Pentax K200d

Reviewed November 2008

Characteristics

The Pentax K200D is a compact digital SLR. That makes it easier to wield than full-sized DSLRs, like the Canon EOS 40D and Olympus E-3, but at 5.26 x 3.74 x 2.91 inches and 2.87 pounds with batteries and lens, it isn't going to fit in a pocket or purse either.

The 10.2 megapixel mirrorshooter has an APS-C sized sensor. At 23.5 x 15.7 millimeters it's slightly smaller than a 35mm frame of film, which is 36 x 24mm.

Accompanying the sensor is a revamped PRIME image processor. Previous Pentax image crunchers were criticized as being slow and creating noisy pictures. This new PRIME version ably addresses those problems.

If you're constantly turning your camera off and on to conserve power, you'll appreciate this model's rapid startup time. It's almost instantaneous at around 0.7 second.

In addition to supporting two RAW formats, the K200D captures images in three sizes and at three quality levels. Sizes are 3872 x 2592, 3008 x 2000 and 1824 x 1216. Qualities are Best, with compression ratios ranging from 2.3:1 to 5.3:1; Better, with ratios from 4.1:1 to 4.9:1; and Good, which spans 7.4:1 to 11.2:1. RAW photos can be captured in Pentax's PEF format or Adobe's DNG file type. (See Compression Table)

Images can be stored on either an SD or SDHC card. A 1GB card can hold about 58 RAW images, 202-586 images at Best quality, 35-974 at Better quality and 902-2627 at Good quality.

The unit has a 2.5-inch LCD with a resolution of 230,000 dots. The display is bright and sharp. Although the monitor can't be used to capture images directly, it can be deployed to preview shots. That's done by rotating the camera's power dial clockwise after framing and focusing a shot in the unit's viewfinder. The potential shot then appears on the LCD. If you like it, you can save it by pressing the unit's function button and choosing "save as" from a menu that appears on the display. If not, you can choose "cancel" from the menu and redo the shot.

In addition to Auto White Balance (AWB), the unit supports settings for daylight, shade, cloudy, fluorescent light, tungsten lighting, flash pictures and manual calibration.

The white balance setting can also be fine tuned from the Custom menu. Two options are available. Colors between green and magenta and between blue and amber can be modified.

If you'd rather use the preview function to determine the depth of field of a shot in the viewfinder, you can reprogram the mode to do that through a menu option.

· Capture mode.
· Scene mode.
· AE metering.
· Flash mode.
· Drive mode.
· Exposure bracket.
· Focus mode.
· AF point position.
· Lens focal length.
· Shutter speed.
· Aperture.
· EV compensation.
· Flash exposure compensation.
· Sensitivity.
· ISO correction in AUTO.
· White balance.
· GM compensation (Adjust White Balance).
· BA compensation (Adjust White Balance).
· Color Space.
· File format.
· JPEG recorded pixels.
· JPEG quality.
· Shake Reduction.
· Image Tone.
· Saturation/Filter choose one.
· Hue/Toning.
· Contrast.
· Sharpness/Fine Sharpness.
· World Time.
· Date and time.
· Battery level.

Capture information is also available when looking through the viewfinder. Here is the data displayed in the viewfinder.

While the viewfinder display is packed with information, one item we found wanting was an indicator of the camera's drive status.

Light sensitivity settings supported by the K200D range from ISO 100-1600. In Auto sensitivity mode, the range, by default, is ISO 100 to 400. The upper limit of the Auto range, however, can be modified manually.

In addition, there's a Sensitivity Priority mode (Sv). In it, ISO values can be changed using the e-dial. As those values change, the camera will automatically choose an appropriate aperture value and shutter speed to accommodate them.

The dynamic range in shots can be expanded from within the sensitivity menu, too. When that feature is turned on, the light level readings from the pixels in the unit's CCD sensor are expanded to make it more difficult for bright areas to occur in the image.

The native lenses for the K200D are Pentax's DA series. However, it will also accept D FA and FA J glass, as well as any other lens with an Aperture A (auto) position.

Two DA lenses were included with our review unit--an 18-55mm F/.5-5.6 lens and a 55-300mm F/4.5-5.8 one. Both have KAF2 mounts with supersonic motor support. With that support, the lenses were very quiet when focusing on subjects.

Both lenses also support a Quick-Shift focusing system. It allows for manual fine tuning of a shot after autofocus is achieved. Although we found the autofocusing system consistently delivered sharp images, from time to time, the ability to tweak an autofocus setting was a worthwhile asset.

