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May 11, 2008

Corfy (near Indianapolis, Indiana, USA)

My wife and I have been looking at digital SLRs for years. We both are familiar with film SLR cameras, and we have both owned a film SLR, although recently, we have only been using digital point-and-shoot cameras. Finally, our budget allowed us to get a digital SLR camera, and so we immediately started looking. To be honest, the reason we picked a Pentax camera was our film SLR is a Pentax, and we can reuse our lenses. But we were very impressed with the camera. Although we haven't learned all the advanced features yet, the camera is very easy to use and takes great pictures. The preview screen on the back is huge (2.7 inches), and we can get a good idea of the quality of the image right away. Some smaller screens make it hard to tell the quality because it is so small. The autofocus is very quick and very accurate. The included 18-55 lens is a bit limiting, but as I stated earlier, we have our own lenses we can use. One review on the K200D I read complained that it would "only" shoot 2.4 images per second. Considering we're used to manual advance, that isn't going to be a problem for us. All in all, this will be a really nice camera for us for years to come. The "bonus kit" was a pleasant surprise. The 4 GB card is large enough for us to hold 800 full-sized images. The tripod might not be the sturdiest on the market, but it is perfect for my wife and I. The three filters were a UV filter, a florescent light filter, and a shaded filter. To be honest, though, the camera bag was a little small for camera with the lens still on it, but if you separate the lens from the camera, they fit. It would have been nice to get a camera bag that was just a hair bigger, though. Still, the bag was big enough to hold our film SLR camera with a 50 mm lens, however, so we switched our camera bags with the bag from our film camera (which holds the additional lenses), so that wasn't a problem.

.....whatever needs to be said has already been said by the 68 odd reviewers before me. :-) I just came here to give it the 5 stars it deserves.

i have had this camera for a few months now. i think its fantastic for the price. the image stabilization works well - i regularly shoot at 1/15. the camera feels very substantial - much more so than the equivalent canon and nikon pieces. the kit lens is very good. the flash is very powerful. i loved shooting RAW for the first time and am totally taken away by its potential - i am never going to shoot with a camera without RAW again! i have had no issues with color and such - although i have heard professional reviews that have complained about it.

some problems that i saw - the fps rate is really low and seems lower than the specified 2.8. Shooting 3 shots in auto-bracket mode seems to take forever. the software for converting RAW is not that great. i had also bought a remote control from some asian site - and didn't have much success using it - although that likely the remote's fault and not the camera. and i am not a great fan of having to go through multiple clicks to do simple things like changing ISO speed. Canon controls are superior in this respect.

Excelent camera! Great pictures and easy to use. The colors are life-like and the ability to adjust focus and depth of field are a plus!

I have shot with Cannon and Nikon, but by far I like this camera more than any of the other ones I have shot it! Good price, great camera

I've owned many digital cameras- the epson 1 MP, kodak dc290 2MP, minolta dimage 7 5MP, canon powershot S3 6MP, and now the pentax K200D.

I love this camera, and I enjoy taking pictures with it. Its a great dSLR and I purchased it mostly because of the value pentax offers for the price(especially the built in shake reduction).

Cons:
-I am annoyed that there is not a dedicated button for the changing the shooting mode(single, continuous, timer, remote control, auto bracketing). Everytime I want to use the remote, or the self timer, I have to press the function button, then navigate the menus. It isn't a big deal, but it adds a second or two to something that should take only 2 seconds to begin with.
-this camera does not have an intervalometer. I was used to taking time lapse photographs with my previous 2 cameras, and I was surprised that this camera does not have this function. I imagine that an intervalometer can be implemented by software very easily, so I assume that it was left out so that more advanced photographers would pay more for the K20D.

Pros:
-The shake reduction really works very well. I've taken 1 second test shots handheld and the blur was reduced dramatically. The shake stabilization does however emit a high frequency sound compared to the optical stabilization systems used by canon.
-The build quality of this camera is top rate. Most people don't appreciate build quality these days, but if you just pick this thing up and handle it, you'll realize that it is built to last. Modern electronics usually go obsolete before anyone notices the build quality, but pentax took the bet that some people do notice a difference. It helps me have a peace of mind to know that the camera is splash proof and dust proof.

Photokina 2008 has come and gone. Nikon and canon both have released dSLRs with video capability. I bought my camera in june 2008, and now with the current camera marketin october 2008, I would still have chosen the K200d for the price. I enjoyed the high quality video capabilities of my canon powershot S3 and I hope that when I replace my dSLR in about 5-10 years, pentax will have a competitive dSLR with 1080P video capability. If price wasn't an issue, I would get the canon 5D mark II with 1080P video, but since money is an issue, I am very very happy with the K200D.

For anyone with a budget large enough to buy the K200D or K20D dSLR with a few lenses, the unanimous advice I've found online was to purchase a cheaper dSLR with higher quality lenses. Lenses will maintain their value over a long period of time because lens technology does not advance as fast as electronics technology. Some pentax lenses like the 31mm f1.8 prime is considered by many as THE best autofocus lens ever made. If you want another reason to go for pentax, that would be it- The best pentax prime lenses are also the best lenses that money can buy.