Customer Reviews:
Excellent build. Great pics September 2, 2008 This is my 1st DSLR, 6th digital camera. I selected the camera for it's features, and construction. It had to have body stabilization, and sensor cleaning. The use of AA's, and very good battery life, are a definite plus. Pentax did an excellent job of sealing off the body from moisture, as proven on Kauai, when it and my family and friend were drenched on the Kalalau trail. The ergonomics seem to be very good. The grip and feel are rock solid, and feel balanced with either the 18-55mm AL2 or the 55-300mm zooms. The built in flash performs remarkably well, and the low light sensitivity works well, even with the apertures I have on the zooms. The AA's I have been using were the Sanyo Eneloops, and even with only a 2000mah rating, they lasted the whole day,good enough to fill a 2GB card, which also included a handful of flash/flash assisted pics. The new low discharge Eneloops can sit in the camera for weeks, then be called on for duty without worry...something only the Lithium ion folks could brag about before. The negatives? The white balance should be on it's own (but the Fn button gets you there quickly, too). The clack of the shutter/mirror assembly is noticeable in a quiet surrounding.
Pentax K200d August 30, 2008 Very pleased with this camera. Already had lenses from a Pentax 35mm camera and write up said they would work with this camera. I was skeptical, but upon receiving the camera, I found they worked perfectly. Has large selection of various modes if you want to customize the way the camera takes pictures or it can be totally automatic. Shake reduction is a great feature for low light situations. All in all, a good buy.
Great pics, long battery life August 30, 2008 I have had the camera about a month and am very happy with it. It takes great quality pictures and has a great battery life. I've had the originals in for about a month, and the battery light still says they're full.
The only thing I would suggest is to buy a tripod if you plan on using the night setting. It does a great job with the lighting, but it's hard get a focused picture without resting it on something like a tripod or other surface.
Great camera for both Pros and Amatuers August 27, 2008 I am an amateur photographer, and till recently I was using a Canon 500N 35mm SLR, which I loved. Its my first DSLR camera, and I am very happy with it. I did a lot of research, and comparisons with Canon and Nikon. Once I decided on Pentax, I had trouble deciding between Pentax K10D and K200D. After a lot of research, I chose K200D, for the following reasons:
1. Both offer the same features and functions, but K200D is cheaper. 2. The only key differences between the 2 are that K10D has a pentaprism viewfinder, whereas K200D has a pentamirror. This doesnt cause any change to the quality of pics taken. The second is that K10D, being the prosumer camera, has most of its functions adjustable manually without having to go into the menu. In K200D, these must be set in the menu settings. Again, no big deal. Just a convenience. 3. K10D is heavier than K200D. For an outdoor person like myself, the weight is an important factor when I am walking on rough and uneven trails for many hrs. With the bag, and camera around your neck, and your friends hurrying you up, you dont want a very heavy camera. 4. K200D is a camera released 2 years after K10D. Its most likely that there are improvements in the software, bugs fixed, if any. 5. K10D only has manual modes. K200D has both preset modes and manual. I see no harm in having the preset modes, even though I dont intend to use them. Might help when I have little time to setup and shoot.
The K200D camera itself is a very beautiful camera, easy to hold and use. It has a robust design, and great performance, under all conditions. ITs even water and dust resistant. The image stabilization function is very useful. The camera has a pretty big image viewer, which shows high and low contrast areas in the image. Useful function.
Some usability issues I noticed was that the function button used for selecting ISO, number of frames, etc, turns off the screen as soon as you select. Thats kind of annoying, because, I would like to see the selection I made on the screen, as confirmation.
Overall, very impressive camera, and I love it. See my sample images.
amazing August 27, 2008 I have had the camera for a month and I am totally satisfied. I did alot of research and I couldn't be happier with it. I also got the extreme III card from Sandisk and it is very fast.
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