In autofocus mode, the camera will focus on a subject when the shutter button is partially depressed.

In single shot mode, the unit locks on to subject and remains focused on that subject until the shutter button is fully depressed. That allows you to change the framing of a shot while keeping your initial subject in focus.

Although that technique will lock the focus in a shot, it does not lock the exposure setting. However, you can program the camera to lock exposure when you lock focus through a menu choice.

In continuous focus mode, the camera will dynamically focus on a subject as it moves.

While you can't fully depress the shutter button in single shot mode if a shot is out of focus, you can do so in continuous mode. As an alternative to partially depressing the shutter button to focus on a subject, the OK button in the navigation dial can be programmed to perform that function.

What area in the viewfinder is used by the camera to obtain a shot's focus can also be programmed.

In auto mode, the snapper will select an optimum point--even if it's not at the center of the frame.

In select mode, you can choose from an 11-point area which AF point you want the camera to use.

And in center mode, the focusing area is set at the center of the viewfinder. Only this mode is available to lenses other than DA, D FA, FA J, FA and F lenses.

Before autofocusing systems became popular, a common technique used by lensslingers was to predict the path of a moving subject, focus on a point on that path before the subject got there and fire the shutter when the subject arrived at the point. Pentax has automated that technique in something it calls "Catch-in Focus" mode. It works like this.

The K200D has eight shooting modes.

There's a Program mode, where the camera chooses the best aperture and shutter speed for a shot; Aperture Priority, where an F-number is chosen manually and a shutter value chosen automatically; Shutter Priority, where a shutter setting is chosen manually and an F-number automatically; the aforementioned Sensitivity mode; and manual mode, where both aperture and shutter settings can be altered by hand.

Prolonged exposures can be taken in Bulb mode, where the shutter will remain open as long as the shutter button is depressed.

Additionally, there are seven picture and eight scene modes.

Six picture modes--Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Moving Object, Flash Off and Night Portrait--can be accessed from the Mode dial. If that dial is set to Auto Pic, the camera will automatically analyze a shot and choose the best picture mode from Portrait, Landscape, Macro and Moving Object to accommodate it.

By turning the Mode dial to SCN, you can enter the camera's Scene mode. That mode, usually targeted at novice photographers, automatically chooses a group of settings for a particular photographic situation. For the K200D those situations are Night, Surf and Snow, Food, Sunset, Kids, Pet, Candlelight and Museum. When in Scene mode, scene settings can be accessed by pressing the Fn key, tapping OK and choosing a setting from the options on the LCD.

Three common automatic exposure metering modes are supported by the bytecam: multi-segment, center-weighted and spot metering.

In Multi-Segment mode, the camera divides the frame into 16 areas, meters each and calculates an exposure based on that information.

In Center mode, the entire frame is metered but the final exposure is weighted toward the reading at the center of the frame.

The automatic exposure for a shot can be modified through exposure compensation. You do that by holding down a button located behind the shutter release and turning the e-dial with your thumb. Any process involving holding down one control, working with another and looking through the viewfinder is awkward at best, and this process is no exception.

In addition to Bracketing mode, the mirrorshooter has four other sequential shooting modes.

There's a single shot mode where an image is captured each time the shutter button is fully depressed.

There's a continous shooting mode where the camera will snap a series of pictures as long as the shutter button is depressed. In Lo continuous shooting mode, the unit will capture up to four JPEG images at highest quality at 2.8 frames per second. In Hi mode, the camera will shoot highest quality JPEG images at 1.1 fps until its memory card is full.

The digcam also has a self-timer with two delay periods: two seconds and one second.

Shutter speeds for the K200D span 1/4000 to 30 seconds. Exposures longer than 30 seconds can be performed in the aforementioned Bulb mode.

The camera has a built-in, pop-up flash, but will also support an external flash unit. There are five flash modes.

Just as you can alter the exposure of a shot with exposure compensation, you can control the output of the internal flash with flash compensation. Compensation values can be set in 1/2 EV or 1/3 EV increments and range from minus two stops to plus one stop.

In Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority modes, the flash will compensate for the values you choose. For example, in Shutter Priority mode any speed 1/180 second or slower can be used for a flash photograph and the camera will automatically choose an appropriate aperture. In Aperture Priority, the unit will choose a shutter speed of 1/180 or less to accommodate an aperture choice.

Slow-sync pictures can also be taken with the flash. That allows both a foreground subject and a bright background--a sunset, for example--to both be properly exposed.

Standards supported by the K200D include USB 2.0, NTSC/PAL and PictBridge.