Pentax K10D +18-55mm review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 11 Jan 2008

Price when reviewed: £455

Supplier: http://www.purelygadgets.co.uk

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

User Rating

The bulky K10D has more in common with Nikon's D80 than the other sub-£500 digital SLRs.

It bristles with buttons and a pair of command dials, and has a backlit passive LCD for settings. The ISO speed takes a couple of button pushes to reach, but a sensitivity-priority mode places this on one of the command dials for direct access.

Image stabilisation is built into the sensor, a feature that Canon and Nikon's digital SLRs have yet to offer. Continuous mode is the fastest here, with a high-capacity buffer enabling it to shoot 59 top-quality JPEGs at 3fps before our SD card slowed it down to 2fps. The 11-point auto-focus was a little slow in low light but produced very few out-of-focus shots.

Our image quality tests failed to reproduce the lack of crisp detail we saw when we first reviewed the K10D (What's New, Shopper 237). Understated noise reduction meant that ISO 1600 shots were a bit noisier than those from the Canon and Nikon cameras but tended to be sharper. However, JPEG compression artefacts were sometimes visible in complex textures, so it's worth shooting in RAW mode. Colours were rich on automatic settings but the dynamic range was disappointing, clipping highlights in high-contrast scenes. Ultimately, none of these image quality issues makes a serious impact on this extremely capable camera.

Author: Ben Pitt

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User Reviews

Independent customer reviews from Reevoo.com

Pentax 1909500-UK scored:
9.1 out of 10

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 28 reviews:

Confirmed purchaser

Good Points: Build quality is outstanding for the pricepoint. The image quality is as good as Nikon and Canon, and in some cases better. If your on a tight budget the K10D is probably the best choice for a semi professional DSLR.
Bad Points: You do need to play with it to get the pics you want. Straight out of the box shooting will not yeild the best results. So for quick snaps - not great. This camera is definately for the experienced photographer. Choice of lenses and third part products not as extensive as the top two camera makes.

Confirmed purchase on 01 Oct 2007

Andrew, Barnet

Good Points: Good value for money, very good picture quality and being backward compatible to old SLR lenses saves. money.
Bad Points: Versatile but not the simplest to set up and use.

Confirmed purchase on 02 Dec 2007

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