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By Eriksson Tord (Sweden)
On New Year's Eve I decided to upgrade from compacts (I've owned, or own, compacts from Olympus, Fuji, Canon, Nikon, Minolta & Konica), as their weakest points are their sometimes abysamal low light capability, and problems with dust eventually entering their innards, resulting in lost pixels and general annoyance. So off to buy a DSLR I went on New Year's Eve. I wanted a small one, with good high ISO performance, while not without a viewfinder, I realised as I tried various EVILs (the most common name for cameras like the PEN series: Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangable Lens = EVIL) and the Nikon D300S, a bit beyond my means, and a bit too big and heavy. All those I tried had good high ISO performance, but only one really fitted my hands and taste, the Pentax K-x. Had there been a PEN with an integral viewfinder, perhaps my choice had been different :-)!
As yet I find little too complain about, it has worked excellently since the word go, not least in high ISO situations, or when shooting B&W HDR photos. I have bought a Tamron 70-200/2.8 (an excellent lens, sharp as a needle Tamron SP 70-200 F2.8 Di Pent A01 Lens), a Tamron 10-24 (a little bulky, but excellent optics Tamron SP 10-24mm Di II PEN B001 Lens), and on order I have Pentax's 40/2.8 Limited Pentax smc DA 40mm f/2.8 Limited, the pancake wonder! A Manfrotto monopod and a Gitzo carbon tripod with a Arco Swiss ball head completes the setup! A polarizing fliter is a nice complement to the 70-200, by the way (also fits the 10-24)!
By Mr. W. A. Bickerton (Cheshire, UK)
This is my first digital SLR, before this I had a panasonic GF1 and a Canon G9 which were both very good, however I decided to "upgrade" despite the kx being cheaper than the panasonic, I "upgraded" to this one... the main difference it this cameras ability to take pictures which are not only usuable but actually very sharp and clean at high ISO. I think the high ISO photos really are this cameras party trick and even 3200 iso images are very good, imfact when out with friends in a resturant or party for example the 3200 are fine... Anything under 800iso really donr show any noise at all, at least compared with the panasonic which were terrable at 800 and the canon which were only usuable upto 200, due to the tiny sensor...
The Pentax with kit lense produces very good sharp images above f8, anything lower than this are a bit soft. I have sold this lens and bought a sigma 18-200mm which is vastly better, maybe a little more distortion and softer edges but usuable right down to base f3.5. I would recommend you buy the pentax with the 18-55mm lens as its cheaper than the dual kit lens and having bought the dual kit lens (18-55 and 50-200mm) version can tell you both lenses are soft at base f-stop... The 50-200mm lens was also horribly noisey when focusing and pretty slow... I didnt like using it at all, thus I sold it... The Sigma is better...
Apart from the kit lenses the camera really has very minor faults... It burns out slightly in high contrast shots as the emphasis seems to be on shadow detail and not highlight, however simply dropping the exposure a stop can fix this. Mine is constantly set to -.7 to -1. Also the white balance in artificial light is not great, but using raw will help with this... I have read the jpeg and raw quality differ very little. This simply is not true... the raw DNG files can be post edited really rather a lot... I have had jpegs which showed objects as black but with the raws was able to bring back a great deal of detail and colour in these areas... I had the jpeg shadow correct on full...
The battery isnt an issue... lithium batteries last for thousands of pics and the sanyo eneloops last for about 600 baring in mind I use the viewfinder but do review pretty much every image I take on screen... I have no problem with the battery...
All in all this camera is simply fantastic, it has flaws which I have mentioned, but for the price and with a better lens it trully is a joy to use and using raw you always have the feeling any image you take will be usable. I did not feel this way the the Panasonic...
I love this camera and would happily recommend it to any of my friends...!!
By Frank (Scotland)
Despite reading some negative reviews about the battery life, I decided to ignore those comments and buy this camera with the twin-lens kit. Three weeks and over 2000 shots later the same batteries are still going strong and I'm a very happy bunny!
This camera is excellent, and I would have no hesitation in recommending it to amateurs and semi-pro's alike. There is plenty of intuitive help for the beginner, as well as enough headroom for those of us with a wee bit of experience. The old Pentax K-fit lenses fit too, so even more of a bargain than I thought.
By Mr. Roy Isserlis (edinburgh, uk)
Having upgraded from a Pentax Super ME 35mm SLR with a collection of lenses I decided my first DSLR would be Pentax, (or a Samsung - their compatible partners). I couldn't be more pleased the various modes don't take long to learn. I can use all my old Pentax lenses; with the one caveat that the focal length of a 35mm lens is around 1.5 longer due to the physical size of the sensor compared to the exposed film. A benefit for my old 300mm telephoto that now shoots at 450mm. Change one setting in the menus to allow the camera to use non-automatic aperture lenses, (which can be kept left on with no side effects), then simply tell the camera what the 35mm focal length of the lens is and you now have your DSLR using an old lens with full anti-shake!
Now consider most Cashconvertors shops have old lenses from a tenner. And you can shoot HD video onto larger SDHC cards with any lens.
If you upgrade the camera's firmware from the official site you can also unlock the higher 12800 ISO mode for stunning low light photography, as well as allocate the green button next to the shutter to various modes. I opted to assign the Raw function so if I'm framing a shot that will need extra work done to it I can avoid Jpegs noise and use the Raw format with its better colour depth.
Invest in a decent bag though as the Pentax K-x is not as weather proof as the more expensive Pentax DSLRs, and of course put filters on your lenses to avoid scratches happening directly to them. A decent tripod is needed to use the two built in HDR modes.
My only regret is the coloured bodies offered by Pentax are not available in the twin lens kits.
By S. Wilder (London, UK)
This is my first dslr and was an upgrade from the fantastic Fujifilm s9600. Being particularly interested in sports photography, the continuous shooting speed of 4.7 on this model was the main feature that attracted me. This is considerably faster than one of it's main competitors, the Canon EOS d500.
Still learning my way around the camera, I took it to the Dubai Rugby Sevens tournament last weekend. Lighting conditions ranged from bright sunshine, bright floodlights to low-lit nighttime. Steering away from the automatic exposure setting, I found the camera extremely responsive with very intuitive menus, the most important of which can be easily modified during use with your right hand.
There are many more modes and features on the camera, including HD video which I have not yet played with, but judging by the experience I have had so far I'm sure they will be easily accessible and produce stunning results.
The lenses I used were the kit lenses 18-55 and the 55-300 from the dual lens kit. Auto focus was speedy and accurate.
Having gone through the results on my computer after getting back I could not have been happier with the results.
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