I'm in the market for a camera

[{OF}Eaglerapids]

Of course there is this camera:-):
Pentax | K10D SLR, Digital Camera (Camera Body) | 19091 | B&H
With the $100 rebate, it would be $599. I paid $950 for mine back in March or April.

Everyone here are Nikon/Canon shooters and these are the best selling brands by far. I made my decision to go with the K10D after a ton of research.
The negatives of Pentax:
1. Their marketing absolutely sucks. Nobody knows about them except for people who have been into their system since the film days.
2. Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina support the Pentax K-mount but not with every lens that they bring out for Nikon/Canon. This can be frustrating some times, more on this in a bit.
3. I'm not into using flash a whole lot yet but if you are into advanced flash photography, Pentax isn't anywhere near Nikon's flash system, I don't think. With the K10D and the K100D they did away with true TTL flash and went to their P-TTL system. Some shooters love their top of the line AF540FTZ(I think that's the correct designation) flash but there are a disturbing number of reports of problems with it, also.
4. If you're a professional action shooter, Pentax's AF system may disappoint you. I don't think their predictive, continuous AF is up to par with Canon and it's not as fast. Would you like a nice 70-210/2.8? Good luck finding one, it can be done but it will be used and you will get involved in a bidding war on Ebay for it.
5. They are ramping up but if you're into wildlife photography like I am, the availability of modern fast long glass will drive you up the wall right now. The DA* 300mm is in the roadmap but we don't know when we'll actually see it available. A 500mm f4 or even 5.6? Who knows......

Now that should be more than enough reasons to stay away from Pentax, they SUCK!
Except for a couple of minor things.
1. Their marketing sucks but their engineers, designers and most importantly, their philosophy, sure doesn't. My K10D works even with old Takumar screw mount lenses (with an adapter) made in the 50's all the way up to the new DA*50-135. Yes, I may have to stop down meter, but this works and works well. The point is, Pentax has kept thier mount compatible all the way down the line.
2. They opted for in camera shake reduction instead the systems used by Nikon and Canon where the SR is done in the lens. I can shoot a Preset Takumar lens made in '55 AND have shake reduction. I can buy a lens like this on the bay for maybe $30 or $40. Price a Nikon or Canon lens with their VR or whatever they call it. And you have to pay this price with each lens you buy from them.
3. Weather sealing on the K10D. For me this was huge. Price the cheapest Nikon or Canon w/weather sealing compared to the K10D.
4. Pentax has always been about glass. They made and still make some legendary glass. Their Limited and *(star) series are some of the best ever made. Heck, I'll put my FA 50/1.4 up against anything out there and my old SMC Takumar 50/1.4 is no slouch either and it was made in '64 or '65. Why do I still keep bringing these old dinosaurs up? Build quality. They are gems to use and work with. Smooooooth, all metal and glass construction and there is just something about the quality of the pictures they take. Or my M-50/1.7 that I bought for $40, awesome lens, K-mount, manual focusing and on the K10D you have to shoot in manual mode and use the green button for metering. I have no problem with this but if you want all automatic everything then go for something else, but the option is there.
5. With the K100D you have all the "scene" modes that you could want but the K10D doesn't have them at all. Thank you Pentax, I'll make those decisions myself. As a benefit, the room they take up can be used for more hard buttons so I don't have to drill through menus to change something.
6. On it's DEFAULT settings, the K10D's jpegs were criticized for being "soft". Thank you Pentax for not applying settings that you thought I would like, instead you gave me a default setting that I could then change to my liking. And then you get rapped for it. It's easy to change the in camera sharpening, contrast, saturation settings, real easy. I don't shoot jpegs anymore anyway. The K10D really shines shooting RAW and doing your own developing. I doubt I'll ever shoot jpegs in the camera again, there is just so much more dynamic range and white balance control shooting RAW, it really is incredible. The point here is, if you think your jpegs are soft it's easy to change the in camera settings.

There are many more advantages and disadvantages to the Pentax system, of course. Any of these camera's today deliver incredible pictures. I'm not knocking Nikons or Canons and I'm sure not going to get drawn into some kind of war over this subject. But there are other choices and I just wanted to outline the choice I made and why I made it, in case it may help anyone trying to decide on a system:-).

Gotta go, the eagles are around Lake Coeur d'Alene and I'm trying to get a good pic of one of them.

[{OF}Blong]

lol most of the time my pictures are taken of my family and it may be at home, someone elses home, outside at the dunes... wherever . I felt smiley's D50 and it seems like a really nice camara but a little expensive yet for me lol. thanks for your input eagle. It may be a while before I get one (couple months or more depending on what I do with my bonus check I am still undecided).