Here's my story...I purchased my first DSLR, an Olympus E-420, in May this year, and really caught the photography bug. The great thing about the Olympus, especially with the 25mm pancake lens, is that it is as easy to carry as a point and shoot, but takes GREAT pictures, **as long as there is plenty of natural light**.
When I read the introductory preview of the Pentax K-R on dpreview.com, it got my attention because it was noted for great performance in low light / high iso conditions, such as shooting indoors without a flash, or shooting your daughter/son playing basketball in a gymnasium, where built-in flashes do not have the range. This, plus in-camera image stabilization and very usable 18-55 and 55-300 kit lenses, sounded worth trying. So I found a great deal through Amazon, and bought the Pentax K-R right around Thanksgiving.
The first thing I noticed about the Pentax when I unpacked it was that it felt much more robust than the Nikon D5000 or Canon Rebel that I had checked out at Costco; but it also sounded like it was broken. There was something flopping around inside when I tipped the camera back and forth. This was disconcerting next to my rock solid Olympus. The second thing I noticed was that after I charged the battery and powered up for the first time, the display glitched. I fooled around and took a few shots, and they came out really great, but I was still concerned, so the next day I called Pentax. Pentax tech support was very helpful, and explained that the part moving inside is the sensor, which floats on a magnetic field so that it can compensate for camera movement when taking pictures. The glitch on startup, however, was not normal, and they suggested I return the camera for a replacement.
So I contacted Amazon, and there was only one problem setting up the return/replacement: They were out of stock. So I waited, and kept reading the K-R booklet and reviews online... I wondered if I should wait for the replacement, or just return it and get something else.
Then, earlier today I received an email from Costco that the new Rebel x2ti was available at a substantial discount with an 18-55 and a 55-250 kit. I picked one up on the way home, and when I walked in the door my wife was ready to kill me. The replacement K-R had come from Amazon, so I now had two Pentaxes, the Canon, and the original Olympus...
Long story short, comparing the Pentax and the Canon side by side, the Pentax was the hands down, no contest winner. It is a much more substantial feeling camera, with better buttons, and a much more professional "feel." The lenses seem more solid, and the front element does NOT turn the way that it does on the Canon when focusing, which is important if you use a polarizing filter. It's also nice to have the flexibility of 18-55 and 55-300mm lenses with the Pentax kit versus 18-55 and 55-250mm with Canon. And the Pentax SR image stabilization system works great. I'm taking pictures indoors with the 18-55 f3.5 lens without any flash, and getting perfect exposures without blur. Much better results than I can get with the 25mm f2.8 Zuiko on the Olympus with the same light. I'm sure that once I can afford a higher speed prime lens from Pentax, I will be even happier.
In summary, if you value excellent build quality, lens design, and low light / high iso performance, you will be very happy with the Pentax K-R.
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Amazon was selling the K-r kit with 18-55 and 55-300 lenses for a really good price around Thanksgiving 2010. I had been wanting to upgrade from my k200d for sometime and jumped at the opportunity. 3 weeks with the camera have given me a good perspective on the pros/cons of this upgrade.
My primary motivation for upgrading was the rave reviews about low-light/high-iso performance of the K-r (and K-x). I chose the K-r over the K-x because the high fps and focus point in viewfinder features were well worth the minor difference in price. Here are the pros (+) and cons (-):
+ high ISO performance is excellent. I am shooting ISO1600 indoors all the time. Processed images have no noise at this setting. The performance is comparable (or better) than the k200d at ISO400
+ auto-focus is really fast as promised
+ burst shooting is really fast.
+ camera button controls are much better than k200d (direct iso/flash etc. buttons)
+ it's a much lighter camera (but that's a negative as well)
+ automatic white balance without flash is way better than the k200d (the latter had very warm overtones in tungsten for example the K-r produces perfectly natural white balance for common indoor and outdoor lighting situations)
+ the supplied 55-300 kit lens is excellent. compared to my current 70-300 Tamron lens it's much sharper on the long end.
