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My brother found me a good deal on an upgrade, so now I’m looking to get rid of my old gear! I bought it used less than a year ago, with probably 8-10k actuations. There were quite a few minor scratches on the bottom of the camera when I bought it, and I might have added a few of my own. The hot-shoe also has several scratches in it, but the rest of the body is basically like new. With only ~13k shutter actuations, it’s barely broken in!
———————————————–SOLD—————————————————————–
This is what you’re getting:
- PENTAX K-5
- SMC PENTAX M 50mm F/2 lens
- SMC PENTAX-FA 4.5-5.6 80-320mm telephoto lens
- Pentax K-5 Operating Manual (English)
- Pentax software CD
- Original Neck strap
- Original Battery & Charger
- A/V cable
- USB cable
- Serial No. Card
- Pentax extended warranty card. (The camera was purchased new from Adorama on 02/05/2013, along with a “PENTAX 2 Year Extended Warranty”.[The original owner left the receipt in the box, that’s how I know. ])
–The original box and contents–
This picture is intended to show the scratches visible on the bottom of the camera. I’m not sure what the previous owner was using it for, but they are all just little hairline scratches. I purposely photographed at an angle with hard side-lighting to make them show up enough to see them “in all their glory”
Sorry about the dust on the LCD, I didn’t notice till after I had taken the pictures. It has a screen protector on the LCD screen, as well as one on the top panel.
The shutter count, according to the PentaxForums shutter counter is: 13,393
Here are a few shots of the 50mm f2 lens for sale…
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EDIT: I’m adding a SMC Pentax-FA 4.5-5.6 80-320mm telephoto lens into the kit. I bought it several months ago, and never used it enough to justify keeping it. It wasn’t really up to my expectations, so it ended up sitting around on the shelf. For the price, it’s not a bad lens…
If you already have a Pentax DSLR and just want the lens, you can have it for $100. Otherwise, you can get the whole kit for $525.00
- This topic was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
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@tjons, I upgraded a few steps to the Pentax K-5 IIs It’s just an incremental upgrade, but it improved the auto-focus accuracy in low-light, removed the anti-aliasing filter on the sensor, and several other small upgrades. So far, everything I’ve seen about it is better, and I’m very happy with it!
That said, since I want to sell my old one, I don’t want to put it down too much. 🙂 It’s still a very capable DSLR, and worlds better than my original T3 in terms of Image Quality and Dynamic Range. (And high ISO performance)
I did start out a little high on the price, so if anyone is really interested, you can make me an offer!
Attached is a sample of what my new camera combined with the 18-135 kit lens can do.
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So, what would you say is an equivalent Canon comparison? You said the K-5 was better than your T3; which Canon would you say is comparable? Also, in terms of durability, is it equivalent to Canon’s xxD series?
Good question, @JamesStaddon! I haven’t really thought hard about it, but I think probably the Canon 70D would be the closest. A snapsort comparison shows that they’re pretty close. You have to bear in mind though, that the K-5 is 2 years older, so it’s all the more amazing that it can keep up with the 70D! Of course there are pros and cons for both sides. If you’re wanting to shoot video, the 70D is a no-brainer. Pentax isn’t known for video, they “focus” on photos, (which is how it should be, if you want a video camera, buy a video camera, not an SLR!)
I have previously compared the K-5 to your current camera, the 5D Mk II. Again, it’s not really a fair comparison, the 5D Mk II is full-frame, but it’s also 3 years older than the K-5. The K-5 wins that round also.
Next, I compared it to Canon’s “latest and greatest” announced only a little over 6 months ago, the 7D Mk II. The 7D II is an awesome camera, I was impressed! (Until I thought to compare it to the K-5) 🙂
However, the K-5 finally met it’s match in the Canon 6D, another full frame camera that is one year newer than the K-5. If you go down through the list of advantages and disadvantages, it’s basically the same, as compared to the other Canon cameras. The K-5/K-5IIs comes close enough that I think I’ll keep my Pentax. 🙂 For one thing, it’s close to 1/2 the price…
As I said, I started out high, so if you’re interested, make me an offer!
Good stuff to know. The high-quality image resolution comes from the large pixel size. For a crop-sensor, at 23µm² it’s great (and it’s not really fair to compare it to full frame).
