What's Hot: Lens availability, low-light performance, general picture quality, sturdy construction and ergonomics. Outperforms many 8-megapixel cameras.
What's Not: Too many modes. I don't need them and neither do other experienced photographers. No other flies I can't live with.
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Review: This is a very, very well thought-out camera. Its low-light performance and flexibility is outstanding and if you shoot available light, get yourself a 35mm f/2.8 or a 50mm f/1.7 Pentax-A lens and call it a day. You won't take it off your camera and you won't use a flash. For my style of photography, it's a dream come true. I'm a professional violinist and I take a lot of concert photos and candid portraits of instrumentalists and students in available light. My old Nikon F3, with an 85mm f/2 lens was the workhorse replaced. The little Pentax usually wears a 50mm f/1.7 and is far quicker and less obtrusive in photographing performing musicians who will absolutely not tolerate flash. Although not as quiet as a rangefinder, it is several decibels below the F3, and in my opinion my photographs, even at ISO 3200, are superior to what I was getting on film in the F3 in the conditions I usually shoot in. With that shake reduction, I can "sit in the stands" with my 100mm Pentax Macro, and get positively stunning results. I have never been able to use a very long lens (this is the equivalent of a 150mm) without a lot of blurred and wasted pictures in theater lighting. Do I love this shake reduction? You betcha. You'd have to spend a real pile of loot to get the equivalent results with Canon/Nikon equipment. Add the fact that the autofocus system will visually confirm your manual focus lenses and you have a real bonus.
I collect cameras and am not about to give up film totally. I have been super pleased that I can use my collection of Tamron adaptall lenses on manual and aperture-priority mode with the appropriate settings and the adaptall-KA adapter. My 17mm Tamron is getting a new lease on life until I can afford a dedicated ultrawide for my K100.
Outdoors, I have been pleased with the results from the Pentax. I picked up a 35-70mm f/3.5 Pentax autofocus lens on Ebay for 99 cents (Really! Nobody else bid!) and I prefer it to the fine Pentax kit lens because it is smaller, lighter and more than acceptably sharp. In tandem with my 17mm Tamron and the 100mm macro, I don't need anything else. On my own printed pictures up to 8x11, I really can't tell the difference in quality between my new Pentax and any of my SLRs—from Exakta with a Zeiss lens to an Olympus with a Zuiko—unless I'm doing an Ilfochrome from Kodachrome or Velvia. Then there is a bit of an edge with the film if you're closer than a foot and your slide is not too contrasty.
But it is the ease of low-light work that makes this camera a real winner. I do all of my post-production work in Ubuntu-Linux (using Gimp rather than Photoshop) and recommend the Pentax K100D for this less-than-standard setup. If you use Linux, just add Bibble Lab's lite version to your stable for RAW conversion and with Gimp, basic Noise-Ninja and a Pentax K100D you can do wondrous things. This is a fantastic camera that has produced amazing results in my field of endeavor. Highly recommended.
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