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Ethiopia, Addis Ababa
1 Level
503 Review
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Review on ๐Ÿ“ท Pentax K-5 II 16.3 MP DSLR Body Only (Black): Unparalleled Performance in an Old Model by Sarah Brown

Revainrating 5 out of 5

REVIEW for BUSINESS (online sales) and for personal use and COMPARISON with smartphone and BLACK APERTURE

Look, you've read all the other reviews. i am not her I'll give you other things to think about. Other things to consider. Sit back, read it slowly, and you might be glad you did. PENTAX EXPERIENCE: I've had Ist, KX, K30, K50, K-5, K-5ii LENSES: too many to list. Dating back to original Sears lenses (yes they work on those Pentax cameras!) USE I use this for business. Sale via the Internet. Initially I used the K-30 for business and the K-50 for personal use. I also have a K-50 for personal use. I bought it brand new in bright red and I still love it. But BLACK APERTURE's pervasive problem scares me. Will my K50 understand? I hope not. My K-30, which I use for business, did just that. (See Pentax Aperture Lawsuit) Once you get the awful Black Aperture, your camera will only work for a limited time. They have a repair where you send it and they fix it for $140 (about $140 after shipping) and they guarantee it. I didn't go that route. I can in future. didn't decide. I had to set my K-30 to shoot as fast as you hold the button (forget that term for now) and take about 50 shots in a light before the camera catches up to me. THEN it delivers decent photos. BUT THIS CAMERA BRINGS MY K-30 OUT OF THE WATER! You had to do this every time you took another series of shots as if some time had passed (10 minutes or more). It corrupts your SD card. You end up with an SD card filled with literally black or black images with a tiny speck of light (from any bright area). It's frustrating too. This camera is clear. It's crystal clear. They say K-5iis is clearer. I can't think of a sharper camera than this. It looks like you can crawl through the picture and touch this dandelion. I saw a YT reviewer and he said Pentax cameras generally have bad flash. I call BS. I took a picture with a Pentax DA 50-200mm lens standing in my shop with only one lamp on behind my head. I aimed the camera at a corner and there were several bags of golf clubs, but you could only faintly see a PING on the side of one of the bags. The corner was BLACK. There is no light at all. It took a few seconds for the camera to even focus on anything. Because again there was no light. It was a dark corner. The camera has obviously found something and focused. My eyes didn't see anything. A shot taken with a K-5ii camera flash looked like daylight! This camera is a BEAST in low light! My K30 just blows away in low light. I take a lot of photos at dusk. Not all of my buildings are well lit and this was a STRONG consideration. I made the right choice. I'm sick of the K-30 not wanting to register in darker areas, and this K-5ii doesn't suffer. I can shoot in any mode the camera has. I am not limited to automatic, but use it almost exclusively professionally. I've tested this K-5ii in both AV and TV and both are fun, but for business, speed is everything and full auto is the best choice. It works well in all modes including manual lenses. DSLR VS Cell Phone: (more of a swear word) There's a lot to consider. Do you really want to get bogged down in your phone memory? iPhones don't use maps. SLR cameras do. That's the main reason I choose a DSLR to sell online. I photograph A LOT! Sometimes hundreds of photos a day. I appreciate my new iPhone too much to litter it with photos of golf clubs and the like. I save it for family and unexpected photos. Sorry, you can talk so much about how good modern smartphone cameras are. I have one of the best. 11Promax. with 3 lenses, but this K-5 destroys my iPhone. It's like comparing a motorcycle to a Ferrari. One will take you there. The other gives amazing results. All of these Thayers show a person in front of a screen (street photography, portraits, etc.), but has it occurred to you that none of these guys have ever compared a shot of the end of US Main Street with a 250mm lens mount to that of Cinderella? Lock? Of course not! A cell phone can't do that. PERIOD. You can get it, but it's going to be wide-angle shot and it's going to be incredibly grainy. You can buy LensBabys, but you still won't get the same shot as you would with a real zoom lens. Sorry, I'm sick and tired of all the reviews saying "do you really need a DSLR" when the answer is "do you really need a Ferrari?" Your bike will take you there." Also MACRO. PLEASE DO NOT show me another iPhone and LENS KIT video. Okay man. That's what we have MACRO lenses for. If you want to compare them, do it right. Use 200mm prime MACRO in the full manual and compare it to the iPhone the pic from the iPhone will be funny again I LOVE my iPhone but let's be honest I mean I can take a picture of a mushroom with my iPhone it's quite impressive but a DSLR with the main macro highlighted there is no comparison BLACK APERTURE: If you are a Pentax fanatic and have invested in Pentax lenses but are afraid of that HUGE black aperture issue then THIS camera is for you Right one for you. The K-70 is already getting black bezel reviews. That's a problem. THIS is the best Pentax has to offer at a great price. I don't understand why more people aren't talking about this corps chen instead of focusing on the K-70. This K-5ii is much cheaper, probably takes better pictures and will NOT suffer from black bezel issues. This is a near-pristine camera at an amazing price and compared to the top 2 brands it pretty much destroys it. That's a full 100 out of 100. This is my new favorite. I intend to keep it forever. If anything in the review was helpful (like the fact that you could buy cheap old Sears lenses for fun. Often for as little as $20) then please hit the USEFUL button. There will be haters so PLEASE this review needs all the love it can get. I hope this helped someone. I really do.

Pros
  • Hands-free mode
Cons
  • Very expensive