+ live view is cool and allows shooting holding the camera at all sorts of angles. the screen is bright enough to be visible from just about any angle.
focusing is fast but not as accurate. in particular my camera was front focusing and i found this to be a commonly reported problem on the web. i almost considered returning my camera before reading about the focus fine adjustment option. setting the camera for the maximum front-focus adjustment got rid of the problem for the most part (although it still doesn't seem perfect). not all lenses suffer equally badly unfortunately my favorite lens (Tamron 28-75 f2.8) does.
auto white balance with flash feels weird (it seems that it over-compensates for flash)
(updated: i found that (for my home shots) changing the white balance to 'warm white flourescent' in the raw editor (silkypix) largely fixed the issue).
the supplied software is absolutely terrible. i process RAW images on the PC and the old software was simple but usable. The new one is a labyrinth of features except the ones u really need (like not resetting the adjustment settings on every new image). Morever it crashes (i cannot even start it on one of my pcs)
the new 18-55 lens feels cheap to the one that was supplied with previous models (plastic mount and no hood). i am planning to dispose off the new one and hang on to the old one.
no weather sealing and body doesn't feel as substantial. the k200d used to sell at the same price point but had a magnesium alloy body and was weather sealed. the K-r is neither. The body is not as substantial to hold in particular the battery compartment is smaller and the hand grip around the compartment doesn't feel as secure as before.
doesn't take AA batteries by default. this is really lame i will have to spend extra money to buy a special adapter. rechargable AA batteries are much better than proprietary ones.
movie mode is pretty much useless because of lack of auto-focus. almost all DSLRs are like this so it's not a ding against K-r just dont buy it for taking videos. (Updated: i have found the video to be very jittery even slow moving everyday scenes. it's not clear why that is the case since 24fps is supposedly good enough)
(Updated) one additional annoyance is that choosing the fully automatic 'A' mode does not reset all the customized settings specifically the focus point and AF mode. This means i can't simply set the camera to 'A' mode and hand it off to a P&S photographer (since i always leave the camera at center point focus). That's really painful.
there are a lot of new image processing features in the K-r (HDR, shadow lighting, filters etc.) but these can all be done in software and are not so valuable for me (may be for other users).
if i was shooting daylight/outdoors in good light the K-r is actually a downgrade from the k200d. however the gain in low light conditions are exemplary and outweigh the negatives (of which there are many). So it's a keeper for me. Considering that i would give a five star to the k200d this is at least a four star. (Updated 09/2011 note that i changed the review to one star because of the unreliability/defectiveness of my camera that was not fixed even after a trip to Pentax CRIS. Please see beginning of review)
For people looking to buy Pentax for the first time one word of caution. Pentax seems to be falling further and further behind in the choice of lenses available on their platform. For example the Tamron 18-270 lens is still not available and the 18-250 lens has been taken off the market. There's no cheap 50mm prime lens available (the cheapest one is now $350). It's a rather sorry state of affairs and if i was not already invested in some Pentax mount lenses i would have definitely taken a much closer look at the Nikon D5000 that seems really close to the K-r in price/capabilities. At the same time the supplied kit lenses are very good and if you don't plan to buy a lot of lenses the Pentax is an excellent value (always more functionality and nicer build per $ than Canon/Nikon).I bought my Pentax K-r online. Out of the box, Pentax does not provide that warm and fuzzy feeling that it is not a refurbished camera. Everything is wrapped in a non-sealed plastic or a bubble wrap, and there are no thin disposable protective film covers over the lens and lcd or that plastic tab over the battery compartment. I confirmed with Pentax that this is how their packaging is done even with a brand new item to ease my thoughts.
On to the camera itself, the shutter release action on the Pentax K-r is quite loud. You can hear the gears turning within. I've tested the Pentax K-r vs the Canon T2i side by side using the automatic mode and feel that the Canon is able to focus faster when quickly trying to capture an event that you have no time to fuss around with. The Pentax even on automatic mode still requires little adjustments and you may sometimes have to ask your subjects to pose a little longer for the camera to snap the shot while you hear the gears adjusting.
The pop-up flash on the Pentax is a little on the flimsy side while the Canon T2i feels more durable. For the price you pay, Pentax should have really put in a little more effort on this piece as it feels very plasticky. The entire body otherwise feels sturdy.
The option for a proprietary battery or the use of AA batteries is nice on the Pentax. I also like the quality of the movie that it takes although you are limited to about 11 mins and 30 secs of capture time. I have never exceeded this time, but it would be an extra bonus to have it be unlimited depending on your SD card capacity.
Pentax claims a battery-life of around 1,000 shots using high-powered NiMh AA batteries and 470 shots with the lithium-ion however I was only able to get about 400 shots (with turning on and off and viewing/deleting pictures along the way) using the proprietary battery that it shipped with.
Overall, the camera is nice with many customizations possible. It does what you expect of a SLR and the quality of the photos are great. If you are a new recreational SLR user, I would lean slightly more towards the Canon T2i which is more user friendly with less adjustments needed right out of the box. Otherwise, if you like tinkering and don't mind the little things mentioned here, the Pentax K-r is a good solid SLR.I had problems with Amazon and with my new camera, a Pentax K-R kit including 18-55 and 55-300mm lenses.
