2017 Roundup: $1200-2000 interchangeable lens cameras: full-frame

Do you buy a new lens, even though you already have one in that range, every time one is released? If so you have way more money than I to spend on this hobby. I guess this is the point, how many Nikon and Canons in the 70-300 range does one need? I would guess only one.

Tamron also has four different lens along with Lens Baby offering two of their specialty lens. Maybe you collect lens, I use mine and never have two of the same focal length. If I upgrade one, I sell off the other. But I am tight with my hobby money since I play golf which is also costly.

My point is you could build up a fairly competent lens collection for the K1 simply because you really do not need five each of the holy trinity and five each of a decent 70 - 300 zoom. One each will do most of us just fine.

I don't have pentax anymore but have very soft spot for them. Pentax is in my mind the photographer centric camera. I have few sony alpha cams but view them more like an electronics with rapid depreciation.

Huh? Some of the bodies on the market with the best weather sealing are mirrorless. Pentax is the only DSLR-maker that really emphasizes it, whereas the Canon 6D and D610 can't really compare to many Olympus, Panasonic, and Fuji bodies in that respect.

I don't really see how it has anything at all to do with DSLR vs. mirrorless.

Sigma has four lenses for E-mount, but none for FE. However, the sheer adaptability of the mount makes its lens catalogue far wider.

But you still got the count wrong, Sigma has the DN series that is now composed of 4 different primes, without counting the restyled versions. Tamron only has an APS-C superzoom for E-mount. Tokina, on the other hand, released one lens for FE only, and this year plan to launch three more. Samyang has a lot of mirrorless exclusives, and also AF lenses only for FE. Zeiss has three different lens series for E-mount, two of them with AF (and we're talking real Zeiss, not Zony), and two of them exclusive to FE. And there's also a ton of smaller makers producing stuff for Sony, like Mitakon and Zhongyi.
Sony mirrorless third-party support already overtook Pentax maybe two years ago. And that's without counting the adapters - Sigma's MC-11 counts like true third-party support in my book, which brings the mount up to date with Canon and Nikon.

4 Sigma, 4 Batis, 3 Touit, 4 Loxia (manual, but EXIF and electronic communication), 1 Tokina Firin (EXIF & communication), 1 Tamron, 3 Samyang AF.
That versus 12 Sigma and 6 Tamron (still in distribution, discarding duplicates) for Pentax K.
Even if you discount the Loxias and Firin, this year Sigma is supposedly launching 2 more FE lenses, and Samyang another AF, which will put Sony ahead nonetheless... in AF lenses, because in MF lenses the offer is already vastly superior.
And that will be the end of my participation in this thread.

The E mount selection is quite rich these days. Especially when you consider modern designs, the Pentax lineup starts to look a bit shakey.

"Quite rich" is a fuzzy term. :)

The longest FF E-mount lens appears to be a zoom that tops out at 400mm. The longest genuine Pentax lens is a 560mm prime.

The only native fisheye lens for E-mount appears to be a manual focus lens, whereas for the K-1, there is the Sigma 15mm with AF.

I'm not convinced that w.r.t native lenses the K-1 faces a "limited selection" and the A7 series does not.

With respect to "modern designs": The lens count I presented earlier only includes lenses that are still being sold. They are all at least decent. Even a film era lens can still outresolve a 36MP sensor, and photographers do not buy equipment based on benchmark results only. They also value rendering, flare-resistance, etc.

Yes, there are currently not that many ultra-quite focusing lenses in the Pentax line-up (more to come), but some photographers value that there is no built-in motor that can break and they don't mind the slight noise.

I'm not trying to say Sony is superior to Pentax, but saying that every system comes with downsides, as well as benefits. The Sony lenses are quiet and very very quick compared to the "older" Pentax lenses. They are also generally known for their outstanding sharpness, which many Pentax lenses cannot match. In the end, the conclusion re:this article is that selecting a single system/cam as superior to another system/cam as a blanket statement is very flawed, as most of the ones listed here have their advantages and disadvantages, including lens lineups.

