K20d review on dpreview.

Depressing review has a review of the K20D.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk20d/

Seems quite positive as reviews go.

Must be their most positive pentax review ever......

It was helpful having the K20D vs K10D in RAW mode. Surprising how good the K10D is in RAW
The high ISO of the K20D look very appealing, though it's not something I use every day. Additionally, the nearly 2 stops extra dynamic range in the K20D looked an excellent upgrade.

But, having seen all that, I think I'm carrying on with the K10D. It's just saved me seven hundred squid that I don't have

Matt

I was set on upgrading to the K20D after only a few months seeing the £100 cashback deal but decided against it as it seemed a bit daft after such a short time and the fact I still havent got used to the K10D.
Then a couple of nights ago I went to a festival here in Spain which started around 9pm (still quite light) and took my Tamron 24-135mm. It got dark quite suddenly so I upped the ISo to 1600 rather than try to use the built in flash and have to say when I got home I scrapped just about every picture because the noise was so bad. I now wonder how the K20D would have coped.

Of course it could have just been my total lack of experience in using the camera when its dark

The trick to taking shots of bright things (such as festivals and gigs) in very dark conditions is to use manual mode and spot metering
Switch to spot metering, zoom in and point the centre to a face that's lit and press the green button. Then reframe and shoot away. (You may even have to use less than ISO1600 to make this possible!!)

With an image that's substantially black the camera tries to push it so it becomes 18% grey - thus blowing out the highlights and losing all detail.

Might help...
Matt

For those who don't have time to wade through 35 nit-picking pages, here is the conclusion:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk20d/page34.asp

DP reviewers get paid per million words.

G

Thanks .. will try that very soon, we seem to have a festival or parade here every 12 hours at the moment.
Theres one coming up where they have this big parade, everybody stops and then they fill the street completely with that white foam stuff.
Wonder if the sealing on the K10D is up to that

I've had quite a good look through it, and it does seem very positive indeed - and gets an unequivocal Highly Recommended.

If DPR has such an ingrained anti-Pentax bias as some would have you believe, how come such a positive review was 'allowed'?

Now that there are more reviewers the reviews are less biased, and the new reviewers are prepared to use RAW which is more than "Uncle" Phil ever would. It's a pity there was no Nikon used in the comparison tests. I think that would have been interesting, especially for the DR tests.

Although I've had my out K10D through blinding downpours, and even under the shower head with no ill effect, I think the matter of soap breaking down the surface tension of water would probably be more than the seals were meant to handle.

-tony

nice to see that, unlike everyone else, Pentax continue to handle noise reduction the way it should be handled by a camera.

That is, no more than is absolutely necessary and under no circumstances loose any detail. The photographer will apply NR later to his or her tastes.

Absolutely.

There were a number of things, including that one, about that review that made me think the '20 is even better than I already thought it was..

up to now I haven't felt any desire to replace my 10D with the 20, but the ISO performance demonstrated in that review was nearly enough to push me over the edge.

Nearly

There are still lenses I want before my next body upgrade.

Annoyingly I seem to be adding things I want to buy to the list faster than my finances allow me to clear them from the other end.

[
Mongoose wrote:

"Annoyingly I seem to be adding things I want to buy to the list faster than my finances allow me to clear them from the other end."

Mongoose, your list sounds very much like my wife's To Do list - the one she has for ME!

These lists never have any limit, unlike finances or time.

Let's see now, the last item she entered was "Buy more paper."

Sigh........