Goodbye Pentax
A most difficult lesson in photography…letting go of your beloved brand.
The words are hard to come by to write this blog, several weeks in the making. Not my first attempt to understand this decision, to wonder if it would become a future regret, just looking at how many beautiful pictures have come out of my Pentax cameras over the past years. Indeed, it is a difficult decision to follow through.
Pentax colors. Did I dare say more?
In previous blogs I have gone over the many reasons I love Pentax as a brand, their cameras and lenses. I cannot take those words back, but something has changed, some of the fascination have ceded to real concerns about the gear, the brand and its direction moving forward. Years ago, as a novice photographer, I jumped to a first Pentax K30 from my Nikon D3200. This K30 was not a great camera, it had a horrible aperture ring issue, but the feel of it, the ergonomics, were miles apart to my D3200, which felt plasticky and toy like. Sold that K30 and bought a K5 and a renewed interest came forth. I was in love.
Fast forward until today, and I see myself counting the many issues encountered with my current K-5iis. Keep in mind that currently I own mostly Fuji gear, but at times I felt empty without a Pentax camera. Having owned two K-5's, a KP, a K-3, and now the K-5iis, I am revisiting those feelings looking for a reason to stick with the Pentax brand regardless of my concerns. Let me go through them, one by one.
First, my worries about the brand. To me, Pentax was a brand of great value at budget prices, and being a hobbyist, married, a father of two, it meant that other priorities came first, but being able to find low prices on the used market for Pentax gear allowed me to experience the learning process of photography at a faster pace. But now that my needs and wants have evolved, I find Pentax, as a brand, too slow to adopt features us customers ask for, and at a higher price tag than before. Like the perfect combo meal, my ideal combo would have been a full frame Pentax camera with the size and weight of a K3, with a tiltable LCD similar to the K1, with reliable AF to hit the eye, and GPS included inside the camera. Too much to ask for?
Instead, the only choice that could meet some of that criteria is the K-1, but that would be an expensive proposition with a limited number of lenses. When comparing the used market for Canon and Nikon full frame cameras, the ample choice of quality lenses, and proven capabilities for great image quality at competing prices, you could only wonder what's stopping you to jump ship.
Adding to this concern about the brand, there exists another difficult situation, and it has to be with the resale value. I live in Panama, Central America. I count, but a few Pentax users in this country, so the brand is unknown, no store carry Pentax cameras or lenses, and technical support is non-existent. When I say I love Pentax, and when I say I own Pentax, I mean it, despite all these difficulties, I have come to appreciate the brand and the products.
A red temperature icon on the upper left of the LCD.
Another concern has to do with the ruggedness of the cameras and its lenses. Holding in your hands any Pentax camera feels like you are holding a proper camera, a hefty camera, heavy but sturdy, that can withstand the elements, and it does…. up to an extent. Lately, my current K-5iis and a previous K-5 met their match in the weather sealing department: humidity. I wrote a blog about that situation some time ago, and I thought it was a fluke event, related more to the lens than to the camera, but a couple of weeks ago, I decided to walk the trail of one of our national parks for some picture taking, indeed it was a cloudy day, humid under the thickness of trees, and at several points, trying to use the LCD to ease my focusing technique, the camera would overheat. Not that I had the mirror locked up for too long a time, just the minutes it took me to get a proper picture the overheat sign would show, and it happened several times under the lapse of one hour, the camera hanging up, forcing me to shut it down, removing the battery, and wait a few minutes, to turn it back up. I took the picture to my left to make sure I have proof of this situation.
This last issue gave me a lot of concerns. Pentax being able to withstand any weather had been a key point in promoting its use, but lately I have concluded that regular old cameras, such as the Fujifilm X-T1 have tackled similar conditions, including humidity, without much fanfare, but true effectiveness. The past few months I have had the opportunity to photograph my kid's football season using the Fuji X-T2 and the XF 50-140mm 2.8, and I have to admit it, many games were played under inclement rain, and it worried me my camera would not be able to handle it. Well, it did, and the camera and lens kept working fine. I have taken the old Xpro1 to my hiking walks in the national park, not a problem, nothing to worry about, nil. So, this is my dilemma: when one camera brand as Fuji (and their crop sensor models) can deliver results in areas where Pentax cannot, then why further invest in Pentax? If I can take a lighter X-T1 to places where my heavier K-5iis would not work, then what's the incentive? And what if this fault repeats with other Pentax models? Unfortunately, the economics do not favor Pentax in this regard.
The joy of Pentax ergonomics
And the last point I struggle with has to do about affordable lens quality from Pentax or third party options on the used market. Throughout my early years in learning photography, I invested in Pentax, both camera and lenses, and thought the quality of images were second to none. But when I starting using Fujifilm cameras and lenses, the level of quality and detail in the images were much better compared to those from my Pentax limited lens collection. And prices for both brands in the used market were very similar. I do no think Pentax lenses has lesses image quality, but I have to say that there could be more frequent cases of manufacturing issues around these lenses that at times made images look soft or lacking in micro-contrast compared to my experiences buying used Fuji gear.
I love Pentax. I want to keep using Pentax and produce images close to my heart, but I have been hurt lately, despite my best efforts to justify using this camera brand. Simple things like trying to lock focus on my son's eye, or the proper calculation of auto white balance, or the annoyance of causing the camera to freeze when using a shutter release cable, and many others, coupled with the slow pace in which Pentax adopt changes, or the recent increases in prices, yes I could go on, but the case is becoming obvious, the value proposition for owning a Pentax is not there anymore for people like me. I was aware of some of these problems when I decided a year ago to give Pentax another chance, now only a few things are holding me back to make this decision, the intangibles, the hard to explain reasons: the shutter sound, the feeling of carrying a Pentax in your hand, the process of taking a picture, the unpretentious colors, the GPS, and those letters on top of the camera that make people immediately approve of your expertise for owning a legendary brand name. Cannot replace those with other camera brands, not Fujifilm, not Nikon, not others. Pentax stands alone in this regard.
Perhaps I am not the only one going through these concerns about Pentax. Perhaps I am alone, and that's Ok. I'd probably regret, revisit this decision in the future. Even then, none of it surpass my biggest regret: not loving photography this much earlier in my life. I could always buy Pentax, i can't never buy time back.
Thanks Pentax, you helped me become better at photography. I shall keep my Pentax K1000, but as far as digital bodies are concerned I say my goodbye to Pentax.
