No excuses from them this time...
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk5/
Does seem a change in tone. The conclusion has it usual odd nit picks, but they also try to balance that by mentioning other advantages of the system (Eg. small primes; price will fall, etc)
"The Final Word
It is hard to find a negative thing to say about the Pentax K-5. Most of our criticisms are very minor, and as a consequence we would wholeheartedly recommend the camera to any Pentax user. It is an interesting camera, with an excellent feature set, and one which is capable of producing images which are up there with the best of its competition. It is fast, responsive, and very enjoyable to use, and its key systems are as reliable as we would expect from a camera at this level and price point.
Speaking of price point though, the K-5 is a very expensive camera right now, and although we consider that it is good value from a Pentax-users perspective, there is no doubt that such a high asking price (currently around $300 higher than the Nikon D7000, which has a similar sensor and boasts a significantly more versatile AF system) will put some people off. It should be noted though that the prices of the K20D and K-7 also started high but soon dropped - the K-5 will almost certainly come down in price in the coming months.
The K-5 is a no-brainer upgrade from a K-x or earlier Pentax DSLR, but obviously, for users of other systems it is harder to justify, and price is only part of the reason for that. Importantly, Pentax has some way to go before it can market a system as complete as those offered by Canon and Nikon. That's not to say that the system itself is at all restrictive, and in some ways (most notably the lovely 'Limited' range of high-quality prime lenses) it's unique. One other thing that we love about the Pentax system is that it is so backwards-compatible; there is a lot of fun to be had in mounting older, manual focus optics on the K-5, both for still and video capture.
Ultimately, we have no hesitation in recommending the Pentax K-5 to anyone - not only existing Pentax users, and despite its high cost (for the moment- we expect it to drop once the K-7 leaves dealers' shelves) it earns a solid gold award. A note on categories though - the K-5 is a hard product to categorise. Although it competes with the Nikon D7000 and even the Canon EOS 60D in some respects, it's introductory price clearly indicates that Pentax wants the K-5 to be viewed alongside the likes of the Nikon D300S and Canon EOS 7D. For this reason we have classified the K-5 as a semi-pro model (as we did the K-7), and scored it accordingly."
As usual, don't just take the conclusion of the review. Look through the sample picts there and on other sites for your own conclusion.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk5/
Does seem a change in tone. The conclusion has it usual odd nit picks, but they also try to balance that by mentioning other advantages of the system (Eg. small primes; price will fall, etc)
"The Final Word
It is hard to find a negative thing to say about the Pentax K-5. Most of our criticisms are very minor, and as a consequence we would wholeheartedly recommend the camera to any Pentax user. It is an interesting camera, with an excellent feature set, and one which is capable of producing images which are up there with the best of its competition. It is fast, responsive, and very enjoyable to use, and its key systems are as reliable as we would expect from a camera at this level and price point.
Speaking of price point though, the K-5 is a very expensive camera right now, and although we consider that it is good value from a Pentax-users perspective, there is no doubt that such a high asking price (currently around $300 higher than the Nikon D7000, which has a similar sensor and boasts a significantly more versatile AF system) will put some people off. It should be noted though that the prices of the K20D and K-7 also started high but soon dropped - the K-5 will almost certainly come down in price in the coming months.
The K-5 is a no-brainer upgrade from a K-x or earlier Pentax DSLR, but obviously, for users of other systems it is harder to justify, and price is only part of the reason for that. Importantly, Pentax has some way to go before it can market a system as complete as those offered by Canon and Nikon. That's not to say that the system itself is at all restrictive, and in some ways (most notably the lovely 'Limited' range of high-quality prime lenses) it's unique. One other thing that we love about the Pentax system is that it is so backwards-compatible; there is a lot of fun to be had in mounting older, manual focus optics on the K-5, both for still and video capture.
Ultimately, we have no hesitation in recommending the Pentax K-5 to anyone - not only existing Pentax users, and despite its high cost (for the moment- we expect it to drop once the K-7 leaves dealers' shelves) it earns a solid gold award. A note on categories though - the K-5 is a hard product to categorise. Although it competes with the Nikon D7000 and even the Canon EOS 60D in some respects, it's introductory price clearly indicates that Pentax wants the K-5 to be viewed alongside the likes of the Nikon D300S and Canon EOS 7D. For this reason we have classified the K-5 as a semi-pro model (as we did the K-7), and scored it accordingly."
As usual, don't just take the conclusion of the review. Look through the sample picts there and on other sites for your own conclusion.
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