I don't disagree that rendering can be important, but not everybody agrees. A lot of people prefer the supersharp nature of Sony E lenses. Also if you are lazy and only check BH, you find only 12 lenses. Maybe DPR checked only that.

Compare the A7/A7II to the D610 at ISOs above 6400 and you'll see the difference they mention. Whether or not this matters is up to you. It would matter to me.

A7 and A7ii are kind of old sensor, so the SNRs are not too good:

https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Sony-A7S-versus-Sony-A7R-versus-Sony-A7___949_917_916

In practical terms, it means there is no real advantage to the A7 or A7 II sensor compared to a state of the art APS-C sensor like the Nikon D7200 or Sony A6500. The D610 or Pentax K1 will give almost 1 full stop of improvement in terms of ISO performance compared to the A7/A7 II.

Because it's punching above it's price-class. It's in the semi-pro group and "wins" that group if you can't swing the priciest.

DPreview is using the launch prices, not street prices.

Agree about the D750. It seems rather silly to talk about launch prices rather than current market prices. And for US$1600 you don't even have to go "gray market."

Good point FuhTeng. I shoot mainly landscape, architecture, nature, and people, and have a shed load of Pentax lenses, so the K-1 is best for me. Delightful camera and very capable of producing high quality photographs, so I have no excuses for mediocre photographs!.

Ronnie, if I was in your shoes, I'd have a K-1 too! I'd love to rent it and play with its potential for landscapes.

For me it is not applicable for a Roundup with a title "which camera should you buy" to leave out used options. It is just incomplete in my opinion. But this is personal taste.

These roundups are confusing enough. Adding used options would make these downright ridiculous.

^^ Exactly ! :)

Specs wise the A7rII destroys the A7 II but in actual usage the differences are a lot lesser. Sure the A7rII has some really good features like internal 4k video that the A7 II simply lacks and the 42 MP sensor IS better but not by a huge margin.

The specs say the A7rII viewfinder is better, AF is better, and it is but side by side using both cameras I really can't tell reliably which camera i am actually using.

But ill also mention the caveat that it could also be down to my shooting style. I don't really stress the camera to its full potential so for someone else maybe their experience would be different. And for using adapted lenses and for video at least the A7rII is MUCH better

Hi. You are most welcome ! :)

I am a small time pro and so I have three cameras with me - A7, A7 II and A7rII. The A7 gets hardly any usage though. I feel the A7 II is a significant enough upgrade to the A7.

Adapted lenses is not the best solution for Sony and there are quite a few that don't work too well.

However most of the newer ones work just fine. You get decent (but not great) focusing speed. However for the most part focusing is very usable. Just don't use tracking too much.

My usage of Canon lenses are very limited. I used a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 II which worked beautifully with the A7rII, a Sigma 50mm f1.4 which also worked well but did freeze after a while and a Sigma 24-105mm f4 ART which also worked very well.

Had you looked at my profile for even one second, you'd see I'm a Pentax owner- the pic in my gallery posted after being accused of lying about Pentax ownership and accused of "Trolling" until he was shut up by that picture.

However, I guess we can't criticize the company whose products we bought now?

Or the fact that price increases are a documented FACT, going from territory to territory, but the discussion of which on DPR is "Trolling". Really?

Wow, so DPPMetro posted ONE picture (of what? we're not told) and it was deleted. It's so obvious... ;-)
Mods don't go around deleting pics from people's galleries. Actually our mods aren't even hardcore Pentaxians; two are MILC users, one is a Nikon user.
And this site definitely isn't hardcode pro-Pentax. Would they constantly complain about Pentax' AF but remove references about price hikes?

It wasn't the EU distribution network who "ruined Pentax under Hoya" (actually France was doing pretty well, reaching 10% market share at some point). It was the cost cutting, downsizing, slowing down and virtually stopping work on new lenses. And in the first place, it was the hostile takeover who made Pentax Corporation a Hoya division.
I wouldn't be so sure they're the same people either. There were some changes after Ricoh took over, after all.

