--- "Gaurav Aggarwal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: << Coming out of the lurking mode, I would like to get your views/opinion on K100D vs. Canon Rebel XT >>
Personally I would much rather have a K100D. I am not at all fond of the XT; it is a plasticky, cheaply-built camera with awful (IMHO) ergonomics. Image quality is very good, but so is the K100D's. The K100D is better built, smaller, better ergonomics, better viewfinder, etc. The only real advantage of the XT that I can see is that it is faster (though no camera in this class is REALLY fast), and also if it matters to you there are some Canon lenses that don't have equivalents in the Pentax system (e.g. tilt/shift lenses). Unless speed matters or you need one of those "specialty" lenses, I would say the Pentax is a much better choice - it is less expensive and better in many respects. << And how would you compare the kit lens of the two? >> I don't think either one is going to be too great, but the Canon kit lens has an AWFUL reputation. Cheap Canon lenses are generally not very good - in the Canon system you have to go to pretty expensive stuff to get good optical quality. << The canon kit can be upgraded to 17-85mm which is supposedly quite good. What would be a similar upgrade on the Pentax? >> I'm afraid the Canon 17-85mm also has a reputation as a bit of a dog. For about the same price you should be able to get the Canon 17-40mm f/4L which is a much, much better lens (I have one on my 20D). The Pentax equivalent would be the 16-45mm f/4 which is also supposed to be excellent. Of course the Canon 17-40mm doesn't have image stabilization which the 17-85mm does. But the K100D's in-body shake reduction means you don't have to pay extra for stabilized lenses! The Pentax 16-45mm costs about half the price of the Canon 17-40mm - this gives you an idea how much less expensive Pentax lenses are on average. Good Canon glass is NOT cheap. The stabilization is the only reason to buy the 17-85mm - I certainly wouldn't choose it for its optical quality. In the Canon system I would really only consider the 17-40mm; if it's too expensive for you, you might want to look at third-party alternatives like the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. I'd also suggest that if you haven't, you might want to look at Nikon. The D50 or D70s with the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 is another very nice combination (but no image stabilization). I prefer Pentax for the in-body shake reduction but otherwise the Nikons are very nice cameras. They have much better build quality and ergonomics than the Rebel. Aside from the SR, I'd say the D70s is probably the nicest D-SLR in its class and is now substantially less expensive with the announcement of the upcoming D80 (10 MP). New Doug (Canon user switching to Pentax) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
