Pentax K-r for band shots

[jdemoss99]

<p>A friend of mine has a son in highschool marching band and is looking for a slr she can buy from QVC to take pics with when her son is performing in the routines they do during half time of the games. some are at night under stadioum lighting and the others are during the mid day. now the set up she is looking at is the pentax K-r with the 18-55 and the 50-200 lens. would this be a good set up for her or does she need to look at a canon or nikon, sorry for saying that but just want to tell her the right thing</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>My opinion is that the KR is the perfect camera for her needs. Honestly the sensors and image quality of all brands today is excellent and normally far exceeds the skill of the users. She'll get pictures she'll be happy with from this camera.</p>

<p>As for the lens choices, I'd suggest a slight difference. The 18-55mm is a very good lens and for most uses in good light, will do fine and produce sharp images. In low light it may be wanting somewhat. From Canon, Nikon, Sony etc, this is fairly similar. All offer the same "Kit" style lens but the Pentax version is considered the best across all brands.<br>

If she has the budget, I'd opt for a fast (better in low light) f2.8 zoom. Maybe something like the Sigma or Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 lenses. Both are 3-4x the price but you get an even sharper lens that s better in low light. Unfortunately Pentax doesn't offer a similar fast zoom that competes in quality or price to either the Sigma or Tamron.</p>

<p>As for the longer lens, the 50-200mm lens is similar to the 18-55mm. It's a good lens but not great for low light shooting. Again this isn't a Pentax issue. It's market driven and they offer a product for a price that an average consumer can handle. Plus these lenses are much lighter than the heavier fast zooms. Most consumers would be unhappy with how heavy and large an f2.8 50-135mm or 70-200mm is.</p>

<p>So again if she has a bit more to spend, then the 55-300mm Pentax is a bit faster and sharper than the kit 50-200mm version. Since the 18-55mm will be used much more often, this is the only lens I'd consider upgrading at first purchase if funds are limited. Something like the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 XR Di will be much better for night shooting.</p>

[stemked]

<p>One thing that Peter didn't mention. Pentax bodies have built-in optical stabilization into the camera bodies, Canon and Nikon have it in their more expensive lenses. What this means is that you can get stabilization with a far less expensive lens and the lenses are lighter. IMHO it is one of the main advantages you can get out of the Pentax system (Sony/Minolta, I believe has done as Pentax).<br>

Where Canon and especially Nikon might have an advantage over Pentax shooting at night is their high ISO abilities. This is an area I'm not all that familiar with (so someone can correct me if I'm wrong) but Pentax users are generally comfortable shooting ISO 800-1600, beyond that the image gets grainy. I hear routinely Nikon shooters going well beyond this ISO 3200 and 64000 and possibly beyond. That said, under lights I wouldn't think one really needs to shoot much over ISO 800 anyway. Way back when I was at LSU I used at most ASA 400 films and they worked great for me.</p>

[michael_elenko]

<p>Jordan,<br>

I can mostly only reiterate Peter's smart advice. Since your friend is not shooting high speed sports, the K-r should serve her very well. The key requirements are how many night games will she be attending, and how close to the band will she be?</p>

<p>High school stadiums have a variety of lighting quality, from the dismal and dark to the bright enough for network television. The darker it is, the more she will need lenses with f2.8 openings. I would also expect her to shoot at 1600 ISO or even higher. If she can get close enough to the band on the field, then something like the Tamron zoom should work quite well. If she has the money, and will be close enough, then a Tamron or Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 would also work well. If her budget isn't there, or the lighting is pretty decent, then the recommendation for the Pentax 55-300mm would enable her to zoom in substantially more on her son playing.</p>

<p>Also, I would suggest she purchase a monopod to help stabilize the load of a telephoto--this is regardless of built in image stabilization--it's as much to give her arms a rest.</p>

<p>ME</p>

[michael_kuhne]

<p>Mid-day, no problem. Night lights, a different story. I recently used the K-r for some indoor stage lighting shots of a graduation ceremony. It was great! I had the K20D along, but the K-r shots were much better under such lighting. Better auto white balance too, by far.</p>

<p>The great thing about the K-r is its superior performance at higher ISO, which is like having a f/2.8 lens on the K20D, while actually using a less expensive slower lens. Since there was quite a distance involved for some of my shots, I used my (expensive) DA* 200mm f/2.8 lens, but mostly set at f/4.5 or f/5.6 because I wanted a bit more depth of field than f/2.8 would provide. As Peter recommends, I would also second the FA 55-300mm lens for her instead of the 50-200mm. It can maintain f/4.5 up to 200mm with good quality, then it has the extra 300mm reach if needed. She could shoot as low as say 1/60 sec with this lens hand-held, due to having SR. However, since marching bands are moving subjects at a moderate speed, she'd need a shutter speed of at least 1/125 sec bare minimum, but preferably 1/180 sec or better.</p>

<p>Artificial lighting is often tricky, with hot spots and shadowy spots, dark background changing to bright background as the subjects move around. One might do ok just shooting in auto program mode, but better to learn about lighting and metering, then shoot in manual mode.</p>

[andrewg_ny]

<blockquote>

<p><em>One thing that Peter didn't mention. Pentax bodies have built-in optical stabilization into the camera bodies, Canon and Nikon have it in their more expensive lenses. What this means is that you can get stabilization with a far less expensive lens and the lenses are lighter. IMHO it is one of the main advantages you can get out of the Pentax system (Sony/Minolta, I believe has done as Pentax).</em></p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>And Olympus as well. However, Nikon and Canon both offer VR (and IS, respectively) kit lenses so if these are the only lenses being purchased there's no real benefit.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p><em>Where Canon and especially Nikon might have an advantage over Pentax shooting at night is their high ISO abilities. This is an area I'm not all that familiar with (so someone can correct me if I'm wrong) but Pentax users are generally comfortable shooting ISO 800-1600, beyond that the image gets grainy. I hear routinely Nikon shooters going well beyond this ISO 3200 and 64000 and possibly beyond. </em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is not the case. Pentax K-5 uses similar Sony sensors as Nikon D7000 and D5100 (~16mp) and K-r uses similar sensor as Nikon D90 and D5100 (~12mp). Pentax does a good job with these sensors, competitive with Nikon. If anything, these are probably slightly superior to Canon's current sensors.</p>

<p>So no reason not to go with Pentax for this planned use...the 50-200/4-5.6 is decent enough but the 55-300/4-5.8 is probably preferable unless portability is the prime concern (the 55-300 is pretty compact for a lens that goes to 300mm but is definitely bulkier than the 50-200).</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>Agreed Andrew. Since I shoot both brands, I can safely say that the new Pentax's can easily match the comparable Nikons at higher ISO's.</p>

[stemked]

<p>Nice to hear that I stand corrected!</p>