Ok, so this one actually has to do with a digital camera. I thought I'd ask here rather than the "what camera do I buy thread?" because I figured I'd get better answers.

Today I got it into my head that I'd sell my Canon 30D and all its accessories for a Pentax K20D. I know. Pretty crazy, right? Thing is, I rarely shoot digital anymore. The only time I use it is when draining and drains tends to require wide angle lenses. The widest lens I have now is a 24mm which is fairly sharp, but doesn't always cut it when I want to be able to shoot certain features. I'd gladly purchase a wider lens, but I haven't exactly been bowled over by any of the options out there. At least none of the ones I can afford at this point.

So I started to look at what other systems could offer which brought me to Pentax which accepts older lenses and seems to have far more options in terms of wide angle primes and zooms. I'm assuming that one or two of these are of decent enough quality for what I want to do.

I've read through the review on dpreview and everything looks decent enough. I just don't know how well it's going to hold up with exposures which generally last anywhere between thirty seconds to a minute at 100 ISO.

Just wondering if anyone here has any experience with either this model or the K10D. Or are there any other systems that I should be looking into that aren't Canon? I haven't bothered looking into Nikon, mostly because I don't want to end up having to spend more money than whatever I end up getting for the gear I have now. I'm basically looking for a budget system that will give me the best results for this one particular type of photography.

You are in the wrong forum.

I recall that Lord Awesome uses a K10D.

*reconsidering*

How wide are you thinking? I believe Pentax only makes a 28mm, and there is a 24mm Zeiss (or voigtlander.. I forget). I haven't heard of ultrawide Pentax lenses, but I they might be out there.

Let's say around 12-16mm at the widest end. There are actually a whole lot of options for WA's made by Pentax, not even including any of the older manual ones.

I guess I could have just looked at Pentax's website. I stand corrected.

I have Super-Takumar and SMC Takumar lens for screwmount pentax film camera body, range from 20mm to 500mm. They gave me a very nice moment when using film, very nice for B&W. Since I made the switch to Canon, 20D and now a 40D even if I can use all my old lens with an adaptor, it is just annoying and the sharpness is not always as up I could hope. I get much better result with my 70-300 IS than with my takumar 200f4 300f4 and 500f4.5, for 15 pounds less to carry. My 10-22 canon, I could not live without it.

Yes old lens are nice but not that nice on 2008 body. My opinion: your 30D is a better value than the pentax 20D.

I have a K10D and had a friend switch to the K10D from a 20D after playing with the raw files for a while, he liked the output a lot more. It holds up very well under long exposures, you'll need a cable release for longer than 30s I believe. 30 second exposures on the 10D at ISO 100 are essentially noise-free, even with dark frame subtraction turned off, but I think all modern cameras are capable of this.

Another thing that can come in handy for low light photography is that you can do in-camera multiple exposures of up to 9 exposures on the same frame, and output to a single RAW.

Pentax also has a 1.5x crop factor as opposed to the 1.6x of Canon, but that's not really too noticeable.

Posted by SPEK Photo Yes old lens are nice but not that nice on 2008 body. My opinion: your 30D is a better value than the pentax 20D.

Yeah, I think I'd just stick to the newer lenses except maybe an older fisheye. As for my 30D, it's starting to show its age a little. I'm not the type who feels the need to have the latest technology, but it would be nice to get a camera with a (slightly) larger sensor.

Another thing that can come in handy for low light photography is that you can do in-camera multiple exposures of up to 9 exposures on the same frame, and output to a single RAW.

Cool. I didn't know about that one.

Posted by micro Cool. I didn't know about that one.

Yeah, it wasn't really one of the selling features for me but I've had fun playing with it. This was a double exposure done in-camera at an outdoor bar in Florida:



Edit: I believe this was ISO 1600

Why don't you keep the canon and if you want wide and cheap get the 10-22 or the tokina or sigma equivalent. These can be picked up used for not to much money.

^Yeah, what he said. Grab a Tokina 12-24, or one of the 83 Sigma ultra-wide zoom variations out there. You can probably find a decent ultra-wide used for $400 or less, just sell the 24mm to help fund it. A K20D will get you a sensor roughly 2mm bigger than what you have now (1.6x to 1.5x crop upgrade), and leave you with a limited system that has nowhere near the support or r&d investment of either Canon or Nikon. Not much point in switching for that small of a sensor size increase, and the Canon cmos sensors are some of the best when it comes to low noise during long exposures.

The larger sensor is more or less just gravy, but going from 8.2 to 14.6 MP does translate into a few more inches in terms of print size and wiggle room for crops.

I'll look at the options for Canon lenses more carefully though. The only one I've ever considered was the EF-S 10-22mm, but it's always been out of my price range. The 12-24mm for the Pentax is about the $200 less and seems to be the better lens of the two.

Anyways.. thanks for the feedback. Obviously I have a bit more thinking to do with this one.

The Zenitar 16mm fisheye is excellent if you get a good copy. Or you can fix a bad one in 20 minutes. Most are m42, but mine came in k-mount. Also very cheap. There's also the... Mir 20m I think. 20mm rectilinear that's supposed to be good and real cheap too.