[fotogaffer]

Hey Docrwm - congrats on the K-01! Sorry, I'm a little late to this thread. Now you'll have to get used to those M & M buttons!

[jon404]

My K-01 came yesterday. Love it. No problem at all with autofocus in very low light. The two kit lenses are quite good! (see pic below).

Like my XZ-1, the LCD screen is bright enough in most daylight situations... and I put an Olympus VF-1 optical viewfinder on the K-01 for really bright days. Have to remember to take it off if I want fill flash, though... it makes the hotshoe think there's a flash mounted there, so the popup one won't pop up. Aside from that, just starting the K-01 learning curve. Fun! Also did a lens test -- XZ-1 vs K-01 -- and the K-01 18-55 is a little sharper in daylight -- and TREMENDOUSLY BETTER in low light. Unbelievably better -- very low noise at IS0 1600, wow!

18-55 kit lens -- left pic below at 24mm (36mm equiv) -- right pic from 50-200 kit lens, at 200mm (350mm equiv). The crow was kind enough to sit there while I changed lenses. These two lenses give us a HUGE range, don't they? The K-01 is quite a deal!

[sawtooth235]

My K-01 arrived on Thursday of last week. Due to a busy weekend I only got a few minutes to play with it. Fortunately the Azaleas are in bloom here on NE Florida so I took a few shots with the 40mm XS and a few with a SMC-M Macro 100 f4.0 using the focus peaking feature. So far, I agree with some of your observations and not with others. To each his own. Here is a test shot of an Azalea that demonstrates that now famous K-01 IQ pretty well.



Ray

[ChatMechant]

Regarding the aesthetics: I was at a family gathering yesterday and got a couple positive reactions on my pandatrooper from folks. One was a stylish girl who said "I don't know what it does, but it sure is cute" and another was a pro photographer who commented positively on the handling, size, etc. Personally I agree with both of them. It was nice to have an unobtrusive camera, and I found the lcd screen convenient, and the quiet shutter was nice too.

[harioharima]

I had never used a Pentax before and didn't own a single PK lens when I picked up a K01. My previous camera system was micro-four-thirds (Olympus) and I enjoyed every second with that system. The sheer pleasure of handling the (now ancient) E-P1 with both AF and MF (in particular some obscure cine lenses) lenses made it difficult to migrate away but I wanted a mirrorless camera with larger sensor and big selection of lenses. Ergo when I saw the K01, I said why not.

The last couple weeks with the K-01 have been reasonably good, the camera and lenses are still growing on me. The picture quality is indeed superb and when all is said and done, that's what really matters. The huge selection of lenses is encouraging, and holds the promise of interesting exploration. While there are some incredible c-mount lenses that will never be usable on the K, on the other hand -I could pick up inexpensive super-zoom AF and Macro-zoom AF lenses that work flawlessly without adapter letting me take snaps that were much harder with pure manual-focus on the MFT.

The entire premise of the K-01 is brilliant, even the execution is decent and nothing to quibble about - I am happy. Pentax should keep this line alive but keep the design in-house next time -- a technical team would likely round off the rough edges that currently exist mostly in the look and feel dept (ironically, attributes that some consider outside the domain of engineers!) WIth the current dimensions, it should be easy to physically fit in a EVF or OVF, which would make the camera even more compelling. This line has the potential to be king of the mirrorless space....particularly as other mirrorless camera systems get larger as they add viewfinders and lose size advantage.