OK, I'm gonna play devil's advocate with Jens' post here. Obviously, I'm not anti-Pentax, since I own a hell of a lot of Pentax stuff. I'm not pro-Canon either.
People should know by now that my other system is not Canon but Nikon. I'll buy Canon gear under only two conditions: 1) my employer hands me a Canon DSLR instead of a Nikon one 2) Canon produces a better-looking and/or better-working cheap DSLR that takes M42-mount lenses than Pentax (Nikon's not an option here) > My answer is simple. I don't want to. For many reasons. > Pentax make brilliant user interfaces. My experience with Canon (all second hand) is that they are very good at the top of the line, and very competitive at the bottom, but weak in the middle. Pentax is arguably a better advanced amateur system both in cameras and lenses. Pentax is more "traditional" in some desirable ways. In general, I'd agree that Pentax UI is good. Some of that is that they stayed with the classic UI better than many. Give me a shutter speed dial and an aperture ring and I can run almost any camera. > Good backwards compatibility (could be even better) - excellent old lenses > may cost less than a new consumer lens. Backwards compatability IS a strong suit. With an M42-K adapter you can use lenses from as far back as 1957, which is as good as any brand gets (although Nikon F-mount is close). Alas, NOBODY has kept complete backwards compatability. Both Nikon and Pentax have modern cameras which won't talk to older lenses (although they will mount, and work). > K-mount lenses are very easy to get, and not expensive. (I have a nice > M*300mm, that cost me 700 USD. A new 300mm Pentax pro lens would drain my > budget by 12000 USD (list price). But I still have both options. I find that good Pentax equipment is harder to find on the used market than Nikon or Canon, and often more expensive. Many of the legendary K and A lenses are almost impossible to find. Granted, for basic "M" primes and zooms there are plenty to be had cheaply. I'm still looking for an M20/4 and a K105/2.8 whereas I find Nikon 20/3.5 and 105/2.5s everywhere I turn. > Pentax cameras are very reliable. When ever one of mine broke, it was my own > fault (with only one exception in 23 years). This depends on what camera and how you use it, I suspect. I switched to Nikon because I decided that pentax cameras were NOT reliable or easy to get fixed given what I was using and how--I've had an MX, a K2, an SF-1, and 2 super programs fail on me and been told that they were irreparable, plus my ME supers were always in the shop for some fault or other. I'm now using different Pentax cameras and using them differently, and have not had problems. > I have a huge number of lenses available. A 20 year old 100 USD Pentax lens > can produce perfectly sharp photographs used with a state of the art digital > body. Are Canon offering this? A state of the art digital body? Yes. Is Pentax? (yes, I know this isn't quite what you meant...) >From what I've heard, some folks would argue that the *istD does not produce "perfectly sharp photographs" with many lenses. Canon has the largest array of lenses in current production, many of which are inexpensive. I suspect you can fit pre-AF canon lenses to an EOS with an adapter, although it's certainly not the last word in convenience. Canon also offers a lot of lens options Pentax doesn't and never did, especially at the high end. DJE