It looks like a camera that focus on the important stuff . . . image quality. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles, nor the lens selection as Canon or Nikon, but I’m very impressed.
I’ll let people how are looking for a new camera know about it!
Right, I was going to mention that you’ve got to take Snapsort comparisons with a few grains of salt. I’m not sure how Snapsort counted all the lenses that are compatible with a certain camera brand, but I can tell you that there are literally tons of lenses available for Pentax K mount DSLRs. I would guess that there are way more lenses for Pentax K mount, than there are for Canon EF mount.
Here’s the catch: Most of the tons of lenses will mount on your Pentax, but they’re likely older lenses that don’t autofocus, or in some cases, don’t even automatically control the aperture. This is not to reflect on the quality of the lenses, there are many extremely old and sharp K mount lenses, they just aren’t “modernized” to use autofocus etc. Pentax is the only camera manufacturer that I know of that has maintained such a complete backwards compatibility with older lenses. As a result, you can buy a 30-50 year old 50mm f1.7 lens for $30-$50. (Mine does have automatic aperture control, but no autofocus.) That particular lens is unbelievably sharp. Here’s a 100% crop from a picture I took recently.
Note that you can use the autofocus confirm for a sort of “psuedo-autofocus” with old lenses. Basically, you set the camera to back-button focusing, then when you want to “auto-focus” you hit the AF button and turn the focus ring till you see the AF point in the viewfinder light up. It “confirms” when you get it in focus.
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P.S. I should mention that in keeping with Pentax’s tradition of backwards-compatibility, they offer in-camera stabilization! You can take a 100 year old lens, (if there is one that old), and use it with your 2015 Pentax K-S2, and you get 3-4 effective stops of stabilization. The big advantage to “in-camera stabilization” is that the lens can be made smaller, lighter, and cheaper. The only dis-advantage that I can think of, is when you’re using long telephoto lenses, such as the 80-320, or the Sigma 120-400. When shooting at such long focal lengths, it becomes nearly impossible to hold it still, and since the stabilization is sensor-shift, it only kicks in when you actually “take” the picture. The Canon IS lenses stabilize the image because it’s actually stabilizing by moving the lens elements, therefore, when you look through the viewfinder, the image is already stabilized. With sensor-shift stabilization, you get the same amount of stabilization, but it doesn’t apply until the picture is taken. I never realized how hard it was to hand hold a 300mm lens until I used one without IS / OS / VR.
Hi, @lystrup95!
The “F/#“ that the lens maker puts on the lens is to identify the widest aperture of the lens. For example, most cameras nowadays come with a pretty standard kit lens, an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 In this case, the widest aperture is variable, depending on the focal length (how much you’re zoomed in). At 18mm, the lens is “wide open” at f/3.5, and when zoomed in all the way to 55mm, it’s widest aperture is f/5.6, (which is really kind of “slow” [as photographers say].)
Another very popular lens is the 50mm f/1.8 lens. This is lens is referred to as “fast” since it opens up all the way to f/1.8 This makes the lens a good choice for use in low light, or if you want a very shallow depth-of-field.
My lens here is a 50mm f/2, which is very close to being the same as an f/1.8 If your lens is a 50mm f/4, then it is 2 stops “slower” than an f/2 lens. To put it another way, with my lens you could shoot “wide open” (at f/2) at ISO 100, but with your lens wide open (at f/4) you’ll have to bump your ISO to 400 to get an equivalent exposure.
Generally, the “faster” the lens, the more expensive it is. The Canon 50mm f/1.8 can be had for ~$110. The Canon 50mm f/1.4 can be had for ~$329, the Canon 50mm f/1.2 can be had for ~$1,400, and finally, the Canon 50mm f/1 can be had for “only” ~$5,000!
In order for light to reach the sensor of your camera, it has to pass through an opening in your lens. That opening is called an “aperture” and you have precise control over how large (wide) or small (narrow) that opening is.
The numbers are a way of measuring the opening. The smaller the number (f/2), the wider the opening. The larger the number (f/22), the narrower the opening.
When you go to buy a lens, and you see an “f/#” in it’s title, that number indicates the widest aperture possible with that lens.
Jimages goes into more detail here: https://jimaustin.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/lenses-what-does-1-8-or-1-4-mean/
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
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