Thanks for those words of wisdom, Larry.
The trouble is that SA is effectively a third world country. The Rand has
deteriorated from R1=$1 and R2=£1 to R14=$1 and R22=£1 in just 30 years on
account of high inflation. Only executive salaries have kept pace. The rank
& file have now fallen far behind. Wage earners are the worst off.
Entrepreneurs do much better. If you want a dirt cheap holiday, come to
South Africa.
The price of so-called luxury goods is through the roof. Camera prices are
roughly twice what you pay which is why people still ask a lot for S/H
stuff. Private import is risky (theft) and still expensive with import
duties added. "Visitor" import is the best, as you suggest. Fortunately my
UK based daughter visits every 3/4 years. She brought Mark Cassino's K7 a
couple of years ago so I was able to get it at a very good price & managed
to avoid import duty. I will have to see what is available next time she
visits.
Alan C
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Colen
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2015 11:51 PM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
Subject: Re: GESO 2015 - First Pix with Leica SL - GDG
Alan C wrote:
Godders, thanks for your treatise. Many things I hadn't even thought of.
I'm still on a learning curve. My K7 (and even my old K110D) do very
well for general photography especially in good light if the ISO is 200
or less. By ISO 800 the sensors are quite noisy & noise reduction tends
to soften the images. A lot of my preferred photography involves crops
of distant (or small) subjects & I know I'm expecting a lot from my
modest consumer equipment. Since the K7, all the Pentax offerings seem
to have much better sensors, especially in low light & will allow better
There was a huge improvement starting with the Kx. In many ways it
seemed as if the performance of my K20 was a step back from that of my
K100, and the K7 was reputed to be no better than the K20.
The Kr addressed most of the major usability issues of the Kx, and if
you can find an inexpensive one is likely your best sensor performance
for the price option. It probably outperforms your K7 at high ISO by a
couple of stops.
H/H performance at higher ISO's. I have seen some S/H K 01's at quite
S/H ? Second Hand?
low prices but you have now ruled it out with long lenses so that's
that. Older S/H Hoya K5's (suspect?) are also to be had quite cheaply.
New K5's, K5ii's, K3's & K3ii's are all still available here but rather
expensive. Even S/H ones remain pricey. The K50 now seems the best bet
although the K S2 doesn't cost much more. You pays your money & takes
your chance!
The performance of the K-5 is very impressive, moving from the K7 it
should leave you gobsmacked. While the K-3 may lag behind the K-5 in
some benchmarks, my limited experience is that in the final image, with
the extra pixels to work with, actual sensor performance remains about
on par, and pretty much everything else is improved.
My limited experience playing with a K-S2 is that it would be
comfortable for those with exceptionally small hands. My hands are small
for a guy, and I found that its sharp corners poked me uncomfortably. I
have never held a K50.
I suspect that your best option might be to organize a South Africa
photo safari and use the proceeds from that to get one of the people on
it to bring you some used gear from places where it can be purchased
affordably.
Alan C
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