Pentax K-m

Photo answers review

Photo answers rating

Features & handling

The Pentax K-m DSLR offers 10MP resolution in a small, compact body that boasts easy modes for the beginner and fully manual settings for the more advanced. It’s not too complicated to use, has some great features, gives great results and is a well-known brand that photographers trust. There’s nothing that would limit your creativity, except perhaps the omission of Live View.
Sadly though, it’s not the only camera to offer these features. Worse, it’s pretty much the last to market behind Nikon, Canon and Sony, all of whom realise the biggest growth area in DSLR sales is for compact users wanting to make the move up, and getting them to buy into your system is the key to long-term loyalty.
One unique selling point is the K-m’s creative in-camera filters – allowing users to side-step photo-imaging software. As well as the more usual mono, sepia, colour balance and soft focus tweaks, the K-m also lets you emulate the effects of using a toy camera (like a Holga), a variable starburst filter, a high contrast look, an old-fashioned retro look (including a white border like an old enprint), a colour-popping feature where you can keep a certain colour despite turning the rest of the image mono, an HDR effect and a variety of illustration effects such as pastel or watercolour.  They’re great fun to use but you may wish to avoid using the rudimentary ‘slim’ filter on your other half as a slap round the face may offend...

Performance

The K-m performs well and is easy to use. The body is small and compact – perhaps a bit too diddy for people with less-than-svelte fingers. But it has a solidity that smacks of quality.
The AF system doesn’t have as many points as the K200D, but is hardly the worse for it. It snaps on precisely and very quickly – it’s one of the fastest.
The screen is bright and has all the info you’d ever need. It offers all the modes an enthusiast demands – from aperture- and shutter-priority to full manual – and some you wouldn’t necessarily expect, like ‘auto ISO’ where you set the shutter speed and aperture and the camera works out the ISO. It’s a camera that would be difficult to grow out of.
There are lots of scene modes – everything from landscape to macro and night shots – that work well; there’s even a button marked ‘?’ on the top plate that you can push at any time to give an explanation of what’s going on.
Image quality is also really good, especially shooting RAW. It’s a shame the JPEG settings can be a bit contrasty and over-sharpened as most beginners will get stuck here.
The biggest problem is the lens. It has a decent zoom range and reasonably fast aperture but at wider settings it’s not as sharp as it could be. A worthwhile upgrade would be to buy a better zoom, but at almost £500 for the 16-50mm f/2.8 lens or £350 for the 16-45mm f/4, it’s a purchase few K-m buyers would stomach – especially if they’ve already paid over the odds for the K-m.

Verdict

If the Pentax K-m did something spectacularly better than its rivals, you could understand its price premium and forgive the average quality of its cheap kit lens. But the fact is, it doesn’t. It handles as well, produces pictures as sharp and is as easy to use as other cameras that cost between £30 and £130 less.
Some things it does better than its rivals, such as autofocus and funky in-camera filters; other things, not as well. These niggles wouldn’t make a huge difference if the price were the same, but when the others are Canon and Nikon, it’s difficult finding solid reasons why anyone, apart from diehard Pentax users who already own a set of lenses,  should fork out the extra to go Pentax. 

Specification
Street price £370
Resolution 10.2MP
Sensor type CCD
Lens mount K-mount
Exposure modes P/A/S/M/auto ISO, scene modes
Metering modes Evaluative, centre-weighted and spot
ISO range 100-3200
Shooting speed 3.5fps (high speed)
Card type SD/SDHC
Monitor type 2.7in (230K dot)
Aspect ratio 4:3
Live View No
Autofocus Five-area AF, single-point AF, single, continuous and servo
Built-in image stabilisation Yes
Weight/size (wxhxd) 625g/122x91x67mm