The Legendary Pentax K-5iis

42 thoughts on “The Legendary Pentax K-5iis”

• Whole slew of Pentax videos coming to the channel in the next month. Cool stuff. Stay tuned. 👍

  -james

• I was told the Pentax K5's all used the award winning 16mp Sony Exmor sensor. The K5 and K5ii/s both used this sensor. Not sure if this is true but the K5's have some magic to them.

• Cool video. Great to see this camera still getting some love. I bought one about a year ago in very gently used condition. Fells almost new. This is my main camera for everything but street photography or travel. For that I have my Olympus EM5 and EM 10 mark II.

  I bought the Pentax when Olympus got out of the camera game. I shot Pentax years before and really liked their cameras and I also like having access to 50 years of glass. I shoot film too so it was great to be able to use all the same lenses.

• has this camera the same identical sensor as the ricoh GRII??

• Thanks for this video! I have 3 cameras: k10d, k7 and K5iis. Lovely cams! I'm sure they are very interesting than my Canon cameras ( T3, T3i and 60d).

• Does the K5iis have focus peaking for old Pentax manual lens?

• Ever think of rreviewing the K-S1 …

• What to try this camera… what Pentax lens would you recommend to go with it? Not familiar with Pentax other than I love the image quality…

• There is something special about the images this camera produces in the right hands.

• As a happy Pentax K5 iis owner i really appreciate this review.
  Coming from my previous K5 i could benefit from the iis's better AF mainly in low light, and much better sharpness any time.
  The only main advantage of recent mirrorless cameras is an incredible autofocus with subject, face and eyes tracking, but for most of situations you can do a great job with the K5 iis.

  I am looking for a 300 F4 lens for wild life photography, my actual Pentax 55-300 HD does a decent job and i love it, but i would like to go one step further.
  And i would like to find a Pentax K1 ( mark 1 or 2) for its global quality and the Full Frame experience.
  Thank you for your agreable pace and this honest review.

• watchin this while holdin my k-5ii that is still my backup cam for the case if something is wrong with my k-1. beautiful cam, built like a tank, reliable like a workhorse.

• AF too slow even for 2012 standard. Sold my k5 last year because it wouldn't turn on and bought a second hand fuji xt2, af is so much faster and people are saying fuji xt5 AF speed is not as fast. I think it is good enough

• My K5-IIs is my favourite landscape camera.

• Love from Ontario, Canada! Thank you for putting a video on K-5 iis. My wife and I watched this video earlier in the morning and I came here to leave this comment on behalf of both of us. I have a K-5iis since 2013. It acted as my prime camera till 2019 when I got KP. We are hikers and take shots while on the go. My wife and I carry the two cameras in pairing with Pentax 15 mm, 18-135 mm, and 55-300 mm PLM. We cover a wide range of photography genres while on the go.

  Thank you again!

• Bought it new back in 2013 and still using it now with shutter count of over 150K

• You're favorite Pentax is the K3, mine is the K5II/s (both of them). K3 is my second favorite Pentax. There is something special about that 16mp sensor, quite a few cameras used it, and all of them blew me away. Nikon's D7000 is another gem, although I actually prefer the K5II more. The draw with Nikon are it's lenses, more AF lenses to choose from, while still offering just as many MF lenses as Pentax from back in the day. The K5II also has a gapless LCD screen, a big improvement over previous Pentax DSLR's, and its autofocus is superb, even compared to the K3 Mark III (for every subject that isn't moving, its very much comparable). My second favorite Pentax is the K3, much like the K5 series but slightly larger with a bit different handling points, yet the sensor isn't quite as good as the K5II/s when pushing the raws around in post. To me that 16mp sensor was the pinnacle of APS-C sensors and still hold's its own against the newest- of any brand.

• Great channel and content, like a video version of my blog! I review a lot of older cameras as well. One of the best recent finds on youtube, great job!

• I think the K-5 II(s) is Pentax’s best DSLR ever. In absolute terms, more modern cameras are of course better, but I think they don’t make as much sense. Both within the market and where Pentax’s strengths lie. The K-3 added tracking AF but it didn’t really work that well. Plus it was a bit larger and heavier. And it added SR based features like the AA filter that I set once and never touched again. The K-3 III, although reviewed favorably, finds itself in tough competition.

• Not entirely true that “we have not looked back”. Pretty much all 24MP fullframe cameras still come with an AA filter on the sensor, because the risk of moire at that resolution is just too great on a fullframe camera.

• Great video

• Thank you for the video. K5iis is a great camera, produces great pictures, done with love and brains. I will keep it forever together with kp and k1-ii………

• The filterless sensor of the K-5IIs could also be found in both the Ricoh GR and GRII as well as in Nikon's Coolpix A

• Ive had this camera since it came out and it is still my main shooter. I have the 16-50 2.8 and a 50-135 2.8 that are my main go to lenses. It is definitely one of my favorite cameras when you can nail focus.

• I have the regular k5ii, and it's still fantastic. Ive shot more recent cameras as well, and in my opinion the only noticeable difference is video and low light performance.
  This thing is a tank, never really took much care of it but this thing just will never break.

• Which one should i buy, nikon d80, canon 20d or canon xt.

• Love this review. I bought it when I came out, but not without first having to agonize over whether to take what seemed like a risk at the time of going without a low-pass filter with this or take the "safer" route of choosing the K5II. Never looked back. It was my first 'serious digital camera' purchase (I went with Pentax for digital because I'd been given a K1000 as a high school graduation present and loved the thing) and it gave me a marvelous start. It's everything you describe. Picture quality has held up for me all these years, despite branching out into Canon, Nikon and Leica, and its ergonomics is a timeless value. Its controls and options grow with you as a photographer. I soon got all the FA Limiteds but it's really with the lovely little DA Limiteds that this and any Pentax APS-C camera shines as a compact, fun-to-shoot package for lovers of prime lenses. E.g. The 15 f/4 that you also reviewed. Pentaxians hankered for a full frame camera before the K1 came out, but looking back from a supposedly post DSLR era, Pentax had already begun making the case from the K5II/s onward for APS-C dslr's that could hold their own.

