mikfoz
It's not a competition. Watch the birdy!
Decided to upgrade to a Pentax K10D.
I got a refurbished one for a good price (it's brand new but been touched). What a brilliant camera it is! I'm sure the K20 is even more wonderful (and twice the price), but compared to my *istDS it's brilliant. It's like it's actually been designed by someone who uses a camera and they took on board all the feedback about annoying quirks and oversights with the *istDS and put them into this camera.
It's built like a tank and weatherproof. Short of me chucking it into a lake it's going to survive the British climate, I hope. It certainly doesn't feel plastic and bitty and the stainless steel chassis is robust and reassuringly weighty.
It's a good deal bigger than the *istDS and I'm happy for it. I liked the old camera for being light and but at times it niggled by being a bit fiddly for grown up hands.
The anti-shake function is extremely good. I could get pin sharp pics with a 70-210 zoom at 210mm at 0.7s hand-held. I admit I'm pretty good at holding a camera still, but even so, I found it impressive. I couldn't manage it when it was switched off after 10 attempts whereas 8/10 attempts showed no eveident camera shake and the 2 duds were markedly better than the utterly fluffed versions. See the picture of the bag. This was taken indoors under artificial household lights and check the properties if you don't credit the exposure and focal length.
The modes and metering are excellent and somebody has really been thinking about what you'd want to have at your fingertips rather than going via a menu as far as the buttons and wheels are concerned.
It's very similar to use to the *istDs in basic use and the menus are pretty familiar, with all the new functions pretty much where you'd expect to find them. A nice touch is having the flash defaulting to "only if you want the damned thing to pop up" rather than nannying you. You can customise the arse off it if you want and define your own user mode.
The digital preview option is great for tweaking your white balance and it's OK for composing DOF and focus. It's not the same as having the compact camera live screen view, of course, but if you want that, get a bridge camera.
The pentaprism viewfinder is magnificent. It's really bright and the magnification and field of view is as good as any SLR I've ever used.
I've not had it long enough to comment on the dust removal/reduction features on the CCD but it sounds good to me. It certainly gives it a good shake!
The picture quality is superb (see picture of my dog below). I can't wait to get it out and about with some birds at the weekend.
I'm close to rambling on and trying to do a comprehensive review at this rate, but I've never been so impressed with a camera and at £269 I can't complain. I almost went for the K100 but I'm over the moon I did not.
I'd totally recommend this camera to anyone contemplating an eBay purchase or getting a refurb model because of budget considerations.
I got a refurbished one for a good price (it's brand new but been touched). What a brilliant camera it is! I'm sure the K20 is even more wonderful (and twice the price), but compared to my *istDS it's brilliant. It's like it's actually been designed by someone who uses a camera and they took on board all the feedback about annoying quirks and oversights with the *istDS and put them into this camera.
It's built like a tank and weatherproof. Short of me chucking it into a lake it's going to survive the British climate, I hope. It certainly doesn't feel plastic and bitty and the stainless steel chassis is robust and reassuringly weighty.
It's a good deal bigger than the *istDS and I'm happy for it. I liked the old camera for being light and but at times it niggled by being a bit fiddly for grown up hands.
The anti-shake function is extremely good. I could get pin sharp pics with a 70-210 zoom at 210mm at 0.7s hand-held. I admit I'm pretty good at holding a camera still, but even so, I found it impressive. I couldn't manage it when it was switched off after 10 attempts whereas 8/10 attempts showed no eveident camera shake and the 2 duds were markedly better than the utterly fluffed versions. See the picture of the bag. This was taken indoors under artificial household lights and check the properties if you don't credit the exposure and focal length.
The modes and metering are excellent and somebody has really been thinking about what you'd want to have at your fingertips rather than going via a menu as far as the buttons and wheels are concerned.
It's very similar to use to the *istDs in basic use and the menus are pretty familiar, with all the new functions pretty much where you'd expect to find them. A nice touch is having the flash defaulting to "only if you want the damned thing to pop up" rather than nannying you. You can customise the arse off it if you want and define your own user mode.
The digital preview option is great for tweaking your white balance and it's OK for composing DOF and focus. It's not the same as having the compact camera live screen view, of course, but if you want that, get a bridge camera.
The pentaprism viewfinder is magnificent. It's really bright and the magnification and field of view is as good as any SLR I've ever used.
I've not had it long enough to comment on the dust removal/reduction features on the CCD but it sounds good to me. It certainly gives it a good shake!
The picture quality is superb (see picture of my dog below). I can't wait to get it out and about with some birds at the weekend.
I'm close to rambling on and trying to do a comprehensive review at this rate, but I've never been so impressed with a camera and at £269 I can't complain. I almost went for the K100 but I'm over the moon I did not.
I'd totally recommend this camera to anyone contemplating an eBay purchase or getting a refurb model because of budget considerations.
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