The kit lenses /are/ a bit flimsy, on the other hand they're more robust
than the kit lenses from Canon and Nikon, though that's not saying much,
and from all accounts much better optically to boot. I wouldn't give
them to kids who have no particular attachment to them as they will do
what kids do; bang them around and break them. Even the plastic bodied
manual focus primes are going to be more robust, not to mention simpler
with fewer failure points.
On 4/23/2012 2:54 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
I had a chance to visit with my friend Tom this weekend. I mentioned him
recently, he is using several K-xs in the high school photo classes that he
teaches.
He mentioned that the reliability of the kit lenses is horrible. They break
very easily. I didn't find the exact failure mode, other than that they are
flimsy. He did say that once he gets the kids to use primes, (IIRC some manual
focus era 50mm), the kids quickly seem to much prefer the old primes to the
zoom lenses. It warms my heart that there does seem to be hope for the new
generation.
He also said that he's had problems with at least two LCDs simply stop working.
The cameras still take pictures, you just can't see anything on the LCD.
They've been off to Pentax and back for repair.
I have no idea how other brands fare as student cameras, but consistent multiple
failures is a serious issue. Is there anyone at Pentax I could point him to? At the
very least, they might find his class a good source of "torture testing", as
the cameras probably get a lot more usage than the vast majority of entry level cameras.
His problems are kind of a shame, because I think that a big part of the reason that the
K1000 was such an iconic student camera was its robustness.
--
Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est
--
Don't lose heart! They might want to cut it out, and they'll want to avoid a
lengthily search.
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