Pentax K10D

The Pentax K10D aims to be the perfect semi-pro D-SLR with some of its great features like a water and dust resistant body, easy to use and straightforward controls, and the best part is that it’s extremely simple to get a hang of especially if you have your camera basics in place.

But more on that later, let’s start right from the first impressions.

Build
The weight of the camera itself will give you an indication of the amount of hardware it packs in. Even by using a Li-Ion battery instead of the common choice of AA batteries (for D-SLRs), the weight of the camera unit with battery comes to 793 grams.

But the weight is well justified by the kind of features the K10D boasts and the 72 dust and weather resistant seals that the camera’s body contains. Not that I would go as far as putting the K10D though extreme conditions, but rest assured, it will stay well protected when shooting in foggy conditions and slight rainfall.

As always, using the K10D requires you to pay attention to the 2.5" LCD screen at the back and the digital display on top that gives you essential information like the exposure settings that the camera is using.

Even the viewfinder has a digital row at the bottom that tells you the cameras exposure settings, so you don’t have to keep looking in and out of it.

What I liked about the design is that unlike Canon, the Pentax K10D gives you two separate jog dials to adjust the shutter speed and the aperture size instead of the single dial option that Canon D-SLRs provide.
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Features
There’s just so much packed into the K10! To begin with, the excellent CCD-shift based shake reduction system that’s made up of permanent magnets, ball bearings and four coils on the CCD plate giving the ability to move in x and y directions and also rotationally around the lens axis.

Even after having that highly enforced body, there’s still a chance that you may get a stray dust particle on your CCD when changing your lens or any other situation that makes your sensor vulnerable.

It’s got an 11 point auto focus with 9 points in the center that helps focus on all kinds of details, whether horizontal or vertical.

Besides the Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority modes, the K10D also features a Hyper Program mode with which you can use the two dials to switch instantly between shutter priority and aperture priority modes. There’s also a Sensitivity Priority mode that gives faster access to the camera’s sensitivity.

I particularly loved the white balance preview mode that the K10D gives you, where you can use the last image you clicked to set the right white balance. It’s innovative and makes the task a lot easier.

These are just some of the additional features that the K10D has. Overall, it has just about everything that you could ask for and more. Let’s see if the performance matches up to that.
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Performance
Considering it’s a semi-pro camera, it doesn’t take too long for an amateur to get familiarized with the high number of shooting options present in the K10D. All settings are pretty easy to spot on the two main displays and important functions like exposure settings can be seen in the viewfinder itself, as with most modern D-SLRs.

Even though the RAW mode give you the best image output, the JPEG mode definitely doesn’t disappoint. The colors are not bright and saturated as in their lower-end model, the K100 D, which is understood, as any serious photographer would like as pure an image as possible. There’s also a RAW+JPEG mode to give you the best of both worlds. If you think you’re shooting an image that you’d use for a long time to come, I suggest using the RAW+JPEG mode.

The K10D is excellent at color reproduction even at ISO 1600. The dark parts of the images look truly deep adding more dimensions to an image than what you can normally find. The auto white balance mode is great for almost any lighting condition. It was only when I shot using tungsten light, did I need to change the white balance setting.

The 10 megapixel camera resolution is kind of an overkill, especially considering that you do have a RAW mode. Amateur photographers who are not too comfortable shooting at RAW, may however appreciate the extra resolution. Still, the K10D does do justice to its megapixel count with its excellent image quality at about any lighting condition.

When it came to speeds the K10D performed at around 3 frames per second in an average burst mode, which may not be the fastest timing in its category, but its still quite good. The power off and on took less than a second.

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Conclusion
The overall performance of the camera was, in all, outstanding. Its simple enough for even your grandma to shoot in the camera’s auto mode and there are feature-a-plenty to keep even a veteran photographer trigger-happy.

Besides that, it’s also a pretty safe camera to lug around if you can take the weight. The body is well protected and the dust removal sensor-shake feature will ensure that dust doesn’t settle on it easily.

It’s Rs. 71,290 (MRP) price tag may not be affordable to a lot of enthusiasts out there, but rest assured — the features make it well worth it. If you’re looking for a simpler D-SLR with a friendlier budget, you may want to take a look at the Pentax K100D we reviewed earlier. But if you want a D-SLR that will put you up there with the real talent, then don’t skimp out on this great model.

Pentax K10D