💾 Archived View for gem.kirigiri.me › gemlog › 2023-10-15.gmi captured on 2023-11-14 at 07:49:54. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-11-04)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
My second DSLR ever was a Pentax K20D. With a state of the art (for 2008) 14.6 megapixel Samsung APS-C sized image sensor, in-body shake reduction and a bunch of other bits and pieces that included being weather sealed, it was really good in almost every way except for three things: its weight, the 'crippled' KAF2 mount and the autofocus.
Its weight honestly wasn't the *biggest* issue. With the kit lens and a battery it weighed around 800 grams. A bit hefty but not awful, though with the old neck strap from my now out-of-use EOS 3000N it was a little bit of a stretch. It was a bit of a strain on my neck when I took it out for a test run for the first time.
Its kit lens seemed fine. It was a SMC Pentax-DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL, which uses the KAF mount. However, older lenses which are not KAF or KAF2 are 'crippled', so to speak. Pre-KAF2, Pentax K mount cameras had a mechanical link for aperture control. The K20D lacks the body-side lever. This breaks the link and makes using older, pre-KAF (e.g. KA) lenses much more irritating, as it outright disables the TTL light meter without using the 'Green Button', which automatically sets shutter speed and aperture for you. Takes the fun out of using an SLR in manual.
Finally, the autofocus... it struggled. It was a complaint when it was reviewed in 2008 and it's definitely a complaint now. It was an issue in all kinds of scenarios, mainly plant-based stuff, but also buildings and other bits. Pentax continues to still not have Canon / Nikon style perfect autofocus to this day with their newest K-3 Mark III from 2021, but it has improved drastically. Unfortunately, for all intents and purposes, I was living in 2008 with the K20D, and it was just not good enough. Therefore, the K20D had to go.
I owned it for about four months, and it left the house exactly once. A waste of £90.
Since I was already invested into Nikon's F-mount it made sense to stop pretending using different systems for 35mm film and digital was a good idea. Therefore, it also made sense to divest all of my Pentax KAF / KAF2 equipment.
The Nikon D90 is a 'prosumer' / enthusiast class digital SLR which was produced from 2008 to 2010. Its direct successor was the D7000, which I would have chosen instead if I had the money to afford it. The D90 has a 12.3 megapixel Nikon DX format image sensor (their term for APS-C), a downgrade compared to the K20D. It is however smaller and lighter than the K20D, weighing about 703 grams with a battery. This is probably partly due to the fact that the D90 lacks in-body VR (vibration reduction), as Nikon preferred to add it to the lenses themselves.
Unlike Pentax, Nikon did not in fact screw over buyers and kept the mechanical aperture linkage. You can use lenses that are much older than the D90, such as AI or AI-S. Pre-AI lenses that have not been converted to conform to the AI spec will most likely cause mechanical damage to the body. These however are lenses manufactured pre-1977. It's not too likely you'll be using these, and if you are you've probably modified them to be AI-ified anyway.
As soon as I took it out to the garden to test on plants I saw an immediate improvement in the autofocus. In fact, it was so good it was focusing on the plant in front of the houses nearby! So that made me very happy. Colours were good and Nikon added presets to change them, like vivid and monochrome. Unlike the vivid on my Lumix bridge, it's a bit more subtle, and is generally not bad at all. Monochrome was also pretty good.
As usual for a more consumer-focused camera from the late 2000s, the D90 takes SDHC cards instead of something like CompactFlash. This is a big bonus for me as SD cards are way more readily available and most importantly much cheaper than CompactFlash. I just used the SanDisk Extreme 16GB card I've been using for years with my Lumix bridge and the K20D and it works fine.
The K20D didn't really have too many first party accessories, aside from a battery grip which seems to be nigh on unobtanium. When you do find them, they are very expensive and cost more than the body is worth itself. They are not worth the price. I think the only good thing about it is that it used an extra port on the bottom of the camera with special contacts to let you also use the battery already inside the body along with the extras in the grip.
The D90 has a bunch more first party stuff. From right-angle viewfinder adapters to enable usage at near the waist level to a GPS module for geotagging, Nikon made a lot of stuff. The vertical battery grip (Nikon part # MB-D80) is actually obtainable, and can be had for around £50 on eBay. It is compatible with several Speedlight flash models (Nikon quote the SB-700, 500 and 400 in the manual) and the GP-1 external GPS module can be used for geotagging. Unfortunately, the latter is not cheap and often sells for £100+ with the module and cable. The same goes for the SB-400, the best (in my opinion) hot shoe flash for the D90. Once again, unfortunately it is very expensive, and the only listing I could find on eBay at the time of writing was priced at £140 excluding shipping from Japan.
Overall, the D90 is a better buy than the K20D. Just... don't even think about buying the latter unless you absolutely are prepared to compensate for the imperfect autofocus and deal with the Green Button when using non-KAF lenses. This also goes for M42 lenses which can be attached using a ring adapter.
It was cheaper than the K20D to buy by a few pounds, has a way bigger lens family (from Nikon and others) and has way better AF and is lighter too. It's a bit of a no brainer if you're already invested in F mount.