography.com/Article-reviews/Pentax-K3-Review

Enjoy, and please feel free to share any feedback if you have. I know this is an old camera, but to me it was new as it was my first Pentax camera to try out.

Have a great day everyone.

Mansur

Nice review of a camera that stands the test of time.

Look forward to a K1 comparison to your D810

Manzur Fahim wrote:

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all well and having a great day.

I wanted to share my experience with you all. I have used the Pentax K-3 and two Pentax lenses for 3-4 weeks, as I wanted to try them out and see how the grass is on the other side. I must admit I liked using the camera. Very durable, and outputs some great quality images. I quite liked the 50-135mm F/2.8 lens too, it was like having a smaller FF and a 70-200 at hand I wrote my experience with them as a blog on my website, please feel free to have a look

http://www.mf-photography.com/Article-reviews/Pentax-K3-Review

Enjoy, and please feel free to share any feedback if you have. I know this is an old camera, but to me it was new as it was my first Pentax camera to try out.

Have a great day everyone.

I hve K3 and my son had DA 50-135 f2.8, a very nice lens, though big and rather slow to AF.

My most used zoom is the very compact DA 18-135 f3.5-5.6, very well built, fast and silent focusing and extremely convenient focal range. Some complain corners are soft when pixel peepin, but it delivers very appealing pictures, very sharp in the center up to 80, still sharp in the center stopped down at the long end, with high contrast and microcontrast.

The K3 IQ, ergonomy and AF-S are top class, only issue is a sub-par AF-C.

To the OP:

Do please note that once you will grow in your Pentax gear, there are some very small and  compact high quality primes, the DA limited series (15 f4, 21 f3.2, 35 f2.8 macro, 40 f2.8, and 70 f2.4. They all feature an aluminium machined body, and they deliver very appealing IQ, with outstanding contrast and high resitance to flare.

Also, if you dont like the default settings of the different JPEG profiles, you can customize hue, contrast, saturation, sharpening for each of them, and also noise reduction (you can choose between auto or custom)

Tatouzou wrote

My most used zoom is the very compact DA 18-135 f3.5-5.6, very well built, fast and silent focusing and extremely convenient focal range. Some complain corners are soft when pixel peepin, but it delivers very appealing pictures, very sharp in the center up to 80, still sharp in the center stopped down at the long end, with high contrast and microcontrast.

The K3 IQ, ergonomy and AF-S are top class, only issue is a sub-par AF-C.

-- hide signature --

Tatouzou,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/70066783@N06/

Agree, my fav travel combo to date was the k3 and 18-135 wr. It was 100 percent reliable travelling last year in some bad weather conditions in Ecuador. I sold the lens after losing my K3.

cheers,

brett

Great photos in your blog!

Manzur Fahim wrote:

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all well and having a great day.

I wanted to share my experience with you all. I have used the Pentax K-3 and two Pentax lenses for 3-4 weeks, as I wanted to try them out and see how the grass is on the other side. I must admit I liked using the camera. Very durable, and outputs some great quality images. I quite liked the 50-135mm F/2.8 lens too, it was like having a smaller FF and a 70-200 at hand I wrote my experience with them as a blog on my website, please feel free to have a look

http://www.mf-photography.com/Article-reviews/Pentax-K3-Review

Enjoy, and please feel free to share any feedback if you have. I know this is an old camera, but to me it was new as it was my first Pentax camera to try out.

Have a great day everyone.

Manzur I think you deleted a similar thread I already respond to it.

pattymeboy wrote:

Mansur

Nice review of a camera that stands the test of time.

Look forward to a K1 comparison to your D810

Thank you, it is still quite good. I will try and see if I can get a K-1 for review, if I do then I will compare it with my D810

Tatouzou wrote:

Manzur Fahim wrote:

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all well and having a great day.

I wanted to share my experience with you all. I have used the Pentax K-3 and two Pentax lenses for 3-4 weeks, as I wanted to try them out and see how the grass is on the other side. I must admit I liked using the camera. Very durable, and outputs some great quality images. I quite liked the 50-135mm F/2.8 lens too, it was like having a smaller FF and a 70-200 at hand I wrote my experience with them as a blog on my website, please feel free to have a look

http://www.mf-photography.com/Article-reviews/Pentax-K3-Review

Enjoy, and please feel free to share any feedback if you have. I know this is an old camera, but to me it was new as it was my first Pentax camera to try out.

Have a great day everyone.

I hve K3 and my son had DA 50-135 f2.8, a very nice lens, though big and rather slow to AF.

My most used zoom is the very compact DA 18-135 f3.5-5.6, very well built, fast and silent focusing and extremely convenient focal range. Some complain corners are soft when pixel peepin, but it delivers very appealing pictures, very sharp in the center up to 80, still sharp in the center stopped down at the long end, with high contrast and microcontrast.

The K3 IQ, ergonomy and AF-S are top class, only issue is a sub-par AF-C.

It is a nice lens, and compared to the big 70-200mm lenses, this lens is quite small. Though not as small as the zoom lenses like 18-135mm. I have the same experience, AF-C is not that good.

PentUp wrote:

Great photos in your blog!

Thank you

Read your review. Back when I bought my first dSLR one of the main attributes people told beginners like me to look for was, how does it feel in your hand. There were more B&M stores back then. I could try the cameras I was thinking of buying. The Camera had to have built in Shake Reduction. So my choices after looking at Nikon and Canon were the Oly E510, Pentax K10, and Sony A100. The other cameras as you say felt lighter in a negative way. The K10 was solid feeling. And it felt good in my hands. knowing it was all weather gave it the win. However it took awhile for me to decide. Because DPR said it had soft JPEGS. No, it was and is fine with jpegs. Anyways...

I thought I was getting a Sony A100, why? It looked better to me, had a better review. But it felt like, wait to say it like this. But I don't have a better more descriptive way to say how I feel. It felt like a toy, even though it was a highly capable dSLR. Compared to the K10D. Honest. Look at my very first posts on Pentax SLR when I was coming from Kodak with my Kodak P880 (great camera). I was neutral back then, not sold on any brand dSLR.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Brings back memories of why I got sold on Pentax.

jamesm007 wrote:

Read your review. Back when I bought my first dSLR one of the main attributes people told beginners like me to look for was, how does it feel in your hand. There were more B&M stores back then. I could try the cameras I was thinking of buying. The Camera had to have built in Shake Reduction. So my choices after looking at Nikon and Canon were the Oly E510, Pentax K10, and Sony A100. The other cameras as you say felt lighter in a negative way. The K10 was solid feeling. And it felt good in my hands. knowing it was all weather gave it the win. However it took awhile for me to decide. Because DPR said it had soft JPEGS. No, it was and is fine with jpegs. Anyways...

I thought I was getting a Sony A100, why? It looked better to me, had a better review. But it felt like, wait to say it like this. But I don't have a better more descriptive way to say how I feel. It felt like a toy, even though it was a highly capable dSLR. Compared to the K10D. Honest. Look at my very first posts on Pentax SLR when I was coming from Kodak with my Kodak P880 (great camera). I was neutral back then, not sold on any brand dSLR.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Brings back memories of why I got sold on Pentax.

Thank you for reading the review and I'm glad you liked it. Yes, I know what you mean about the positive weight. Sometimes it is nice to remember how something felt in the past, isn't it?