Pentax MX-1

The MX-1 arrived this morning and it's all very exciting opening a new camera box. We'll have to ignore I suppose the rubbish looking recycled box as at least it's substantially made and the contents are well packed within. A sign of the times.

Within, however, is a little, or not so little, jewel of a camera. I just love good engineering and this is a beauty. It gleams at you when you open the wrapper. The brass top and bottom plates add weight. The whole things looks well made and classy, much better than the finish on either the Olympus XZ-1 that Sue uses or the Ricoh GR at its higher price.

Here's a picture of my Pentax-Ricoh twins:



It actually looks at first glance that the batteries are the same, which will be handy, and the only other observation I have while the battery charges is that the articulated screen makes the MX-1 larger than it needs to be. I know many of us clamoured for an articulated screen, but it will stay parked for 95% of the time and I might prefer a slimmer camera.

However, early days yet, so let's get that battery charged and I'll report back on progress.

I'm 'well jell'. IQ from this camera looks pretty good to me; I think I'd pick it over the GR for street shooting, because of the zoom and the flexible screen. IQ won't be as good as the GR but a step up from most compacts, for sure! Looking forward to your thoughts and piccies.

Mine just arrived this morning too, another all black model.
Battery is charging again after a half charge just so I could have a quick play. Menus are of course well laid out, as per other Pentax models and so easy to follow and set up quickly.

I really love the size of this. I do have a Panasonic LX3 that gets some use still, but I always found it a bit too small, whereas this has a very nice and solid feeling and heft to it. I might even go so far as to say that, at least for me, it's the perfect size.
Just need to get a case and wrist strap and I'll be sorted. I might, later on, get one of the lens adapters for filter addition.

Off to Silicon Valley at the weekend for a week of meetings at company HQ, so I'll be giving the MX-1 a good workout at every opportunity.

How quickly can you get the black finish to wear off? The quicker the better I hope.

I looked at the MX1 but the lack of a view finder put me off, If it had focus peaking I could have been interested as I use it alot on my k30 for close up stuff but again not included. So not for me at this time. Still looks a good bit of kit.

I guess it depends how often you expect to manually focus a compact digicam - I've never used MF with the MX-1, and to be honest the depth of field with a small sensor means that you can usually get even the close up stuff OK with AF in any case if you carefully select which focus point to use. I can, however, see the enormous benefit that focus peaking would bring with MF lenses on larger sensor cameras - I suspect one of those features that you don't want to lose once you've tried it.

Jon

Had mine a month, never kept in a case just my bag or pocket and nothing, not even a smidgen of anything, I think this next couple of weeks I might have to give it a helping hand

Today we were briefly in Abergele so I did shoot a handful of quick images. I've resized these for the forum:

A phone box outside The Harp Inn.



The wall of a ginnel (love that word!)alongside The Harp.



A small alleyway.



A candid portrait in a coffee shop, shot at f/1.9.



And back home.



So far, I have no complaints. Fast focusing, excellent exposure accuracy and nice quality to the images. The "Pentax feel" is always a pleasure.

Great results! I have only played with a pre-production version but I was very impressed with the build quality.

A few more from the wedding I attended on Saturday, as back up photographer for my son Michael.

A shot of Morecambe from the upper floor of the Midland Hotel:



And for comparison, one from the K-5 with SMX Pentax-FA 43mm f/1.9 Limited:



And a quick indoor candid of Amelia Jane, Michael's eldest daughter:

Lovely shot of Amelia Jane. Was quite impressed to read you could see all the way to Morecombe from the Midland Hotel in Manchester....until I realised that surely I'd made some mistake!

Great shot of Amelia Jane, obviously a very capable camera (Photographer too of course :wink

Lovely soft lighting as well

I got mine a few weeks ago, and it is an impressive little camera, albeit the write speed in RAW is infuriatingly slow. The lens and sensor are quite impressive though.

Image of George Washington Bridge connecting New York City and New Jersey



A friend relaxing with a 'beverage'



My younger one shot at ISO 400. I could have applied additional sharpening to the eyes if I sent it to another processor like Paint Shop Pro, PSE or GIMP.



I wish they would make a micro 4/3 camera like this with an 18-200 lens, which granted would be bigger, but if this quality could be maintained (plus hot shoe and faster write speeds), it would be easy to leave the heavy guns at home for the most part. But I digress.