Pentax K10D

Photo answers review

Photo answers rating

Features & handling

The K10D has a plethora of interesting features that are worthy of our attention. First up are the new exposure modes. In addition to the usual P/A/S/M modes, Pentax has added four extra options. Sensitivity-priority (Sv) allows you to control the ISO and the camera sets the aperture and shutter speed. Shutter and aperture-priority (TAv) is pretty the opposite of sensitivity-priority, selecting the ISO depending on the aperture and shutter speed you dial in. Flash X-sync speed (X) locks the shutter speed at 1/180sec for use with external flashguns. And finally, the extremely handy User mode allows you to save a camera set-up and quickly go back to it when you need to – a mode that more D-SLRs should feature.

Shake-reduction is built-in so the K10D has a distinct advantage over its Canon and Nikon rivals in this market section when it comes to lowlight or telephoto photography. The K10D’s fibre-reinforced polycarbonate body is also sealed to protect against dust and humidity and offers similar levels of protection against the elements as some of the professional D-SLRs on the market.

Pentax has put plenty of work into the RAW side of the K10D. First of all, it offers you the choice between shooting PEF (Pentax’s standard RAW file type) or Adobe’s DNG format – a D-SLR first. You can also perform basic edits to your pictures in-camera. The K10D offers black & white, sepia, colour overlay, soft, brightness and the curious slim option that allows you to stretch your JPEG images. Why would anyone want to do that? We certainly wouldn’t.

The K10D has a good feel to it. At 710g it feels substantial and fits nicely into the hand. All of the controls are well-placed so you reach them with the minimum of fuss although it may have been better to have the Fn (function) button placed higher as most users will use it more than the AF activation button (which does nothing that depressing the shutter release halfway doesn’t do).

The K10D feels and handles better than the rest of the Pentax D-SLR line-up and, excluding the curious, additional battery grip, does a good job in the field. Considering the two most important features of a vertical grip/battery are to increase the power and make vertical shooting easier, the D-BG2 doesn’t perform very well. The curious thing is that the battery pack only accepts one battery. You can use two batteries at once but the other battery must be in the camera so you have to remove the grip in order to change it. This isn’t very useful when you’re in the field. The other issue with it is that the vertical grip itself is far too small and narrow to permit you to get a comfortable hold on the camera.

Performance

There’s a lot riding on the K10D. It’s the first D-SLR from Pentax with a resolution above 6 megapixel, there’s the impressive-sounding 22bit A/D converter and the newly-developed image processing engine. The speed that the K10D can record its images is certainly an improvement over Pentax’s previous D-SLRs, which is made more impressive considering that there is more information from the higher resolution sensor to record.

Some of the new technology means that the camera should be able to record a wider dynamic range with results that are ‘virtually indistinguishable from analogue film pictures in terms of colour and dynamic range’. The K10D can record more shadow and highlight detail than many other D-SLRs but the overall results look a little murky, lacking the contrast and punch that most of its competitors offer.

Verdict

Enthusiast users can breath a sigh of relief that Pentax has finally come up with a camera that suits their needs. The K10D is still not perfect but it’s a damn sight better than the last four Pentax releases. While those cameras were mostly priced a little too high for the market, the price of the K10D is pretty reasonable for what’s on offer.

The low price makes it an obvious rival to the Nikon D80 or Canon EOS 400D but it actually covers all the bases right up to the Canon EOS 30D or Nikon D200. The K10D has a hard task ahead of it, but the price is competitive so it may well just do well against the huge names of Canon and Nikon. Unfortunately, there’s also the Samsung GX-10 though, which is essentially the same camera but at a slightly lower price.

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