The interface of the K100D is
in two parts: information presented during image capture —
in the viewfinder, on the LCD panel or even on the monitor
— and the menu system. The top LCD panel shows all the
most important settings, uses large characters and has a good
contrast, which makes it very legible, as long as there is
light. But, lacking a back light, it is unusable in low light
or in the dark. The viewfinder, however, presents information
clearly, and very legibly at all times. Furthermore, in Playback
mode, the LCD monitor shows image data and histograms clearly.
The menus, however, are somewhat less clear, but not because
of the font used, because of the backgrounds, or because of
the screen itself. The problem lies in the cryptic abbreviations
sprinkled throughout the various sections of the menu, such
as, for instance, abbreviations like "Swtch dst msr pt",
which surprisingly refers to the selection of the focus point,
or "Mag to Strt Zm Plybk", which can be deciphered
with some effort to translate to "Magnification to Start
Zoom Playback" and which serves to select the magnification
applied to the image when it is played back. Other curious
abbreviations, such as "Corction" for correction,
or "Snstvty" for sensitivity, can be worked out,
but are nevertheless impractical.
Only the Setup section of the menu, a section that contains
options for the basic configuration of the camera, escapes
the use of odd abbreviations, at least in English:
Format: serves to format a memory card.
Beep: On or Off, controls the beep sound produced
by the K100D.
Date Adjust: sets the date and time on the camera
and their format.
World Time: allows setting a secondary time that
can be displayed as well, which is useful when travelling.
Language selects any of twelve languages for the
interface: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese,
Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and
Traditional or Simplified Chinese.
Guide Display: Off or 3, 10 or 30 seconds. Controls
the mode description screens, which are shown by default
when a mode is being selected, or when the camera is powered
on.
Brightness Level: serves to adjust the brightness
of the monitor over ±7 levels.
Video Out: NTSC or PAL.
Transfer Mode: selects the USB protocol (PC, PC-F,
PictBridge).
Auto Power Off: sets the delay before the camera
automatically shuts down when it is not in use (1, 3, 5,
10, 30 minutes or Off).
Folder Name decides how folders are labelled, either
using the date, or simply numbered sequentially.
File #: serves to decide if image files are always
numbered consecutively, or restart at 1 when a new memory
card is used, or the memory card is erased or formatted.
Sensor Cleaning: pops up the mirror and opens the
curtain so that the CCD can be cleaned using a blower.
Reset: returns all settings to their factory defaults
with the exceptions of the time and date, language, video
out and World Time.
Regrettably, as we have observed before with other Pentax
cameras, the printed manual that comes with the camera is
not up to the level of the camera. The manual is poorly written,
lacking both clarity and organization, often making it difficult
to find needed information or understand the explanations
once the information is located.
Software
In North America Pentax provides
two CDs with the K100D, one containing Pentax Photo Browser
Version 3.0 and Pentax Photo Laboratory Version 3.0,
the other containing a semi-interactive version of the camera
manual in a wide variety of languages, along with a photo gallery
of images captured with Pentax cameras, and an exhaustive list
of all the accessories available for the K100D.
Pentax Photo Browser
(developed by SilkyPix) is primarily a photo browsing tool
with its main window divided into 4 panes, the first of which
is for the folders. The second one is for the images, presented
as thumbnails that can be selected to be any of four sizes,
or simply as "details", which presents them as a
list. The third pane, at the bottom, serves to see the shooting
data associated with any currently selected image and the
fourth, called the Checked Image pane, displays a selected
image dragged there in a separate preview window.
The Pentax Photo Browser is also
able to display RAW images, either those captured using Pentax's
own format, PEF, or those captured using Adobe Systems' universal
RAW format, DNG, and convert them to JPG or TIFF, and in the
case of PEF images, convert them to DNG if desired. The Photo
Browser can also be used to print, sort, or rotate photos, and
can even present them in a slide show.
Pentax Photo Laboratory
(also a product of SilkyPix) is a powerful image editor for
RAW images, be they PEF or DNG. Regrettably, this is not a
user-friendly application and users can expect a steep learning
curve. Also, the interface is confusing, composed of at least
7 separate windows, which often seem to have a mind of their
own, some refusing to overlap others.
The program's main window — where settings can be made
and which serves to open and save files — is a small
window with a dozen icons and four drop-down menus.
Moreover, changes made to images
are by default shown in a Preview window (window with the
image above) that only shows a coarse image that can be
quickly updated.
An additional window, able
to show the full resolution image, can be called up from the
Preview window by clicking on a magnifying glass icon, but
by default it displays only a small section of the image,
and has to be stretched to a larger size to provide a clearer
appreciation of changes being made.
Still, Photo Laboratory provides a wide variety of tools
to adjust any RAW image: white balance, tone, detailed highlight
adjustments, sensitivity, contrast, saturation, sharpness,
noise reduction for random noise or spurious colour signal
reduction, and complex lens aberration correction.
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Interface & Software
