First Thoughts
Once in a while, a new product grabs our attention during review. Unfortunately, that is much less often than you might expect. Technology breakthroughs are truly rare, and most of what we see in the technology arena is evolutionary. Technology is also fast moving, so innovation by one player normally finds its way - quickly - to other new products.
It is far too early to draw conclusions about the new Pentax K20D, but we do confess that most of our questions about this new digital SLR have had positive answers. The new 14.6 MP Samsung/Pentax sensor is for real. Noise is admirably low and the CMOS architecture assures extremely low power draw and long battery life.
In early testing there was no substantive difference in image quality from ISO 100 to ISO 1600, which is a noteworthy performance for a sensor with a 14.6 MP resolution. Images were also very usable at ISO3200, even when enlarged. ISO 6400 was not as useful, though small prints and web publishing should be fine with the 6400 setting. Our fear was that Pentax/Samsung had given up the store to have the bragging rights for the highest resolution DSLR in their class, but that is certainly not the case. The image quality was at least as good as a Sony A700, but we have not yet compared results to the Nikon D300.
Pentax K20D features seem to go on and on. In fact it is easy to get lost in all of the extensive image control that is possible with this new camera. Fortunately, Pentax keeps everything under control with their Info button and the most common controls - White Balance, Drive, Flash parameters and ISO - are easily accessed with the Fn (Function) button.
The in-camera image stabilization and sensor cleaning have been improved over the K10D, according to Pentax. We haven't yet tested this claim, but hand-held low light performance was impressive, and dust on the sensor has not been an issue so far. The dust mapping strikes us as a bit gimmicky, but those who work in dusty environments will probably disagree. We weren't anxious, in early testing, to expose the sensor to a lot of dust to test its usefulness.
The new motor lenses are something of a revelation. Our 16-50mm f2.8 was completely silent and very fast. Compared to the record-setting speed of the Canon 40D and Olympus E-3, the motor lens performance gave up nothing to the Ultrasonic or SWM motors. Non-motor lenses were reasonably fast, but no real competition for the best from others. They were also a great deal noisier as we have seen on screw-drive AF lenses from Sony and others. Pentax needs to introduce more SDM lenses as soon as possible. Once you use one it is hard to go back to screw-drive AF even on a good lens like the 50mm f1.4.
Overall, we found the K20D exciting in early testing. The combination of a 14.6 MP low-noise CMOS sensor; a dust/splash-sealed body, grip, and lenses; and the new SDM motor lenses is very satisfying. This is not the camera for sports shooters, as the 3FPS shooting speed will be laughable to action shooters. However, the incredible feature set, useful and unique program modes, and solid construction and performance will likely be well-received by the rest of the photo world. Our full review should provide even more answers to our questions about the K20D. If you have any specific question, chime in on the comments and we'll do our best to address those as well.
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solar1 - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
First let me give praise for covering aspects of this camera that few reviews bother taking.I did go to the japanese pentax website some time ago where they have absolutely stunning webpages for the K20D, but in Japanese. So with the funky google translation, I was able to get a bit of an idea on the new camera before it showed up in shops. I thought it was a mistranslation regarding this illustration function - it sounds really interesting. Please do show an image or two in your upcoming review... and thanks for bringing up the topic.
The Irish Patient - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Not a big deal, but the 10d used a pentaprism viewfinder instead of the more common pentamirror setup, and the viewfinder could be removed to use interchangeable focus screens.Does the 20d retain these features?
hiepbiz - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
In fact, if you bought the Katz Eye one, you can switch it to the new K20D without any problem. Pentax does have my vote in backward compatibility department.The Irish Patient - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
I wouldn't usually clutter up a forum with a "thank you" post, but your reply deserves an exception.The Katz Eye Focusing Screen you directed me to is exactly what I had hoped to find. OK, I'm a dinosaur, but I still prefer to focus manually as on my antediluvian Nikon. For those readers that have never seen what manual focus is supposed to look like on an SLR, the Katz screens have both the central split prism and a surrounding microprism ring.
I said in my original post that the ability to swap out the focusing screen on the k20d was not a big deal, but now it's a very big deal for me. I just hope I can get a decent price on my XTi now that the XSi has been announced.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Yes the K20D continues to use a real pentaprism and it does feature interchangeable focusing screens. The lower-end K200D will use a pentamirror like the Sony A350/A300/A200, Canon XSi/XTi, and Canon D60/D40x/D40spazmedia - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
I still don't get why camera makers insist on increasing megapixel count on prosumer cameras. This makes little difference when printing at low iso and at high iso just makes things worse. The sensor made by Samsung look interesting, if only they did not increase the resolution.also does the K20 display iso setting in the viewfinder?
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
I remember when 1 megapixel was touted as all one could ever want or use in a digital camera :) Pentax claims that the 14.6 megapixel resolution matches the resolution of 35mm film. Others might claim 35mm film resolution is a bit higher than this. I really don't think the resolution wars will ever be over, but like reducing manufacturing traces in computer CPUs each improvement in speed introduces a new set of problems to be resolved.The resolution wars are slowing a bit right now as we do approach 35mm resolution, but anyone who shoots medium format or view cameras knows there is much more resolution beyond 35mm film. It will be great when we can shoot those higher resolutions with a small digital camera. Of course hitting the 35mm film resolution range is also hitting the resolving limit of most current lenses, so future lenses will require even better optics.
We have already seen that the develpoing move to full-frame by Sony, Nikon, Canon is requiring the best optics available as average lenses are obviously inferior on those bigger, higher-resolution sensors. Future resolution increases will likely require an optics quality revolution to have much relevance.
madgonad - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
35mm film is actually about 10MP. Maybe a little less for lower quality films.The motion picture film libraries have been scanning at the maximum discernible resolution for a while to create digital masters of the movie archives. They are scanning at 4K resolutions which is the equivalent image of about 10MP. You can shoot at higher resolutions but eventually all you are doing is just magnifying the image and requiring more and more light for proper exposure. I am not actually sure what human vision translates into megapixels.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
Human eye 'MegaPixel' equivalent in a camera last I read was somewhere above 32 MP(some argue 64MP, some argue higher). wikipedia claims 81MP.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye
Personally, I am happy with 6MP, but very unhappy with the current Dynamic range capabilities of ALL cameras. From what I have read, the human eye has a static contrast ratio of 100:1(about 6.5 stops), but a dynamic contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1 (about 20 stops). All this is what I have read from wikipedia, but I have read other 'articles' that have claimed similarly.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - link
I completely agree that the biggest challenge in today's digital cameras is dynamic range. Another reader chided me for not spending some time talking about the dynamic range expansion feature on the K20D that allows expansion at the top and bottom of the dynamic range. We will try to cover this in the full review.I could also agree with you about the limitations of film dynamic range, except that I find digital imaging is still far more limited in dyanamic range than film. When it reaches film level I can expand my complaints.