paulkienitz

If you're waiting for Pentax to suddenly become ten times better at autofocus than they've been in the past, you may have a long wait.  In your place, I would base my plans on the assumption that ...

Because spec comparison numbers sell cameras, I guess, and high ISO is a number that impresses people. That logic makes a lot more sense in the lower tiers of the market, though.

I think you're way underestimating how difficult good autofocus really is.

Yes, I still shoot with the K-3... when I still manage to shoot, that is. The smaller sensor is appropriate for birding because most shots get cropped anyway, and it's quite adequate for the amount ...

Of course not, but every camera has about the same image quality nowadays.  And I have been known to shoot seabirds from the deck of a boat with salt spray in my face.  If your camera is ...

It isn't tough to see which one is likely to keep the dust, water, and light leaks out after a couple of years of use.

It's not a good question to put "how hard can it be" on.

First, I bought my current equipment with the expectation that, as rugged as it is, it would be good for around ten years. (I got six out of my K10D and it still works like new.) For me that is ...

APS may be the mainstream format ten years from now in mirrorless... but I don't believe it will be the mainstream in SLRs.  The mounts are built for full frame and work badly for anything ...

I'll just give you my experience of one particular Pentax lens combination: the DA* 300mm f/4 combined with the 1.4x AW teleconverter. I shoot this on a K-3, which is a 24 MP crop sensor with a ...

I was late -- got my mighty K10D in '07.  It still works. I got my K-3 with the plan that I wouldn't expect to necessarily keep buying more stuff in the system -- the set of gear I had ought to ...

I think the sensor motion is around 500 hz, and they say the anti-AA more or less works up to 1/1000 sec.  Maybe I should use it more than I do; most of my shots aren't any faster than that.

I have sometimes run into moire problems on feathers when shooting birds.  In my case turning on the oscillating AA filter probably won't help much as the shutter speeds often need to be too high ...

A K-3 is the most camera in that price range, with some significant advantages over a K-5 II, especially for faster-moving shooting scenarios.  But that said, the K-5 sensor is considered a classic.

My vote is for DxO, though for anything that's about photo editing rather than photo development, you need another app to supplement it, such as Paintshop Pro.

...is that it produces a glut of DA 12-24/4 lenses on the used market.

The old 55-300 is very sharp for the money but not good at autofocusing; the newer PLM version is much quicker at focusing but not sure if the optics are as good.  Bear in mind that no zoom is ...

I don't think so.  Modern autofocus is very tricky and difficult, and getting it right is a major technical achievement.  I think Ricoh made an honest effort and this is as well as they were able ...

Try using focus trap to get BIFs. The bokeh here looks much nicer than that in the 150-450 shots someone was just showing.