Photography Monthly Review

Seems like the Mags are now getting their hands on K10Ds for full reviews.

Will Cheung is generally complementary, but comes up with a problem with the autoexposure. This Pentax seems better than ever, and I've never had a problem with the AE. Yes, it can be fooled by backlighting, all white or all black backgrounds, but less so than previous cameras.

His ratings of most other features are pretty positive

I find his comment " Straight Lines come out as curves using Pentax's 10-17mm f3.5 fisheye" a little strange. I thought this was a "feature" of fisheye lenses, which has to be used to enhance the imagery.

When the Z1-P came out, Cheung was editor of Practical Photography. They did a hands-on test of all the top of the range 35mm film SLRs of the day, including Contax, Leica, etc.

The Pentax, which was the cheapest camera on test, came second or third, just after the very much more expensive pro Nikons and Canons. Had the build quality been better, it might have come first. Cheungy expressed amazement. He had never realised how good Pentax cameras were, and was especially surprised by the comments about the excellent ergonomics of the camera compared to the others.

I am afraid his are all too typical of the blinkered attitudes of so many journalists. He can't allow himself to give unqualified praise, so, like Askey of DePressingReview, he has to nit-pick.

And, it seems, he doesn't know what a fish-eye lens is.

G

thats like saying "the coffee in this cup may be hot"

You can bet your bottom dollar you'd know about it quick if it wasn't!

I've also been looking at the K10D magazine reviews that are now starting to appear, & while most have been pretty favourable, there seems to be some confusion as to which cameras to compare it to. One magazine (sorry, I've forgotten which one - there are too many) tests it & the Samsung version against the Olympus E-400 & the Canon 400D, & it gets criticised for being expensive compared to the Canon; another magazine lists the 30D & the D200 as its main rivals, & Will Cheung ends his review in Photography Monthly by describing the price as "pretty special". Pentax seem to have confused people by launching a camera with so many features at such a competitive price - it's just bizarre to see it criticised for being expensive...

On the subject of magazines, I'm amazed by how slow some of them are when it comes to updating the "street price" of Pentax cameras. In Practical Photography's round up of current D-SLRs (Jan issue) the K100D is marked down for being expensive compared to other brands, yet the "street price" they list is £499 (whereas you can get it with kit lens for around £350). I'm sure this is probably also the case for, say, Olympus too, but it always looks a bit rubbish when the magazines are not exactly on the ball.

Jonathan

Had a quick look through various mags today in Smiths, and was rewarded with mixed feelings - as jps mentioned, there seems to be confusion about price (£849 for the K10D and kit lens was quoted in 2 of them) and what the competition should be.

One of them had a 'Main Rivals' box, which had Canon 400D and Nikon D80 in bold, saying that the K10D fell between the two in price, but then went on to say that spec-wise it competed with the 30D and D200. Surely that was the bit that should have been in bold! Then perhaps people wouldn't think "Oh, I'll get the Canon 'cos it's £150 cheaper" and they'd say "Blimey, same or better spec from the Pentax for £150 less!".

Makes me cross.

Overall, all the reviews were good, with some niggles from most (the vertical grip got a couple of comments - too thin, and only one battery - although you have another in the body you obviously have to take the grip off to charge it). One reviewer said the AS was poor, another said they consistently got 3 stops extra from it. One said high ISO noise was bad, another said you could hardly see any noise at any ISO.

Probably best to buy one and find out for myself.

Dan

Hi
Happy New Year to you all

When I looked in our local WHS, I could not find any reviews, but then we are usually a bit behind the rest of the world. I will look again this week.
Meanwhile, can anyone give me a list of mag reviews for the K10 then I know where to look.
I read the review in Practical Photographer and was not totally convinced either by the alleged conclusion or by the integrity of the review, but there you are, I guess the best approach is to read all reviews, take an average, then add a bit to allow for Canon bias. I think it also said that the Samsung version is identical but £100 cheaper which seems a bit unbelievable to me. Any comments? I must surf the net and see what I can find.

The problem is that £599 is a bit steep to buy and try, so it has to be down to reviews and a quick fundle in Jessops to try handling.

Graham

Graham

Graham,

You think £599 is a bit steep? On the contrary, it's a steal.

Many of us here on this message board have been using Pentaxes for decades, and in recent years have been using Pentax DSLRs.

In my view (and I don't think I am alone), the K10D is far and away the best Pentax camera of all time, given the price.

Although the LX may have been the best SLR of all in its day, bar none, it cost a lot of money. By contrast, the K10D is extraordinarily cheap, but still has excellent build quality, an incomparable feature set, great picture quality and superlative ergonomics.

Some samples appear to suffer from banding in the blue channel at very slow shutter speeds at 1600 ISO. I have not been able to reproduce this myself. That apart, the K10D is pretty much impossible to criticise.

Just buy one.

G

Now Graham, do as you're told!

Dan

My comment was to the suggestion to buy THEN try. I agree it appears good value for money if it really does do what it says on the tin, but how to find out with confidence before parting with the cash is what is troubling me
Graham

Graham,
Just let us know what you expect/need and I'm sure we'll let you know.
However, I can say that if you've used the *ist-D or *ist-DS then I can't imagine how you'll be anything but delighted with the K10D
Matt

Yes folks, you heard it here first - the K10D is not as good as the *istDL.

Thanks Matt, you've saved me a few hundred quid - those DLs are going for a song right now.

