Fab camera - I loved mine and kept it for years until it required an uneconomic repair to the shutter. You will be spoiled by that bright FF viewfinder though!

There's not a lot to say as it's so simple to use, but just in case you've not read it yet you should be able to get the mirror up by giving the shutter a quick sharp jab, which can be useful for reducing shake on long exposures. Give it a try when there's no film in the camera.

If you're using negative film you'll find that it's rather more forgiving of minor exposure errors than digital, and the centre weighted metering of the MX is pretty good. One thing to check is the light seals, which Ffordes may well have replaced. If not, and if they appear worn and gunky, look up "Interslice" (based in the US) who supply superb kits to do it yourself. It's an easy job.

I have a G10 and a K100DS, and there are a few areas where dSLR will always outperform any compact.

The most important, which is true of every compact with a small sensor, is control of depth of field, and what is in and out of focus. Even with a kit lens, any SLR is going to give much greater control over this. As a result, you are able to compose shots more carefully, choosing which elements you actually want to be in focus. An SLR will enable you to isolate subjects and blur the rest much better than a compact.

Second is higher ISO performance, and yes there is an enormous difference. The G10 is not bad up to ISO400 and ISO800 at a real pinch and small print sizes. Any SLR will do much better.

Third is speed of operation, in particular focussing. SLRs will sometimes enable you to get a shot when a compact has yet to achieve focus.

On the other hand, the G10 is obviously smaller and therefore easier to take with you - and the best camera you have is the one you have with you. It is also silent in operation (if you turn the various beeps off) and like most compacts offers a movie mode which can occasionally be of use.

Of all the compacts, the G10 is perhaps the easiest to use for the more creative photographer as the interface and ability to control and over-ride manually is frankly rather better than some SLRs. I leave mine in manual mode with the histogram on the rear LCD, and by using the control dial to change exposure it's easy to nail the exposure first time almost every time. That is an enormous advantage when you want to work quickly.

Given this is a Pentax forum, obviously people are going to point you in the direction of the K-M, which is a very capable small camera. But one other possibility to add to the list if you can afford it might be the Panasonic G1 - a sort of hybrid that is smaller than SLRs (lenses smaller too) but offers excellent image quality and all the manual controls you could want. It may possibly offer you the best of both worlds. However, the accompanying lens system is limited and expensive - and if you see yourself buying more glass in the future, the Pentax would be a much better route to take.

Have calmed down after reading Will Cheung's "review" in Digital Camera Magazine - but not until writing the letter below. Will be interesting to see if they respond. The letter tells you all you need to know about the review.....

Last Summer I stupidly subscribed to this magazine for a year, and am delighted that I can now finally get out of it.

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Having just read the review in your magazine I'm really quite surprised. Not so much by what it said; more by what is left out.

Setting aside the fact that Will Cheung cannot have reviewed a production version of the camera (it is well known that none are available even at the time that I am writing this letter, but other reviewers and magazines have made that clear) he completely failed to get across the USP of the camera.

If I relied upon his review rather than the much more informative previews available elsewhere, I would have no idea that the camera:

has a fully weather-sealed magnesium body and comes with a new weather resistant kit lens (which no other manufacturer offers)

offers HD video (only by looking at the command dial in the accompanying photograph could you deduce this from your article)

has a new anti dust system similar to Olympus SSWF (plus of course the great Pentax dust mapping function)

does some very clever things with its sensor shift mechanism including ability to move it in order to assist composition in live view, plus automatic level/horizon adjustment (no other manufacturer does some of these)

includes in camera lens distortion and aberration correction

is very significantly smaller than any other camera in its class, especially one to offer all of the features above. Even the Olympus E30 with supposed size advantages of four thirds is larger

I could, but won't, go on but I suspect that if Canon or Nikon anounced cameras with these kind of features included, you would at least give them a mention (and probably rather more than that). Why not when Pentax do it?

As a result, the article ended up by giving the reader very little real assessment of what this camera is actually about - an incredibly robust, small capable camera which will be particularly suitable for outdoors enthusiasts. All we got was the usual and somewhat boring commentary on noise, frames per second and buffer size.

I don't have a particular argument with the comments that Will made - he used the camera after all - but I feel that by missing out so much key information the review has ended up being at best unfair and at worst valueless. He gave the camera 87%; I'd give his article less than half marks. Perhaps you can try again and do better when a final production camera is available?

Glad to be of service! You definitely got it stopped down with the second shot! It's a lovely lens and I look forward to seeing some great things with it in future posts........

Hi,

As per answers in the thread I wonder whether you were in Av mode - in which case the camera will always shoot wide open no matter what aperture you set the lens to (somewhat counter intuitive!).

One option is to use the green button as per advice you have already received.

Another option which I preferred was:

(1) use M mode
(2) select the aperture you want on the lens
(3) turn the depth of field preview lever round the shutter (viewfinder should darken depending upon the aperture you have chosen)
(4) inside the viewfinder, the camera should tell you whether the shot is going to be under or over exposed while the depth of field preview is switched on - so while you've got the preview on with one finger, use another to move the e-dial and change the shutter speed until the camera tells you the exposure is OK.

All of the above is easier than I have made it sound - the procedure will vary a little depending upon whether your camera has one or two e-dials but try it out and you'll get it to work! I much preferred it to the green button once I got into it.

Finally, note that the K10 and 20 bodies are notorious for over-exposing with old manual lenses, so when doing the procedure I described above, I usually set the shutter speed that the camera thought was about 2/3 EV under exposed, and then worked from there depending upon what the histogram told me.

Oh, and an answer to one of your questions - the camera will revert to using centre weighted metering when using a manual lens.

Hope all this helps!

Jon

Sold now - thanks for looking. Jon

Hi Simon,

I did some test shots when I first got K20D and decided that strong was a bit too, well, strong. For me, weak was a good compromise between noise reduction and detail retention, but some others prefer the weakest setting. I guess try both and see how it does....

I left all the modes as RAW apart from USER, which I set to best JPEG, natural mode with fine sharpening up one notch, and contrast down one in the hope that it may preserve a few more highlights. For the kind of shots I've seen on your fantastic website, however, I think I may be tempted to start from the bright mode and then perhaps just knock saturation and contrast down a notch instead.

I know that many people will disagree, but I'm in the camp that says once you've tuned them to taste, it's possible to get JPEGs from the K20D that are so good they make RAW unnecessary except for more difficult lighting conditions.

I'm also in the camp that says the DR enhancement on K20D comes with a large price in terms of noise and it would be better instead to shoot RAW, bracket and resign yourself to some PP.

Hope this helps - enjoy the new camera. Look forward to seeing some results in a publication near me sometime in the future....

Does anyone know if this is likely to mean that when using things like distortion/aberration correction in the K-7 for RAW files, ACR will automatically apply these when importing and processing?

I prefer to keep my software simple and would like not to have to load up the Pentax/Silkypix stuff (even though I know Silkypix is supposed to be pretty good) to access these in-camera adjustments for RAW files.

For those interested, I had a quick look at the Adobe website and looks like you can import this version if you use PSE6 (which I do) as well as PSE7. Not earlier versions though.

This lens still available and I'm open to sensible offers close to the asking price. Will go to first person who makes an offer I can live with!

Cheers,

Jon

Lens sold - thanks for looking, Jon