Great little camera with issues

Author's Rating:

Pros: colors,  lightweight, shake reduction, kit lens, AWB, shadow/highlight correction, video, remote flash control, AutoISO

Cons: mirror slap issue, AF point selection algorithm, no cheap 50/1.8, missing hdmi out, bad service.

The Bottom Line: 
Mirror slap issue making it unusable in many cases. Once you have mirror slap issue it can not be repaired and Pentax refuses to help you. Avoid.

Author's Review
I am long time Canon user decided to get K-x for great colors Pentax produces. Kit lens is great and clarity of color is on par with Canon's higher grade L lenses. Not sure how do you measure clarity but not to be mistaken with sharpness, MFT and other measurable things.


Camera interface is great, everything is easily accessible via menu and info buttons. Green button on top by the shutter and is very handy. My favorite use - in M mode setting exposure to measured - helps with gray card.


I do miss ATv mode found in K-7 where you set aperture/shutter and camera picks ISO for you. I would take that instead of Sv mode any time.

Auto ISO implementation is great. You can set max ISO and camera picks shutter speed based on focal distance. It only jacks ISO when short enough shutter speed can not be achieved. On the other hand when shooting with flash camera picks unnecesary high ISO. It is always good idea to use manual program with flash.


In-body shake reduction is quite good feature despite being put down by dpreview - I was able to get sharp shots on shutter speeds down to 1/4 sec. Together with great high ISO - usable up to 1600 even 3200 this makes is shine.


Live View works Ok I guess but forget about contrast detect autofocus - it just toooo sloooooww. K-x has mode to focus by dropping mirror and I tend to use that.


Video works great but has, however, two limitations - limited high ISO so no shoot in darker room and no autofocus while shooting. Since screen is not high-res it is sometimes hard to focus especially having so narrow DOF. It does produce very pleasant movie-like videos. SR works in video mode (optional)


Phase detect autofocus is ok but you should avoid AF point auto select mode. In Canon my camera would always focus on the subject closest to me that has overlying focus point. In case with pentax sometimes it does that but in many cases it chooses central focus point. If you have say two kids playing and some contrast on background between them it will focus on background in most cases. Since camera does not indicate where it focused there will be some disappointment. So focus and recompose is the only way. With central point I found it as sensitive if not more than my Canon 400D.


Automatic White balance is better than anything I have seen till the moment. There is custom menu setting that allows full correction for tungsten light. I don't have to shoot in RAW anymore - it makes it perfect. Even with Canon flash (don't have pentax flash yet) it produces better WB than Canon.


I used to spend quite some time to make pictures look the way I like it using different RAW converters and software.Pentax produces picture I like out of the camera. Few minor tweaks and it is ready. 


Overall experience is great however there is major issue with my camera as well as many others - reports can be found all over. Search for "K-x mirror slap problem". What happens is that on shutterspeeds of 1/60-1/125 range camera produces motion-blur like picture when handheld. This should not have happened at that focal range of 18-30 mm. In some cases turning shake reduction on can reduce problem, in same cases makes it worse. Many people tend to blame testers for not holding the camera steady but many tests at comparable settings proved that problem exists. This basically makes camera unusable handheld in the range 1/60-1/125 sec. I was very disappointed when most of my shots turned out to be blurry after shooting out in overcast day.

The thinking is the problem is created by strong mirror slap as Pentax attempted to reach 5 FPS continuous. I would rather have 3 FPS and no motion blur.

I will be sending camera for repair to pentax, hopefully they will be able to fix the problem for me as other than that camera is great. I would not want to go back to Canon if problem is not fixed but I can adjust color but can not remove blur and shake from my images.

I also did automatic white balance comparison with my Canon 400D. Here is the result:

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/7466/canonpentaxwb.jpg

Update on 2010-02-26
Camera is back from repair of mirror shake issue and it does not appear to be fixed. Here is short test:
http://i824.photobucket.com/albums/zz165/akpch/test/mirror_shake_k-x.jpg


Update on 2010-04-09
Camera is back from repair again, issue is not fixed, emailed pentax several times then called and responce is depressing: Pentax thinks there is no issue, this is user error but if I want to send to repair I can (spending $12 for shipping each time) however repair facility would not acknowledge the problem exists. Because of this I am lowering my rating on the camera to lowest and I am not to buy anything Pentax again. Failed complaints with BBB, will see where it goes.

Update 2010-07-27
Ordered one more camera from Amazon, although less pronounced mirror slap problem still exists. Returned it back.