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letsgorangers

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 10, 2006
458
0
TN
pentax_ist_dl-lg.jpg


has anyone had any experience with this camera? owned it, or at the very least, used it?

i am wanting a dslr, and this is very much in my budget. i know that most of you here probably have the nikon d50/70 or the canon 20d/30d, but unfortunately (ooops, well...only unfortunate in the sense that i'll be broke) i'm starting graduate school soon and definitely can not afford those. i have a canon ae-1 program (it's great!), so i'd love to have a canon dslr, but alas, not right now!

but this camera looks like a good starter dslr with a pretty good pricetag. so have any of you used it?
 

Abstract

macrumors Penryn
Dec 27, 2002
24,868
898
Location Location Location
I haven't used this camera, but I'm sure both Pentax and Olympus offer great cameras and really nice features for the price. They give you a lot for the price you pay for their cameras, so if you're on a budget, go with those. Even the 2 kit lenses that Olympus provides are supposed to get you some decent photos. :)

I'm sure the Pentax camera is fantastic, and quite frankly, I can say the same thing about all the budget DSLRs. You don't need to get a Canon or Nikon to get good photos. You're the one holding and controlling the camera anyway, so if you take a bad photo, it's likely your fault. ;)
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
16,120
2,388
Lard
Talk to kwajo.com, he's our resident Pentax addict. :)

The *ist line is quite capable though I've not used one. I sold a lot of Pentax cameras (ME Super and Auto 110!) when the brand was quite popular, along with fewer Canon AE-1s, Nikon and a lot of Fuji, Minolta, and Olympus cameras.

For the money, it's a lot more camera than practically anything else available. Canon and Nikon can't match it.
 

MacSA

macrumors 68000
Jun 4, 2003
1,803
5
UK
Pentax K100D and K110D coming soon.

Pentax are releasing the K100/110D in a couple of weeks at very competitive prices. The K100D has built in shake reduction.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0605/06052205pentaxk100d.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Pentax/pentax_k100d.asp

I believe the K110D is identical except for built in image stabilisation.

Some image samples from a Japanese website, scroll down to find them:

http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/review/2006/07/03/4120.html
http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/longterm/2006/07/21/4253.html
 

ekenny

macrumors regular
May 28, 2005
178
0
New York
I actually just bought this camera last week. Im waiting for it to arrive from amazon.com. Got it with the kit lens (18-50mm) and also picked up the 50-200mm off ebay for under $200. Ive read some pretty good things about it, so hopefully it will be a great camera.
 
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