Pentax K100D 6.1 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera Body with Lens Kit - 0.71"-2.17"

You will not be disappointed if you purchase this product !

How useful is SR? Once you use it, you won't be able to live without it. SR of K100D works better at tele end, at 200mm I can get some decent handheld 1/10 shots which are at least 4 stops better, however at wide end 18mm, there is no way I can handhold a 1/2 shot. Anyway, tele end is where the SR is really needed.

Small buffer really makes K100D react slower than you might expect, especially when you are shooting RAW with ~10MB file size. On the other side, the charging of built-in flash is really fast.

I would recommend K100D to any one who wants a entry level DSLR.

While I studied the pictures, I noticed that quite a few of them are blurry not from bad focusing, but from camera shake. When taking photos at long focal lengths, or when taking photos in low light at any focal length, the relatively long exposure time makes it difficult to hold the camera steady, so the pictures turn out to be a mess. Canon and Nikon offers image-stabilized lenses, but they cost a lot and are most certainly out of my price range. In the end, I chose the Pentax K100D because of good reviews, low prices, and the shake-reduction function built into the camera body (the CCD sensor moves to compensate for the hand movement). I rarely take my tripod with me, and I feel that shake-reduction will be more beneficial to me than all the extra mega-pixels offered by competitors.

So, did I make the right choice?

After I received the camera, I took it to a local museum which was hosting a Star Wars exhibition. It was dark in the exhibition room, and the models are all behind glass windows (so flash is out of the question). I took a few hand-held shots at 28mm focal length (42mm after 1.5x crop), 1/10s (2 stops slower than typically necessary to avoid camera shake), ISO800, and went home to study the pictures. I was blown away: noise is very well controlled (and the little that is there cleans up well with software tools), and the pictures are all very clear with no signs of camera shake. There is no way I could have gotten those shots without a tripod if I had went with Canon or Nikon. The K100D is, from my perspective, the best of all entry-level DSLR cameras currently available.

Of course, my friends told me that I need to go with Canon or Nikon because buying a DSLR is committing to a system. While that may be true for professional photographers who spend thousands on high-quality zoom lenses, I don't see myself going down that road in any reasonable timeframe. What I need is a great tool like K100D so that I can take pictures now, and buying an inferior camera just to be "future proof" sounds quite illogical to me.

Finally, the Pentax lens system has it own perks. K100D is compatible with all K-mount lenses that Pentax had ever made (since the 70s?), and there are literally millions of them out there. I picked up a 50mm f1.7 and a 28mm f2.8 for a total of $55 (both are second-hand manual focus lenses in good shape), and they both produce beautiful pictures. Compatibility with old lenses makes it simple to pick up good glass on the cheap, and for photographers on a budget, it is a much better way to grow your photography system.

And the kicker is, both of these 70's manual lenses work with shake-reduction! Neither Canon or Nikon offers a 50mm prime lens with image-stabilization functionality.

In conclusion: if you need a good entry-level DSLR to take pictures today, you cannot go wrong with K100D.

I switched to Pentax because of availability of great and inexpensive vintage prime lenses. In fact, lens compatibility is awesome for all Pentax DSLRs, all K mount and even screw mount lenses can be used with this body (screw mount with an adapter). The sensor shift anti shake works with ALL lenses. Given the premium Nikon and Canon charge for their IS/VR lenses, the K100D has to be the best value in class bar none. AS also means one can stop down any lens that's on the camera to the sweet spot (most lenses are rarely the best wide open) and shoot at slower shutter speeds without worrying about blur. This camera makes ALL lenses BETTER.

The other key advantage is the big/bright viewfinder. The viewfinder is the primary human interface to the camera and the Pentax has absolutely the best in class viewfinder.

One should definitely check out this Gem from Pentax when in the market for an entry level DSLR.

Some users complain about slow focusing in low light... mine searches a bit, but about the same as my film slr so it's something I'm already used to. The optional 360fgz flash has IR assist which helps.

