JustinK10D - Congrats, mate! Needs "deliberating"...? What in the price level, and available in Oz - gets near it for "imaging functions"...?
Sure - if good video quality and performance is a demand - or a "family need", as can be, nowadays - the Canon 650D sure takes the bikky... But at the awful price of no pentaprism, only 1 e-dial, no water/dust sealing, and "no-comparo" on high-ISO abilities... And if your subjects are in a hurry - shutter at 1/6000th trumps the 650's 1/4000th... Even my P&S Fuji HS10 has 1/4000th....!
(Yes, I know about the K-R and K-X.)
With the bright pentaprism the K30 works nicely with classic manual lenses - the Green Button gets you somewhere near correct exposure - check with a shot and adjust shutter or ISO. Works rather more easily than I thought it was going to.
If you're not set to do RAW - and like the JPEG when you take a glance at it - you can still save the RAW data from the buffer by hitting the +/- button. I initially thought that was a "party-trick" - until I started using it.
Set the EV to "1/3rds" - and you have all the ISO "in-betweens" as well - ISO 100-125-160-200-250 so on... Rather nifty when you just want to lift shutter-speed a bit, say for handheld - without going way-up-ISO.
The K30 is crammed with "nifty-usefuls" - that can turn up in use - even if you thought you'd read the Manual in great detail...
As for the "video" - like my HS10, the 1280 x 720 is better than the 1920 x 1080, though both are at quite low bitrate. The Std HD is okay for short clips to put into other material when editing.
Sadly - unlike the HS10, while you can trim video clips - you can't append (join) them in the camera.
But you can manipulate JPEGs usefully - both image and frame can be rotated - and you can crop to Aspect Ratios 3:2-4:3-16:9 and 1:1 - so you can have a tree - person - tall building - in portrait mode at 9:16 - useful if you wanted to post or email it immediately.
The camera itself does sort-of-HDR - Level 1 picks up shadows detail with some enhancing you might like, or not - Levels 2 and 3 are garish to cartoonish.
If you like doing your own HDR - you're a bit out of luck... Bracketing/AEB, Timer and SR are all on the 1 'drive' in the Menu. Selecting any one cancels the others. You can't put it on tripod and use a Remote to fire AEB - Remote cancels out, too.
Pentax could so easily have allowed Timer with Bracketing - the K5 has it.
But I suppose they have to leave some useful functions out - or who'd buy the new model - or higher model - that has them...?
Unfortunately - Pentax doesn't yet have a Canon style "CHKD" hack function to "add-back" missing functions...
But - for a mere $809.00 with kit-lens - $879.00 with a 2-year Warranty Extension - I'm more than merely pleased with the K30...
Writing this at early a.m. - having coffees and a garlic roll - and the K30 with Tak SMC 55mm f/1.8 is waiting for the dawn light.....
As somebody else from W.A. said elsewhere - "A K30 and Classic lenses - can you have more fun with your pants on...?"
Do suss they're right.....
Regards, Dave.
Last edited by exwintech; 11-05-2012 at 03:24 PM.