Amazon has a deal through the 31st–buy a digital camera with an Amazon card with no interest for 12 months. I figure on taking this opportunity to buy a camera I couldn’t otherwise afford and pay it off on time.
I’ve pretty much decided on this Pentax K-x, primarily because of the solid reviews and the fact it comes with two lenses.
I have a couple questions. It doesn’t seem as if it comes with a memory card. Any recommendations? I could also use a recommendation for UV filters.
Second, this comment was in one of the reviews, and I have no idea what it means. What’s firmware and how does one update it?
If your worried about battery issues, don’t be. Just update the FIRMWARE (very easy to do) and get two sets of good quality 2300mah or better batteries and you’re good for a long hike in the mountains.
The big thing to consider when purchasing an SLR (digital or film) is the line of lenses, not just the lenses included with the body. A good lens will outlast the body and if you continue with photography as a hobby it would be useful if the next camera body you purchase is compatible with the set of lenses you already own. I have no idea what the backwards compatibility is with Pentax lenses, but I would definitely research it before purchasing the camera that you’re considering.
Along with backwards compatibility, just look at the other lenses that would fit the body you’re looking at. Are they in your price range? Can you find decent quality photo samples taken with them? Photos do depend mostly on the person behind the lens, but a low quality lens can affect the final product.
Pentax has extremely strong backwards compatibility, one of the strongest of any camera maker. Some modern camera features won’t work with old lenses, of course, but you can take pictures.
As for Pentax, I wouldn’t go back as far as trying to use the old “screw mount,” but any of the K mount lenses will work. Certainly any of the AF lenses from the past decade or so will work seamlessly.
Don’t spend a lot on a premium UV filter; it’s not worth it.
Canon T2i. Does everything (1080 video) and has a huge line of lenses. Versatile and in a good price range. Probably more expensive than Pentax though.
Memory cards aren’t a big deal, you can get 8G cards for $20, all you need is Class 6. Brands IMO don’t matter much. These days I’m using Transcend Class 6 cards, but only because they were on sale when I was buying.
The 2 lenses that come with the Pentax are OK, not great, kit lenses. If you decide to pursue photography as a more serious pasttime you will end up buying more expensive glass, particularly some prime lenses and some faster glass. It’s not a bad package, but as others have said you need to look a bit further down the road when buying a DSLR. You’re not buying a camera, you’re buying into a camera line.
In answer to your questions:
Updating firmware is a breeze. Simply download the update from the manufacturers site to either your computer or directly to a memory card if your PC has the appropriate connection.
If you downloaded to your PC, connect the camera with it’s cable and follow the directions. If you put it on a memory card, load the card into the camera and follow the directions.
Memory cards are so cheap now that you can almost use them as a storage medium.
General commentary:
I’m a Canon girl myself, but the bottom line right now is that all camera lines have decent bodies that will do more than most photographers need. Lenses are important and you’ll own your lenses far far longer than the camera body but you’ll never use either unless you’re comfortable shooting it. Make sure it feels good in your hand, that you can reach all the important controls and spend $20 on a guide book that will walk you through the important features and settings. Nothing worse than spending several hundred dollars on a DSLR that you treat like a $99 point 'n shoot.
Don’t expect too much from the kit lenses. The 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 is pretty much an outdoor lens if you don’t like using flash. The 55-300mm f/4-5.8 is a bit overpowered for a telephoto on that camera; I have a Canon 70-300 IS USM, and with APS-C crop factor it’s a goddamn telescope, equivalent to 112-480mm. You’ll probably have big fun shooting with those lenses, but you will outgrow them.
Thanks for all replies kind Dopers. Yeah, this is a starter kit kind of camera, and I’m cool with that.
My next question is: what kind of memory card should I buy? How big, what brand, do some have different capabilities than others? That kind of stuff. Thanks a lot.
SDHC goes from 4gb to 32gb. I recommend that you have at least 2 memory cards whatever capacity you decide you need.
I wouldn’t go smaller than 8g per card, just because the price is so low right that it doesn’t make sense to be swapping cards if you don’t have to. If you can afford it 16g is still a pretty good deal. Right now 32g is a bigger step up in price/g than the other options.
Keep in mind that even a 4gb card holds several hundred pictures. On my 10mp SLR, I can get about 923 pictures on a 8GB card shooting RAW, or about 2770 shooting JPEG. Unless you’re going to be away from a computer an extended period (days or weeks), that’s an insane amount of storage. When I’m on a shooting trip, I might maybe take 300 RAW pix a day, maybe, so I’d have 3 days of storage, plus a backup card just in case. And I travel with a laptop and download pictures daily to it, so even that amount of storage is overkill for me.
And as I said early, IMO brands don’t matter much. Just get a Class 6 SDHC card from a legit retailer (I use newegg.com) and you’ll be fine. Buy two in case you ever have an issue with one (it happens, even to the best of cards). If you ever have a problem with a card being read or written to, pull it from the camera and stop using it until you get a chance to run image recovery software. If you keep on using it you may actually lose data.
My 16GB card is reportedly able to hold 648 photos on my T1i, RAW-only. I now have three or four cards (the rest are only 8GB), because I kept filling the danged things up while on vacation (and trust me, cards cost a lot more in the middle of the jungle and at tourist spots!). On the other hand, I eventually delete over 90% of my shots, lest my computer fill up.
Weird. The T1i is 15mp vs my 10mp, so the files should be 50% larger at best, which would translate to 1231 shots on a 16GB card. 16GB/648 = 23.5MB per still. Are your individual RAW files really 23MB each? I’d expect more in the range of 14MB per shot.
Weird. CR2 files from my XTi are around 10MB each. Okay then, 16GB cards for the OP are probably best. I’d bet the OP shoots in JPEG and gets some crazy number of stills, like 5000, on one of these cards. But, what the hell, they’re cheap, go for it.
But do back them up, for chrissakes. Some people keep months or years worth of photos on a card, and hit a corruption problem and lose everything. Download those things to your computer, and then back up the computer so you have the photos in more than one storage area.
That’s the speed of the memory card. With the price differences, there’s no point buying anything less than a Class 6 card, you can get an 8G card on newegg.com for around $20. I’d buy two so you have a backup.
Class 6 is the fastest, and a DSLR can take advantage of that speed. It’s important when shooting in burst mode.