Order was received as promised. An adapter to allow AA battery use is not included. As yet I cannot find them in the US, and they cost about $35. The included LI battery seemed to charge fast and last about 500 frames. I also bought a class 4 SDHC card and reader as none are included and my SD card reader wouldn't work with the SDHC card.
I was happy to be able to use this over Thanksgiving until I discovered the thumb wheel was malfunctioning. When you rolled the thumb wheel control knob the selected values hopped around randomly instead of changing predictably. It got worse over the next few days and now the camera is now essentially unusable.
Pentax answered their support phone and offered to repair it but recommended just exchanging it since it was a week after purchase and they thought exchange would be faster. But... Amazon wouldn't allow exchange from some unknown reason, the website only allowed me to return it for credit. So I had to repurchase it. Dumb idea.
I should have replaced it from a different seller, but I can't cancel the Amazon order so I'm stuck.
The camera sn was 3819488.
The camera took beautiful pictures, particularly hi ISO such as 3200 when you could get the settings to change correctly. The lenses seemed to be a good value. If I get a good copy of the K-R I think it will be a good camera. It could be just production line problems (the K-R is a new model) but you'd think QC would be tighter on the first production runs to ensure newer products are fully functional.
Crossing fingers...Update:
--Good news, bad news: As noted below, the k-r takes very good, clean images on full zoom; if the light is right you can read a license plate at 450 yards. But I need to use a CPL, and this is another story. I tried two brands of CPL with the Pentax lens and both resulted in horrendous blur and a "ghost image" familiar to B&W TV viewers of an earlier era. (I've used these same CPLs on other cameras with no problem.) I've found online references to an identical problem with long lenses on Canon, Nikon and other cameras. Other users solved the problem by using a high-end filter (retail $75 up). The k-r is so good in every way that if it needs this kind of pampering I'm willing to do it. RESULT: Problem solved with Tiffen CPL ($72 MSRP, $31 at Amazon). (But my CCD-sensor Fuji S100 gets as good or better IQ on a $7 filter!)
--Garish yellow sky: when shooting a beautiful sunset (Manual mode) the beautiful tones of pink, magenta and pale blue-green were all converted to an ugly cartoony yellow. (There was no yellow in the actual scene.) CPL didn't help. This is another problem that I and others have encountered with a variety of cameras (Canon, Nikon, Pentax), both DSLR and P&S. I have not found a total solution (need another sunset for that) but I presume that changing WB will do the trick. I did try moving the WB up into the GB quadrant a bit; that did not have much effect. Next time I'll try the various lighting settings ("Tungsten" for example makes everything very blue). The catch is, of course, that I don't want to turn everything blue; I just want to get rid of the yellow. I don't want to use the preset Sunset mode, because it takes over control of shutter speed and aperture, making it impossible to catch flying birds against the sun. (Any tips on how to fix this problem will be greatly appreciated!)
...........
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I just got the Pentax k-r with the two kit lenses (including the 55-300mm) and have only scratched the surface of what it will do. So far, I have no serious complaints.
I take mostly long-range photos of outdoor action (surfing, breaking waves, seals, flying birds) in high-contrast situations. I need good zoom and decent (at least 4fps at full res, with at least a dozen shots) burst capability. To obtain these, I have tried a number of different cameras, including DSLRs with zoom lenses (Sony A550, Canon T2i) and so-called super-zooms (Lumix FZ100, Fuji HS10, Fuji S100, Sony HX1).
I also own a little Canon D10 (12mp, 3x) waterproof, for in-the-water surfing shots and a Canon SX100 (8mp, 10x), which is pocket-sized if you have big pockets. Neither has any burst worth mentioning.
Two zoom + burst cameras have made the cut: the Fuji S100 and the Pentax k-r. The Fuji has great IQ and a great zoom range (28-400mm equivalent) but the burst is marginal (3.7fps at full res, with a 7 shot limit).
Pentax k-r summary:
The good:
--NEW GOOD: just fired off over 300 shots of waves, surfers, fishing boats, seagulls, cormorants and pelicans in flight, and one squirrel (not in flight), mainly just to see what the camera would do. Never missed a moment. Caught full range of wing motion and positions in flying birds. Long and short bursts, no waiting for write or save. (I use viewfinder, not "live view" and I also use a Class 10 card; maybe that helps.) Even shot a brief test video. And the battery is still holding up. This is a very good camera for action shooting.
