Hi,
Maybe someone might be interested in this post. If you have Pentax glass like me the KX is worth a consideration.
I purchased a Pentax KX a mouth ago. I've been looking for a small APS camera that i could carry everywhere for street photography, second body
and that's fun in use.
My choice for Pentax has been motivated because I had some manual excellent primes from film age, and also because the brand has professional pancakes lenses available that reduce considerably the size while keeping image quality high.
If I did not have these lenses I would have probably turned my choise to MFT.
After a mouth together, the KX is very surprising, in a good way.
Small, nervous, fast enough, very fun in operation, I would compare it to a kind of Mini Cooper, or a Lotus sport car.
This little camera performs very well.
I've never liked the Samsung sensor, and the K7 did not exite me at all. But the KX has a Sony sensor, same as the D90.
It is clearly a much better sensor. High Iso quality is nothing less than exceptional. I may post some high iso pics
here later, but the little I've been able to play with is extremely good if not the best currently available in APS. You can find in the traditional
reviews online extensive material about the kX high iso capability and you'll see that I'm not exagerating.
The good points I found so far
-Very Small with decent (entry-level-like) built quality. Just about little bigger than a GF1.
-Very good 12mp Sony sensor, exceptional low-light quality for an croped sensor.
-Mirror-lock-up
-DNG files (thank you Pentax!!!)
-Extremely good battery life, lithium last long in cold weather (did more than 1000 shots in winter before signs of fatigue). You can find them in any country.
-Fast in operation, shutter speed, everything is nervous in a good way, real fun to use.
-Video mode 24fps allows manual aperture and lock exposure.
-Confortable handling, discrete, do not catch the atention (if not one of these extravagant colors available...)
-Fast processing, no sensation of waiting, responsive.(when disabled lens corrections...because then it is rather slow)
-well distributed buttons.
-The camera showed a perfect behaviour in extensive use under conditions -0 degres
-Lots of customizations, some really usefull.
-Metering accuracy pretty good.
-Design is elegant, specialy with primes.
-Built-in stab with settings for vintage lenses.
-Dust removal works just fine (although I've seen better ones)
-Good kit lens
not-so-good
-LCd resolution is average. Not trustable at all, use histogram.
-Viewfinder is what you have in this segment...really painfull for manual focussing, but I found the green light confirmation to be exact in 90%.
but it is also fair to say that it is brighter than for example a Canon 500D.
-I heard people say that shutter sound is discrete, I do not agree on that point. It is "as bad as usual".
-Live view is noisy, (you just realize it when in absolute silence).
-The built-in stab is not outstanding, I found it gave me 1.5 stop. Don't know what the "classic reviewers" found on this, it should be worth a look.
Bad.
-External conexions reduced to minimal
-With gloves some buttons are simply impossible to use. This is something recurrent in most of cameras that really p....s me off.
-Live view is too slow in autofocus contrast detection makes it virtually useless. I do not use it any more and focus manually.
-HD movie files very big.
The averall picture quality is very similar to the Nikon D90.
The Problem with Pentax DSLR is that we do not know if the brand will finaly release one day a FF camera.
Rumors etc...but nothing serious.
That is not acceptable if someone is willing to invest in a system thinking long term.
I've been waiting for a Pentax FF because I had the lenses, but it has been a too-long-wait now and I'm considering that it's time for me
to give up and move to others lands called Nikon, Canon or Sony. But I'll keep the KX, it's really a fun camera that's worth consideration.
Hope that might be a little apportation to someone interested in this little "Mini-Cooper".
Fred.
Updated cons:
-Live view reaches top temperature too fast. I do not blame Pentax for that considering the price, it just shows that it is an entry level camera.
-Tethering not supported !! (yet) this time yes, I blame Pentax for that.