• Had this camera. The K3 is way better.

• Karate Chop for Squirrels

• I loved mine. I just wish Pentax had have kept making lenses and had aftermarket lenses like they used to. I ended up switching to Canon.

• I'm a huge fan of the K-5iis as I had a K-5 and preferred the button layout over my K-3. Regarding AA filters, you stated that all cameras have done away with AA filters, but I do not think that that is true. The majority of cameras do have AA filters, but some brands or models may be stronger or weaker and it depends on an individual basis. The Fuji X-trans line up is supposed to be AA filterless because X-trans pixel layout is supposed to resist moire. So when a camera is AA filterless then the manufacturer tends to use it in their marketing. My first "other brand" DSLR had a super strong AA filter which was why I moved to Pentax because the K-5 appeared to my eyes as having a weak AA filter at the time when they were in stores. I would rate 3 levels of AA filter strength as Strong, medium and weak, so typically entry level cameras in other brands (X-trans excluded) tend to be strong or medium, and their higher end enthusiast or pro apsc camera tend to have weak AA filters. Their full frame camera tend to have weak AA filters to create the disparity between models and make people crave to buy the more expensive models………..

  The AA filter is one of the greatest cons in digital photography…………

  A piece of glass that is there to limit a product as a CRIPPLE HAMMER. So when you switch to full frame you are BLOWN AWAY at how much better full frame is over apsc.

  If the manufacturer states that their camera is AA filterless, then it will be AA filterless. Otherwise its got an AA filter on it. The sheer fact that Pentax IBIS was able to do an AA simulation at the subpixel level, shows us that Pentax has a way to mitigate moire in images if the need arises. As for other brands, Pentax holds the patent on AA simulation so they don't have a way to prevent moire, so they have no choice but install AA filters.

  Now the "Fujifilm effect" was akin to Canikon apsc users who switched to full frame and were blown away. People who switch from canikon apsc to Fujifilm are so much more pleased with Fuji apsc over canikon because of the loss of AA filters, sharpness and fuji color science (which is a massive myth IMO) – the fujifilm hype. As the rap song goes from Public Enemy "Don't believe the hype" Yeah!

• Pentax was my love and I have used almost every model of Pentax in film's days. After the transition to digital I had to switch over to Canon. But deep down in my heart I still have lots of love for Pentax and wish it comes up with some superior model in Mirrorless segment so that many like me will come back to its love again.

• I started out in 1970 with my first Pentax, a Spotmatic. Then, before digital, I switched to Nikon where I stayed into the digital era. But, always had a soft spot for Pentax and picked up a K-5. Loved it so much that now I have two K-1 bodies, a K-3, K-5iis, K-7, K-r, and K-x and a K-S2. Had and sold a K-70 and KP, not sure why I got rid of them. All great cameras.

• Own it. Great camera.

• So few older Penax Cameras floating around here in Australia sadly

• X-Trans.

• Need suggestion on cheap pentax AF prime lens for this camera body. 💜💜

• I came across your channel the other day and it's a delight. Your down to earth nature is really honest and refreshing. Nice to see you reminding folks that older camera's are perfectly capable of producing fantastic images and that you shouldn't get caught up in trying to acquire the latest gear. I've subbed. Oh and greetings from the Emerald Isle.

• So glad you made another K-5 (yes, a different model this time, the IIs) video. Lovely camera. 😍

• I just bought a Pentax 35mm F2.8 Macro lens for APSC. It is the best, sharpest lens I have ever used in my life. I ordered it from Amazon though and they delivered the lens inside a brown paper envelope, with no padding at all. The box was crushed, but the lens seems OK. I feel so disrespected to have spent hundreds of dollars and not received even a box during delivery. Should I return it, or should I keep it? The optics seem great, but will I have issues down the road? Should I take the risk of returning it, considering the next lens might have optical flaws inherent amongst differently produced lenses, as not every lens is manufactuered exactly the same way? Gosh, I wish Amazon didn't put everything in an 'environmentally friendly' paper bag. Even if you order a $2,000 camera from Amazon, they will package it in the most insecure, unprotected manner and they will claim they are doing so in order to save the environmnet. No wonder Amazon gets 16% of all their orders returned by customers.

• After I dropped another Pentax DSLR, this is the camera we purchased. Love it in my hands. It just feels so solid and fits so well.

• I got my K-5 used and had it until the K-1 released and bought my first BRAND NEW camera. I kept it as a back up…as I had the K-20 when I acquired the K-5, and the K10 when I acquired the…..you get the point. I still have all of them. By the time I was done with them it wasn't really worth selling a tool that had worked great for me, and still did for what they went for. I ended up getting a second K-1 body and sort of forgot about the K-5. That is, until My first K-1 died after 6 years of abuse that came in many forms… from shooting in the rain with Takumar lenses attached, to shooting the gambler 500 in Oregon and being engulfed in pumice dusk out shooting for several days. The K-5 was ready to spring into action when I forgot I had a 12 second timer on my K-1 and it was too bight to see the led flashing so I panicked and……Well, the images from the K-5 are great. Most people would never know the difference if I had to shoot with the K-5 to complete a job.

• I have one since a long time now, and although I moved to K1, I always keep it as a very gifted backup for fast action photography. The case is a bit too small, my pinky litterally hangs, but with an extra battery grip, the problem is fixed. I've had long happy hours with it, and these times are still not over.

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