--Solid build, right down to the battery compartment door and SDHC door.
--Nice size, not overly heavy in spite of solid build, good ergonomics.
--Dials are firm yet easy to turn.
--Green button can be set to instantly activate a key setting of your choice.
--Great IQ and great glass. I took a lot of pictures of subjects from 500 yards to one mile away at full 300mm zoom. You can enlarge these images until you're seeing pixels; you don't get distortion, CA, or noise.
--Very good controls and menus. All major functions can be changed with one or two pushes of a button or a turn of a dial. Very user friendly.
--If you make changes to default settings (via the Menu), the changed settings are highlighted in yellow in the Menu. Makes it very easy to go into the Menu and see quickly what you've changed. Nice.
--Burst exceeds specs given in manual. At 6fps, full res, I fired bursts of up to 35 JPEG images, at which point the rate slowed but did not stop. (The stated limit is 25 JPEG images). NOTE: I'm using a Class 10 SDHC card; I don't know if that has any effect in this case. Anyone out there have the answer?
TIP: Some setting changes will affect the burst. For example, enabling CA Adjustment will slow the burst somewhat and limit the burst total to 6 or 7 images. The manual (p.211) warns you about the reduction in shooting speed, but they don't tell you about the drastically reduced buffer size! (For the record, I haven't noticed any CA at any focal length, I was just trying out the various functions.)
--LCD is very large and high res. Clear and legible.
--You can use the viewfinder and still have the LCD on. Nice.
--Viewfinder is very good to use, bright and clear. Diopter dial is in a good place.
--Slick features: Multiple exposure, HDR feature, lots of filter effects. I wish some of them were available during shooting, not just PP.
--Shot some pix inside the house, with the zoom lens at 55mm. No flash, hand held, got good results.
The bad:
--UPDATED: The k-r has burst, remote, delay (timer) and exposure bracket shooting. You can't use any of them together. No remote burst, no delayed burst. No remote bracket shots. No long delay with remote (Remote function does have its own 3-second delay option).
--The remote is infrared only (cable can be useful and desirable, which is why Pentax included this option on the higher-end K-7).
--The infrared remote sensor is on the front of the camera. (What's next, put the LCD on the front?) A normal photographer is behind the camera, and that's where the sensor should be. Especially if I want to take a remote shot from the edge of a cliff (which I often do); I don't want to be standing in space like Wile E. Coyote. I'm going to rig a Rube Goldberg mirror attached to the tripod, so I can stand behind the camera or off to the side and aim at the mirror. This should work.
GOOD NEWS: I just got the remote and tried using it. It can be used from a position to the side and slightly behind the camera, about 10 degrees back. BUT you must be on the right hand side of the camera, where the sensor is. You can't do this from the left hand side of the camera, so this is still a limiting factor in many real-life situations. One button focuses, the other shoots. Haven't tried the remote range yet. (BTW, a cheap JJR remote from Goja is what I got and it works fine. Plus the battery is included and is easily replaceable.)
--The remote can't be used for burst shooting. (Every cable remote I've ever seen could.)
So the remote is not good for action shots.
--Fixed LCD. This was almost a deal-killer, but there were so many other pluses that I went ahead and bought it. I haven't used it in bright sunlight yet; this is one reason I ditched the Canon T2i. Sometimes you really do need to get an angle. Pentax claims that the screen can be seen from an angle, so maybe this won't be an issue. I'm more of a viewfinder shooter anyhow, but one likes to have options.
--No cord or string on the lens cap. How hard would it be to include this obvious item? I'll probably drill a small hole in it and thread a string through it. But this is a dumb omission.
Haven't really tried the video yet, except to ascertain that it works (it does); for me it's not very important, but nice to know it's there.
Haven't tried the short lens yet. I assume it's just as good as the telezoom.
Bottom line: I'm very happy with this camera. Images are crisp, colors are nice without any adjustment, zoom is great. There are a lot of upgrades over the k-x. I got lucky and got the k-r kit for only $100 more than the k-x kit. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought it, and frankly, I would have missed out. I'm keeping the Fuji S100 also; it has cable remote and takes great pictures at all ranges. But it doesn't have the same burst capability.
Advice: IF you don't use remote for action shots, and IF you don't use filters--or don't mind spending a bit more for better filters, buy the k-r. It really is outstanding for action shots and distance shots. Don't bother to go below the 200 native ISO; it works fine, no noise, and you gain nothing by using the option to lower it.
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