Pentax Life

Impress Watch have managed to put their hands on the early beta of long awaited Pentax 645D. Here you can find some text in Japanese and – what’s much more interesting – several dozens of “live action” pics.

But back to text: Takeshi Osamu reports that the Pentax 645D is same sized as well known 645N II but feels lighter. Thanks to tall and deep hand greep 645D is easy to handle even for those with large fingers. Also , not a surprize for a medium format but it’s viewfinder is great. Menu is organized in the similar way to Pentax K-7 DSLR.

Chasseur D’images, French photography magazine that is very popular in Europe, has tested two latest Pentax DSLRs and 20 (yep, twenty) lenses mounted on the Pentax K20D.

Lots of optics tested here: from FA* 27-70/2.8, FA*85/1.4 to all
Limiteds, DA*, the new DA17-70 SDM etc…

Most lenses are quite good and a couple numbers simply excellent !!

Talking about recent lenses:

• DA 17-70 SDM: it is good, vingettes a lot at 17 but it very nice upgrade over the kit lens. They say there’s no focus touch up (!! to be confirmed) but there’s indeed weather sealing. They do not say if it is SDM-only but I think so.
• DA*200/2.8: excellent !!
• DA*300/4: excellent !!
• DA35/2.8 macro: excellent !
• DA* 50-135 and DA* 16-50/2.8: centering defects but otherwise very good.

Great thanks to Thibouille for sharing such a good news.

For those who can’t read French or live outside of Europe there is DA 35mm f/2.8 Macro Limited review from the DigitalCameraReview:

In short, the new 35mm Limited is an amazing lens with fabulous edge-to-edge sharpness, amazingly close focus, great bokeh, and exceptional build quality common to the Limited series lenses. Once again, Pentax has delivered a fantastic professional-quality prime lens at a reasonable price.

The new Pentax entry level DSLR K200D got a lot of attention last month. Most of the popular consumer electronics and photo equipment reviewers have put their curious hands on it. And most of them have been pretty excited.

CNET has rated Pentax K200D 7.7 out of 10 which is “Very Good” in their classification:

Pentax’s K200D entry-level SLR gives a lot of bang for the buck and has better performance than last year’s model. Despite low noise and pleasingly detailed images, technically inaccurate colors keep it from capturing the gold medal for image quality.

(more…)

AnandTech has tested Pentax K20D high ISO performance and resolution against Sony A350.

The K20D noise is well controlled through ISO 3200. Noise at ISO 6400 is comparable to the Sony A350 at ISO 3200

K20D is “traditionally” softer at the lower ISO settings but shows much cleaner images at ISO 1600 and 3200. Also, white balance could be set more accurately for better comparison.

Akihabara News and Impress Watch have published the photo reports from the Pentax booth at the Photo Imaging Expo 2008 which was held in Tokyo Big Sight complex in Japan last weekend. The key products were, of cause, latest Pentax K20D and K200D DSLRs. Upcoming DA lenses (highly anticipated DA 17-70 F4, DA 60-250 F4 and DA 55 F4) were shown as well. Here you can find the Akihabara’s report in English (they’ve mostly focused on model rather than gear) and Impress Watch’ one in Japanese.

Steve at Steve’s Digicams has reviewed Pentax K100D Super – latest update for Pentax entry level DSLR line-up. Unfortunately Steve hasn’t got the new DA* lenses (most of the sample photos are made with DA 12-24mm F4) so the most important new feature that differs K100D Super from its predecessor – Supersonic Drive Motor lenses support – haven’t been tested and even mentioned in his review.

Another Pentax K100D Super review is posted by JerryJ at DigitalCameraReview:

Since my day-to-day cameras are a Pentax K10D and Pentax *ist DL, I was curious how the K100D Super would compare. I expected the camera to perform better than the *ist DL but fall short of the K10D. What I discovered was that the K100D Super is much more like its big brother the K10D than I expected. In short, this is one amazing little camera… …the K100D Super is the best value on the market.

Japanese Impress Watch website have tested Pentax DA* 50-135mm F2.8 SDM lens. Automatic translation is close to unreadable but full resolution samples are talking by themselves. By the way, Amazon offers DA* 50-135mm F2.8 for $851.04.