What I was not expecting was the new flash system uses p-ttl exclusively, meaning that my old 500ftz flash is now obsolete except for operation in manual mode. What's worse is the new p-ttl dedicated flash (the 360fgz) has a pre-flash that causes blinking in certain subject. In my family, it is a very real problem as 1/3 of flash photos (32 out of 100 taken over the last week) had closed or partially closed eyes of subjects.

I've figured a workaround by operating the camera in Av mode and using the flash in auto mode, but I really wish somebody would have mentioned this to me before the deal was made.

Other than that, it seems very well balanced and intuitive. Build quality is good. The skylight filter to protect the lens causes dark corners of photos taken at 18mm (vignetting), but the addition of the filter was my choice, not pentax's.

I would buy the k100 again, but knowing that p-ttl and the associated pre-flash cause blinking would have prevented a lot of frustration over photos taken with default settings.

Canikon's offerings are more expensive; they're bigger companies and want you to pay for the brand name, Pentax offers more for less $. Nikon D50 is more expensive and perhaps the only things where D50 wins are the AF speed, larger memory buffer and faster fps shooting. Same goes with Canon Rebel 300D and Rebel XT 350D (though it's 8MP). I would always get the "best bang for buck", which in this case was Pentax, I earlier bought a Pentax *ist DL when it was dirt cheap but then sold it on ebay without using much to get this Pentax K100D (it has better image processing, faster AF, 11pt AF sensors vs 3 pt for DL and more).

DSLR is a new world altogether for a person who has shot using only point&shoot cameras for years (i.e. me)... I've been trying to get used to the menus etc...

The camera is amazing... but greater control over everything means there is a steep learning curve if you're coming from a point & shoot camera. Grip is another issue, I'm so used to handling the lighter Panasonic FZ15 (35-420mm ultrazoom, IS) that I'm having some trouble getting used to this new size and shape. Plus, I have bigger hands and the camera probably doesn't fit best (or I don't know how to best handle an SLR yet).

I'm using a Patriot 133x 4GB SD memory card with this camera and it has no problems dealing with 4GB. Speed is pretty good, but I can't compare with other cameras because I haven't used any other DSLR extensively.

Test shots: You can find many sample images at dpreview.com's Pentax SLR forum and also on pbase.com's camera database. I will upload pics from this camera on my pbase gallery (pbase.com/waqas...) later on.

IMAGE QUALITY

My original plan was to buy the K100D body and use my old lenses until I had saved up for a top quality 18-200 zoom. However, I could get the package with the Pentax 18-55mm for only £20 more than the body only, a no brainer. So how good is this bundled lens. My main concern was that it might provide a resolution lower than the sensor could capture. I also tested my manual 50mm Chinon and 80-200mm Vivitar. The review sites generally agreed that around 1500 lines per picture height was available and that ‘s what I got with all three lenses. In other words all 3 lenses are capable of resolving detail to the sensor’s limit. The 6mp sensor in this camera delivers far more lph than either the Fuji or Samsung 6mp compacts.

I have left the camera at the delivered settings except for image tone which I set to natural rather than bright.

I shot using raw and jpeg with no difference between the level of detail resolved. However, the jpegs do display some very minor colour moiré which isn’t there in raw-until you apply the camera settings. I haven’t had time to check out what causes this but suspect it could be the sharpening. In any case this is so minor it won’t impact on ‘real’ pictures.

I’ve tried the multi segment and centre weighted metering and found both to be good although I think the centre weighting area is too small. My only other comment would be that there is the occasional slight under exposure from both which was hard to predict. I thought maybe half a stop compensation might cure it but it’s not consistent. This camera uses the same sensor as the Nikon D40 which I checked out before buying the Pentax. Image samples from the Nikon I found on the web were very good but there was the occasional burn out of highlights. The Pentax is maybe geared to avoiding burn out, the darker detail can be recovered using editing software. The dynamic range of the sensor could be a factor but you have to pay considerably more to go to the next level.