Thank you! Great portraits on your 500px page :)

More like an art than a sport

Getting rid of my old "super-zoom" (which also happened to be a Sony 18-200) was the best decision I ever made to improve my photography skills.

I still use zooms a lot (24-70 and 70-200), but being more restricted in your focal length on the body means you have to think more and anticipate the type of shot you want to create more. You'll also become less lazy and work on better composition because you need to move around more. With primes this effect is even bigger.

Yes, you will miss some shots because you needed a wide and had a tele mounted, or the other way aorund... but the shots you get will be so much better because you will be a better photographer allround, with practice.

If your budget is limited, perhaps you could consider a6000 or a6300 camera. Those cameras are already a huge improvement over your a100. You will have more money left for good lens(es). Using Sony a7II will not improve your pictures, it's a niche product.

To me NO. A DSLR is like a finely tuned mechanical tool. While the ML is more electronics. We have a tendency to like tactile no latency systems. We generally don't like any perception of lag or disconnect between us and our tools. However, would I go back to a DSLR? Very unlikely. Unless of course someone provides me with a personal assistant to follow me around carrying my gear.

I have the FE50ZA, the FE 35 mm, FE 28mm primes, and the 28-70 kit. With and the A7II these small lenses ensures that I usually leave the house with my camera. When I had the canon it stayed home more often. As such I take more pictures even if subjectively the canon was a "better" overall experience (minus the advantage of the EVF).

My point is that these cameras are above the threshold of "good". In the end the best all around camera is that one that encourages you to take more pictures. I would love a 1DXII with a 24-70 f2.8. But who am I kidding. It would stay home far more than the A7II + kit

You don't have to buy all gear at once. You could start by buying a cheap mirrorless backup camera. Use it whenever you need small lightweight and low profile camera. On holidays or in a restaurant. This way you can decide wether you like it (and expand lenses only if it fits your needs).

Also, you will take the 3500$ price tag, the redundant mirror box and almost 1 kg of weight. Whatever makes you happy :-)

So your clueless. So what? Many people are clueless. It's not a shame.

There are three basic reasons the ad hominem is used:

1. The belief that an argument is a simple competition in which winning or domination is the goal. Personal understanding is unimportant, and mutual understanding is completely irrelevant.

2. The belief that there is no argument to make, because the absolutely correct position is already known. An ad hominem in this mode at best stiff-arms the discussion, pushing off any attempt to question the unquestionable by knocking over the people trying to do the questioning. At worst it de-evolves to mere trolling

3.The belief that arguing is entirely about social positioning; that the only meaningful outcome concerns which person looks best in the eyes of third parties

But lets assume I am really clueless. You still have not explained what is wrong with live view on a DSLR. I would actually like to understand how mirrorless live-view has advantages.

If with clickbait you mean stuff that a lot of people actually want to read, then yes.

Do you really want to read it though, noirdesir? Is it helpful when a tech journalist tells you a Sony a-whatever is better than a Pentax a-whatever? Is it better for taking photographs of the kids' football games and sports events, family holidays and street photography, the rural and urban landscapes, macro photography and astrophotography? Is it a better camera whether you're producing large prints or Instagram posts? Of course not, right?
The objective tests give us lots of information, which helps us make purchasing decisions; saying this is better than that is just a bit of polemic that seems to fuel the 'fan-boy' nonsense which is the least enjoyable aspect of this site.

I do want to read it. I am curious as to what the opinion of the DPreview editors is. Objective tests are all good, but the final decision what to get is a) personal and b) a subjective. Personal in the sense that everybody will weigh all the different aspects differently and subjective in that this weighing is partly intuitive and subconscious.

Aren't you ever interested in a recommendation from somebody that knows more about something than you? Or vice versa, aren't you asked occasionally to give a recommendation on something you know more about than the person asking, be it about cameras, wine, or anything else?

Amen, these are OLD prices.

I got a d750 gray on ebay over a year ago for $1299. Thing has worked like a champ. That was a wonderful deal.