DigitalCameraInfo have criticized Pentax A30 point&shoot digicam in the thorough review they have published recently: “With inaccurate colors, high noise levels, limited dynamic range, and terrible video quality, this camera isn’t worth the $350 price tag.“

Australian DPexpert has published a very short (no image quality tests or samples) review of Pentax K100D Super entry level DSLR. Overall verdict is “Highly recommended”. Their only dislikes are too loud mirror slaps and too high contrast and saturation level by default. Positive impressions: “The value-for-money of this camera makes the competition look either greedy or inefficient. There is nothing cut-down or under-done about the Pentax.“

Another one K100D Super review (and DA* 50-135mm F2.8 SDM on the same page) came from Japan. Here is automatic translation.

J. Keenan has reviewed fourth generation of Pentax Optio M series at DigitalCameraReview:

The Pentax Optio M40 is an entry-level compact digital P&S that provides a basic feature set, yet throws in some manual inputs not normally encountered in cameras of this class. The ability to set ISO and exposure compensation in most of the various shooting modes is a welcomed departure from the norm, although it seems somewhat incongruous in a camera that really is targeting users who wouldn’t ordinarily be expected to care about, let alone use such features. Performance in good lighting conditions is adequate, but the camera struggles to focus and shoot in dim light.

Klaus Schroiff at PhotoZone has reviewed Pentax SMC-DA 50-200mm f/4-5.6 ED entry level telephoto zoom and has got surprisingly bad results:

The resolution characteristic of the lens is rather mediocre – specifically the image borders are often soft at large aperture settings.

Must be because he has take faulty (and than repaired) copy of 50-200mm, as he noted in his review.

ePhotoZine have tested Samsung GX10 DSLR. Nothing really new, just some rumblings about how Samsung manual worse indexed than Pentax one.

IT Reviews have finally put their hands on Pentax K100D:

An affordable, solidly built and versatile digital SLR with a host of improved features over the previous ‘*ist’ series, resulting in outstanding picture quality and shake reduction.

DigitalCameraInfo have named Pentax Optio W30 “the best value in the waterproof digital camera category“:

With waterproof, dustproof (and kid-proof) abilities, the Optio W30 functions as an all-around camera that can be transported on land or water. It also includes basic PDA functions such as alarm and calendar.

American Photo (PopPhoto) magazine has named K10D the camera of the year in the Advanced DSLRs section:

Pentax’s top D-SLR delivers pro-grade weatherproofing for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars less than other models with similar cladding. And none of those D-SLRs offers the K10D’s combination of image stabilization, automatic dust removal, and in-camera RAW “developing” made possible by a powerful new imaging engine.

The New York Times has reviewed $700 to $800 digital SLRs “that let you shoot like a pro”. David Pogue was very impressed by K10D’s capabilities, but noted that

…the photos are soft and slightly washed-out — at least at first. You can extract the brilliant shots the Pentax really takes by shooting in RAW mode, an unprocessed format, and then tweaking the results in a program like Photoshop. In other words, the fault lies in the Pentax’s post-shot processing circuitry, not the lens or the shooter’s ability.

Cliff Smith at TrustedReviews has put his hands on Pentax Optio A30 digicam:

The Optio A30 is Pentax’s best ultra-compact camera to date, combining stylish design, excellent build quality, easy handling and much improved performance, with outstanding picture quality and a comprehensive set of features including many unusual and useful options.

The Pentax’s most summer camera – underwater and dustproofed US$265 Optio W30 got a lot of attention as the holiday season began. TigerTV rolled out a short video mm… I’d rather say “commercial” than “review”… but it’s still pretty interesting:

If you prefer more thorough test, Megapixel.net has one: eight pages with a lot of samples and every feature described. Pentax W30 marked 8.6 (out of 10) for functionality and 8.4 for image quality. The negatives are “a bit too strong JPEG compression at the highest image quality” (a weak side of entire W series), stiff controls and underpowered flash. And the positives are 3 meters waterproof, “good to very good image quality“, “not too much noise up to 400 ISO“.

Update: Two new Pentax W30 reviews:

• Field Test: Jump Right In with the Pentax Optio W30! at PopPhoto
• Pentax Optio W30 Review at Photographyblog

Update #2: Pentax Optio W30 Review – Ready to get wet? by Doug Harman at Photographypress.co.uk