What pleases me the most about the images from this camera is it’s very low noise. It seems as though the camera doesn’t have to apply much noise reduction or sharpening. This leaves pictures which are detailed and natural. Compared to say a 10mp Olympus I’d take the Pentax every time.

If you submit pictures to agencies then the images respond well to interpolation (although of course this doesn’t pull out any extra detail). I don’t know what algorithm is used but the Pentax Raw converter software will save at larger image sizes and produce really good results. I’ve also tried interpolating jpegs using various algorithms (cubic etc) and the results are ok.

The RAW processing software seems pretty good but I haven’t used it much to be honest as the jpeg’s are really good straight from the camera (natural image tone setting). Contrast is very realistic and adjusting with levels or curves isn’t really needed in most pictures.

If you are taking a serious set of pictures use RAW, it leaves your options open but as a default the conversion software will apply the camera jpeg settings if you want it to. It’s a good base point to compare against. However, jpeg’s from this camera are really natural (use the natural image tone setting) and don’t lose any detail as far as I can tell.

In my view if you have shot jpeg’s you shouldn’t have to do much processing on the PC. They should be right first time and that’s pretty much how they are from the K100D. Beyond all the measurements you still have to make a subjective judgement and I like pictures taken on this camera, they look as good as you can get at this price.

CONCLUSION

Pro’s

Uses AA batteries

Compatible with most K mount lenses ever made

Works with dedicated and basic flash guns

Controls are easy to learn

Can be used in many modes from full manual to point and shoot

Shake reduction is very effective

Image noise is very low

Minimal in camera processing (my guess) ensures fine detail is retained.

Tough body.

Good inbuilt flash

Great value compared to the competion. Nothing at the price offers better images, then add shake reduction, a good bundled lens and backward lens compatabilty for a well thought out SLR.

Con’s

Small to medium for a digital SLR but (in my view) all digital SLR’s are a tad too big and heavy.

Comparatively speaking a good buy but digital SLR’s should not cost this much.

That’s it..

Phil Leese

With all the features came with K100D and its moderate price, I would recommend this camera to others!

However I'm not saying the camera is problem free. Auto white balance sometimes can be a problem, especially when you shoot indoors. Remember if you are using the SLR indoors, try to use the "Tungsten light" rather than "auto white balance", perhaps you will get a much better picture. There is another problem, the focusing motor is somewhat noisy but it is OK to me, especially when considering the price. in the very low-light condition you perhaps have a hard time to auto-focus but this happens all the time to almost all cameras. I also wish the LCD panel on the top could have a back light.

Overall, excellent camera. for an entry-level DSLR I will give it 5 out of 5.

I've been using it for a couple of days now and it seems to do a great job. The features that I need are available and fairly easy to use. As with most digital things these days, there are a lot of features available through menus that I will most likely never use (not being a professional photographer) but I like being able to control many things that you can't with a regular digital camera.

All of my old Pentax lenses work fine with this camera once I got the camera set up to work with them. (Not hard... just had to read the manual.)

Picture quality is great. Although a little higher resolution might have been nice, 6 megapixels is fine for me.

So far, I'm very happy with my purchase... both the features and the price. I would highly recommend this camera to anyone who already has some Pentax lenses.

Image quality with the 18-55mm kit lens is very good. But with a prime 50mm lens the image quality is just amazing, even in low-light indoor shots. I get smooth prints at ISO800 with little or no noise reduction. And even at ISO 3200 I get more than decent 4x6 snapshots.

Menu is a bit rough, but I got used to it pretty quickly. Ergonomics are excellent. I'd have preferred a true prism viewfinder, but the Pentamirror VF was quite bright and useful - much better than the Canon or Nikon DSLR VFs in the same price range.

Tons of cheap used lens for Pentax on Ebay. Very helpful user community. All in all, an very satisfactory purchase. I spent another $700 on Pentax accessories since I got the K100D. I will be sticking with Pentax for the foreseeable future.

Cheers.