Pentax K-x Digital SLR

(See all Digital SLRs)
I received this camera last Friday. I had 2 full days to take great shots with this camera. I purchased two bundle kit, which comes with 18-55mm lens as well as 50-200mm lens. I have another manual focus lens, which is A50.7.

One of the most asked questions about this camera is AF speed. Yes, AF is pretty quick. To test AF speed, I sometimes turn focus ring to opposite direction and checked the time it takes to set the focus. It was usually less than 0.4s. Even in low light situation, it worked fine. I took many shots with only one small table light in the living room so, ISO was 6400 and shutter speed was 1/4. Camera doesn’t seem to have any problem for AF. Nice thing as a entry level camera is that it supports up to 11 AF point and you can choose your AF point. Some may say, it lacks super impose. However, simply touching ‘ok’ button reveals current AF point in the LCD screen. So, that’s not a problem. AF is sharp and accurate. In MF mode, camera indicates the right focus in two ways both sound and indicator. So, there’s no problem using manual focus lens. in Liveview mode, Camera magnifies focus point to assist you, which is very useful since viewfinder is very small.

High ISO support. This is the best part I like about this camera. It supports up to 6400, and can be expanded to 12800. I took several shots outside around 6:00 PM. My friends used flash but my K-x didn’t require flash. with 3200 or 6400 ISO, it still gave me clean bright pictures. Pentax did a great job reducing noise, especially color noise. It’s hard to find the noise from the pictures. Now, 3200 is something you can use everyday. Actually, scene mode for the kids uses very high ISO to get 1/1000s or faster shutter speed. Thanks to that, pictures for my kids are all sharp and crispy.

User interface is very intuitive and simple. Since this camera is small, most of the buttons are within reach of your thumb and index fingers. Though it’s small, grip is ergonomically designed so that camera is very stable in your hand. It has one auxiliary button (green button), which you can assign other functions. It has drive mode, ISO, White balance, aperture and flash buttons. It also has dial to navigate menu faster.

It uses 4 AA batteries and this is really nice. You can use your Ni-MH batteries or Lithium-ION batteries. It your camera is run out of juice, you can go nearby stores and buy one quickly. I took about 250 shots and I didn’t need to recharge yet. Camera recognizes battery type automatically and optimizes the operation.

with all the bells and whistles, I think Pentax K-x is super buy for the beginners. Not only it has all the features needed, it outperforms higher grade DSLRs in certain area like low noise. Thanks to great compatibility for the mount, even 30 years old lens can be used for this fresh new DSLR. It was quite fun to look at postings to sell old, student film camera kit at bargain price and you can use lens out of it. I also got 50mm fast lens which is excellent to take portrait shot from used market.

A few updates.

1. Some folks reported battery compatibility issue. Below is the blog of Pentax USA President. He recommended user to put batteries and wait for a few seconds so that Camera recognizes the type of batteries.

2. It also reveals a few problems related to Shake reduction. First, it produces noise from magnet handling CMOS censor. Bad thing is, this noise is recorded in movie mode. K-7 also has same issue but it supports external microphone. K-x doesn’t allow that so, this can be one issue.

3. It also shows color overflow problem under low light situation, especially red and blue. When there’s bright light, for example traffic signal, red color or blue color spread around as if it overflows.

A few users reported above problems to Pentax R&D and they are supposed to return by 11/9. I hope firmware upgrade will fix those problems.

Pentax K-x Digital SLR with 2.7-inch LCD and 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL Lens (Black)