Dan

My current DSLR is the istD - and a fine little camera it is.
The three main problems with it are
a) That wretched little 4 way controller on the back (or the size of my thumbs!)
b) The fact that the shoulder strap gets in the way of the card door.
It would appear that both these annoyances are repeated on the K10 - even though the shoulder strap problem has been highlighted on just about every DSLR review that I have read. Surely they should have learned by now.
c) The hyper program does not revert back to "P" after the shot, resulting in some odd exposures when I think that "P" is in control.

I have just spent the morning browsing the K10 manual. How do you select the ISO? I can only find references to Auto (presumably the camera decides in the light of exposure settings) and a range setting which is Auto but within defined parameters. What is the benefit?

What is the point of the shutter and aperture priority settings on the mode dial? The Hyper program is brilliant, or at least it would be if it switched back to normal "P" after the shot. As it is, a simple click on either control wheel selects the appropriate priority in perpetuity as it were, so there is no need for the controlwheel setting.

At the moment, my only reason for getting one is that my wife has taken a fancy to the istD (at least that is my excuse). I need some convincing so I will be watching and listening to user comments and reviews. I do not suppose I will be convinced before April/May.

Has anyone done any tests with the effectiveness of the antishake mechanism? Is it really 4 stops, or two stops and a bit of optimism?

Daniel,
Before you confuse the living daylights out of casual readers (I had to read it a couple of times!!)... ... I didn't include the DL because it has a pentamirror which is 'orrible compared to the pentaprism of the D, DS, and K10D


Graham,
a) I've found the four way controller much more positive than the *ist-D. This is probably down to the dusy & moisture seals. I don't think I've miss-hit on the K10D, whereas I was always mishitting on the *ist-D. Additionally, they've replicated some of the view functions onto the wheels, so it's much easier to scroll through shots.

b) The card door is much smaller than the *ist-D, as it uses SD cards. Haven't got the K10D on me right now, but I think there's much less of an issue compared to the *ist-D - think there's more clearance between the strap and door. (Obviously if you let the strap hang down over the door then it's going to snag...)

c) Green button on both *ist-D and K10D reverts to program. On both you can disable Hyper program too.


The ISO is changed via the Function menu - when you select the ISO you have a choice of either a single ISO or a range. The range is very useful - you can limit the upper end (so I often use ISO100-1000).

I, for one, would be annoyed if Hyperprogram switched back on its own after each shot - for example when firing several shots in succession I want the override to "stick". A simple press of the green button sorts it.

SR is pretty excellent. Some of it comes down to technique. I've tried tests at very slow speeds, and it gives me about 2 or 3 stops. I strongly suspect that after about 0.5s it starts losing it a touch anyway, but for using telephotos it's pretty superb (I tried a shot with the SMC-FA 80-320 + 1.7xAF convertor at 1/50s and it was tack sharp for a focal length of 544mm, effectively 816mm).

I've found that putting my left wrist bone in contact with the underside of the camera helps - probably because it provides better mechanical contact of my "shake factor". This is NOT just better camera holding - without SR enabled the shot is dire! So, yes, I can see you can get 4 stops, but in general use it's more reasonable to see 3 to 3.5.


BUT (big but), the image quality of the K10D, especially at ISO100 and RAW, will show you why we're all raving about it Largely because of the electronic design for the CCD the shadows are exceptionally smooth and lacking noise - so you can get an astonishing amount of detail and quality out of it.

The only (little) gripes I have at the moment are:
* Cannot do wireless flash with the popup as you could with the *ist-D
* Some have said that ISO1600 isn't as good as the *ist-D... (I've been impressed with my own test shots, but have to try it for real)
* Manual white balance is not as quick as the *ist-D... but I'm getting used to it.

Hope that helps
Matt

Thank Matt

That helps a lot


OK, I would settle for a timer say 15-30 secs, but I guess it really depends on the sort of shots you are taking. I seldom take successive shots in quick succession so would set the camera for the overall "shoot", ie sport, landscape, macro, etc using the Tv/Av mode on the dial.

But accepting your point, what is the purpose of the function dial in this respect? It seems a wast of time to me - unless I am missing something.

I also get the impression that this is a camera were you need to shoot RAW to get good results as the JPG rendering is pretty dire. That is no problem for folk who take their photography very seriously but I just want to get the best results with the least fuss. For me, JPG has generally been perfectly adequate up to now. Maybe RAW is a step too far, I will have to download some examples to check it out. I expect there will be many test shots becoming available in the near future.
Graham

I would find it extremely irritating if the camera switched back to the P line on its own, I want it to stay where it's put.

The way I use it and have mine set up, yes the TV/AV modes are basically not useful (I have program shift on the back dial and exposure comp on the front), but if you leave the camera on defaults (Tv front dial, Av rear) then switching into Av or Tv mode gives you direct access to exposure compensation via one of the dials.

The 10D is incredibly versitile in the way it will work with you and for you. For this reason any given photog will have modes on it he never uses, but change the settings and/or the way of working a little bit and suddenly those become invaluable.


That is not my impression at all, the JPG rendering is at least as good as that of my *istDL2. My experiance to date implies that the 10D has better metering than the DL2 as well (even though both are 16 segment multi pattern, I guess they changed the pattern) which also allows more reliable JPG shooting since you can more easily do without the exposure latitude available in RAW.

Out of the box it is expected that you will shoot in RAW or at least RAW+JPG, and the defaults reflect that, but you are at liberty to change the recording settings to produce a punchier JPG out of the camera. I have mine set to +1 saturation, +1 contrast since this is what I most often end up doing in RAW conversion