Hello Josh, I am a part-timer shooting weddings and portraits for hire. Just shot a wedding yesterday on the *istD. Personally, I don't think a baby D is something that you would want for what you are talking about doing.
As to comparing the current *istD to a new 8mp one that may come out sometime (we are talking Pentax here), I would not rush out to dump my *istD body to get the new one. I already have in my plans, to get a second DSLR body. The way I plan to do that, is to wait for the next iteration of the *istD to come out and get that and keep my current *istD as the backup. Having moved from shooting 67II for weddings and portraits, I can tell you that by and large, the *istD does a good enough job. For that type of subject, 6mp is just fine. I personally can't see any reason to wait for a better camera to come out. If you are shooting weddings, you MUST have a backup of everything. So eventually, you'll want a second DSLR and you can do as I am planning. So you really wouldn't be out anything by getting and using the *istD now. Until that time, I use a film 35mm as backup - uses my same lenses and is relatively small to bring along. HTH, Bruce Saturday, February 21, 2004, 3:59:23 PM, you wrote: JG> Here's my situation. I am in the market for a dslr and the *ist-d is the JG> natural choice for me since I have a collection of pentax glass for my Pz-1p JG> and LX. I will be using this camera for JG> wedding/portrait/headshot work. I JG> have seen a rather consistent, albeit slow, price reduction in the *ist-d JG> since Christmas and I'm almost ready to buy it for a little less than $1200. JG> But with all of this talk about a baby *ist and an 8mp *ist, I'm starting to JG> wonder if I should hold off. With lots of speculation and no concrete JG> evidence of a higher mp *ist anywhere in the near future, do you think I JG> should just go for it? JG> If Pentax were to release a baby *ist, how much would it sell for? With the JG> Digital Rebel and D70 (soon) selling for $900-1000 and the *ist only a JG> couple hundred more, a baby *ist would have to sell for $800 for most people JG> to even consider it, I would think. JG> But I digress. I am really only interested in the *ist or a higher model JG> *ist. How long do you feel that a 6mp camera will remain viable in the JG> public (weddings/portrait) or small scale business (catalog) world? JG> Are there any professional photographers here that use the *ist? How long JG> do you feel that your *ist will remain your go-to camera? If an 8mp *ist JG> came out tomorrow, would you buy it and quickly relegate your *ist-d to the JG> "backup" JG> position? JG> Thanks, JG> Josh
