Just got my Pentax K-x DSLR yesterday (read about how I ended up buying the Pentax K-x) and have been playing with it (some samples below — shot as RAW, but no image processing done other than to save in JPEG format and reducing the pixel width and height).
My current impressions:
- I like the camera — it looks nice, the controls are easy to use and understand, it feels good in my hands.
- The software shipped with it — Pentax licensed version of SilkyPix — has a very bad user interface. I found reviews on the Internet that SilkyPix is very good at photo manipulation, but the UI of the version shipped with the camera is abysmal. It is very slow (both uploading from the camera and manipulating images), feels very stilted in the way it lets you manipulate images, many of the menu options are not very clear (maybe I just need to get use to the photographic terminology!) and it appears buggy in a few places where it doesn’t seem to be doing the action I chose to do.
- The camera didn’t ship with a sample SD/SDHC card — I had to make a run to the store for that. Annoying.
- Photos taken already look better than on my Fuji FinePix F30.
- It is way faster than my FinePix F30 obviously.
- It needs AA batteries which I don’t like for some reason — it feels inconvenient.
- In LiveView mode (where you can see stuff in the LCD monitor), it seems like focusing doesn’t work the same and appears to take longer to focus (lots of noise while the lens figures out the focus).
- The viewfinder doesn’t seem to have focus points that indicate what is being focused on like I’ve seen in other cameras. I need to read the manual on this one.
Hello! I want to buy a Pentax K-X for the same purpose as you did and i was wondering if you recommend this. I was a bit sad to see that you haven’t posted anything in a while and i had a few questions:
1. Did you try to make another istock account ?How did it go?
2. What did they say about the photos taken with the k-x?
3. Have you read the manual? Does the camera have focus points that indicate what is being focused on?
4. If you could choose another camera, would you still pick the k-x?
I would like to give you a tip: instead of using SilkyPix you could use for image manipulation: Adobe Camera Raw or even better, Adobe LightRoom (that is more complex).
Keep us posted! 10x
Sam
Hi Sam,
1. I haven’t tried again submitting pics to iStockPhoto. I am improving my photography skills (basically reading a lot and taking a lot of pictures) before I resubmit.
2. Since I haven’t submitted yet, no comments yet.
3. Yes, I have read the manual. The camera does not have focus points. But I don’t see that as problem (since I wasn’t used to it anyway :-)). The viewfinder has a small indicator at the bottom that blinks when the camera can’t acquire focus and becomes steady when focus is acquired. Combine this with the various autofocus settings (5 point, 11 point, center, etc), it’s easy to not need the focus points within the viewfinder. There is also an audible beep when focus is acquired.
4. Ha. Interesting question. I like the k-x. The only thing I haven’t liked too much is that the macro doesn’t seem to be as good as my previous point-and-shoot camera — I guess I have to buy a separate zoom lens. Other than this, I find the camera way better than a simple point-and-shoot. Ofcourse other higher end cameras may be nice and I may like them too. I also hear that Pentax is coming out with a K-r with more features than the K-x.
I need to checkout Adobe LightRoom, but currently I am just evaluating my initial photos using Picasa — Picasa seems sufficient for my current needs — I am focussing on making sure my composition, focus etc are good and I am comfortable with the various camera modes (there are a ton of them and lots to experiment with). After I am comfortable with that I plan to learn a little bit about post-processing pictures.
Overall, I would recommend the camera — the price/feature combo can’t be beat. If not this, then the Sony Alpha’s seem a pretty good compromise.