Have you ever used the Canon t1i Rebel or Pentax K-x?

Question

I'm leaning towards the pentax k-x. It does a multi-exposure and has lots of built in editing features. These aren't necessary to me though as I have Photoshop Elements 8 on my computer.
I'm looking for something that will let me expose an image for 30 seconds at the longest, but even longer is good too (light painting). I'm not really sure what the minimum would be. I won't be in extremely sunny conditions, but I would obviously want to be able to use it on a bright sunny day.

I won't be doing action photography, and I don't think I'll be doing any extreme close ups. (eg this http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/28/2881/D47PD00Z.jpg) but I'd like to have the ability to purchase a lens that can. I'll mostly be doing portrait type images and landscapes with some other stuff thrown in occasionally.
I don't care about colour. I like black and both cameras are available in it.
I'm a bit of a newcomer to photography, and I heard the Pentax is good because it has automatic settings so you can use the camera before you've learnt all the advanced things. I'm guessing the canon has auto settings too though.
What is your experience with either? What do you recommend?

Answer 1

Go for the Pentax.



If you need extra lenses, Pentax have had the same lens mount for about 35 years, so prime lenses are in abundance, and as the K-x has IS built into the body, the old lenses will still work AND have the IS also.



Pentax also has a superior dynamic range, and if you shoot in RAW, you will be able to take advantage of it and your pictures will be far superior.



With the K-x, you also have the ability to shoot in RAW-DNG, which is Adobe's raw file, so it will be ideal if you have an older version of PS and cannot download the latest versions of camera raw.

My friend has CS3 and cannot use her Canon because she cannot use the the raw file.



http://www.redbubble.com/groups/pentax

Answer 2

Everything is a depends question. Most photographers would pick the system with the lens that they need. Beginners generally don't need to think about it too much specially with the cameras you have listed. There is pretty much three reasons to get the XS. It's dirt cheap these days. Another is if you want to use Canon lenses. And it has the most support from third party vendors. Otherwise, it's older, the back LCD screen is noticeably smaller(compared to the other two), no video, though it does have rudimentary live view. The D3000 is a little more complicated. Nikon's entry level cameras are bastardized in that they don't have auto focus motors built in. This means that there are a lot of older AF lenses that won't auto focus with this camera. If you are only going to be using the kit lenses or buy only modern lenses then this isn't a problem. Image quality is pretty much on par with the XS. Unless you are specifically looking for it, you wouldn't really notice. No video. No live view (useful to have). Has great support from third party vendors (but ever so slightly less than Canon). Has some higher end features such as greater number of auto focus points (same amount as the K-x). As for the Pentax, for high ISO photos (think low light, no flash photography), there is no question. Pentax K-x is much better. It's better than it's peers when it came out, let alone older tech like the XS. So cleaner photos when taking noise and detail into account. It has live view and 720p video. Has a fair bit of higher end camera features like the 11 autofocus points and much faster continuous shooting (4.7 fps in RAW/jpeg vs 3 fps in jpeg for XS and D3000). Pentax also enjoys probably the greatest amount of support for legacy lenses. All lenses built for Pentax lenses from as early as 1975 will mount and work on any Pentax DSLR's. Albeit a lot of the legacy lenses were manual everything lenses. Has won many awards for the best entry-level camera for being easy to use, physically very small, lots of higher-end features (for its class) and great photo quality. As far as I'm concerned, the K-x is the best choice. The only reason you would not want to go Pentax is because it's Pentax. Not nearly as known these days as Nikon or Canon (different scenario in past times). This also means quite a bit less support from third party vendors. This shouldn't cause any problems because all major third party vendors do support Pentax. Even with all that said, ultimately, it really doesn't matter too much as ALL three cameras are great cameras and can take wonderful photos. If I can afford it, I'll go K-x, if budget is a real concern, I'll go XS yet I do like the D3000 ever so slightly over the XS. Lol, confusing. Before making a choice, go play around with all three cameras. Pick the one that fits your needs and almost as important, the one that feels best in your hands.

Answer 3

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