Pentax K2000

Reviewed February 2009

Interface & Software

When the K2000 powers up, a status screen appears on its LCD. The information on the screen varies depending on what capture mode the unit's in. In Program mode, for example, these items are screened.
· Capture mode
· Battery level
· Shutter speed
· Aperture
· Shots available
· Flash status
· Drive status
· White Balance setting
· ISO setting
· Custom imaging--choices include brightness, saturation, hue, contrast, sharpness and tone
· Autofocus mode
· Metering mode
· Anti-shake status
· Filter effects--choices include toy camera, high contrast, soft, starburst, retro and extract color
· File type
· Size
· Quality

By pressing the OK button at the center of the Four-Way controller, you can access the Control Panel. It gives you a quick and easy way to change settings on the fly like flash status, Drive mode, White Balance, ISO, image customizing, Autofocus mode, metering, anti-shake and filtering. Unlike some cameras that limit your file type, image size and picture quality choices from this kind of screen, all type-size-quality combinations can be chosen from the panel.

The K2000's menu system is organized around four tabs--Shooting, Playback, Set-up and Custom. Each tab is divided into screens. The number of screens within the tab is displayed at the top of the tab.

For example, the Shooting tab has three screens signified by the numbers 1, 2 and 3 at the top of the tab. Screen 1 displays choices for customizing images; choosing filter effects; picking a file format, size and quality; choosing a RAW format and choosing a color space--sRGB or AdobeRGB. Each screen shows all the available choices for that screen so you don't have worry about scrolling below or above menu items to see what's available.

Here's the choices on screens 2 and 3 of the Shooting tab.

The Playback tab has two screens. The first controls the camera's slideshow function, permits images to be compared side by side, allows digital effects to be applied to photos in the camera, resizes and crops images in the unit, protects pictures from deletion and controls the order in which images are printed.

The second screen allows you to convert RAW images into JPG files; create a single image from several images to form a sort of digital contact sheet; choose a display method, such as flashing under- and overexposed areas in a frame, and delete all images from a card.

The Set-up tab contains screens for performing a variety of housekeeping tasks--choosing a language, setting the date and time, folder conventions, sensor maintenance and such.

Some 21 functions can be modified with the customization menu. They include defining the increments used for exposure compensation, determining the order in which photos are shot when using exposure bracketing, defining the function of the AF button, reducing noise when using high ISO settings and so forth.

Dense menu systems are an unavoidable liability of DSLRs, but Pentax's system of discrete screens makes navigating its menus easier than most cameras in this category. In addition, the K2000's Control Panel greatly facilitates access to the mirrorcam's most frequently used functions.

As with the Pentax K200D, there are two software programs included with the K2000: Pentax Photo Browser 3 and Pentax Photo Laboratory 3. Windows and Mac OS X versions of the software are included with the camera. Since the programs have remained substantially unchanged since our review of the K200D, we have reproduced our observations about them here.

Photo Browser 3 is an application for organizing images. It has multiple window panes for displaying a list of files and directories, thumbnails of photos, information about selected pictures and a palette for tagged snapshots.

Images can be tagged with a colored checkmark--red, green or blue. Each checkmark has a separate palette so with a click, you can see all photos tagged with a red checkmark, or green one and so forth.

Among the organizational features included in the program are batch renaming of files, applying filters to items displayed on the thumbnail palette, sorting items based on various file and image criteria, conversion of photos in Pentax RAW format (PEF) to DNG files and opening images in Browser's companion application Photo Laboratory.

Laboratory is a program for editing RAW files. You can choose to auto process a file and let the software crunch the image based on the camera's settings when the picture was taken, or you can custom process the file.

If you custom process the file, a bunch of free-floating windows will appear on your display allowing you to make adjustments in an image's white balance, tone, sensitivity, saturation, hue, sharpness and contrast. In addition, you can correct the photo for lens aberrations and reduce noise in it.

When in custom mode, you can apply pre-sets to the image. The pre-sets correspond to the scene modes in the camera. Modes, for instance, like night portrait, sunset, kids, pets, candlelight and such.

Software performance is similar for the PC and the Mac versions. The interfaces are similar, too, although the main panel, which, in the PC, contains a menu bar and a tool bar, only contains a tool bar in the Mac. The menus are part of the desktop menu bar as they are with all Mac programs.

Both software packages are intuitive to use and can meet the basic needs of many photographers, although all those floating windows in Laboratory are a trifle disconcerting. Editing of JPG files, though, will, most likely, send a shutterbug scurrying for additional software.