At some point in time this weekend I crossed the magical 10,000 shutter count mark for my K30. Not bad for 4.5 months I guess. I was planning on submitting an epic review of the K30 into the database after 6 months of usage, which would be updated after 1 year of usage, and then a final update at the end of my K30's life, so consider this post a sort of note gathering for the start of that.
So before I start, a quick background on me. I was (still am) a complete photography newb. Prior to owning this K30, I had never owned any photographic equipment other than point and shoot cameras and cellular phones, and I had only used a DSLR probably less than 5 times total in my life. To me, this K30 and the Pentax ecosystem are everything I know about photographic equipment. I do not have a basis for comparison to any other brands or camera types, and moving forward every other piece of equipment I own will be judged against the personal benchmarks set by my K30 and Pentax.
(I did own a K7 for a brief period of time because I bought it locally and flipped it here for some $$$. I only took about 300-500 shots with it though.)
So, that being said, as the title states, 3 reasons to own the K30, and 1 reason not to.
Reasons for:
#3
DYNAMIC RANGE
When I started taking pictures I was only shooting in JPEG and editing with Microsoft Photo Editor. I was still impressed with the amount of finessing I was able to do with the photos I took, but it wasn't really that much more than what I could do with the pictures I got out of my cellphone or point and shoots.
Then two things happened: Shooting RAW, and using Lightroom.
Now, shots that would have been rendered awful or flat out unusable because of brutal dark spots can be restored to great and even excellent levels. I'm always blown away by how many details I can suck back from total darkness in my RAW files using Lightroom. I'm confident that even pictures that look extremely dark on the LCD can be restored. It's now one of my most trusted techniques to help me get the shots I need.
#2
ERGONOMICS
Specifically, the grip.
I bought the K30 to accompany me in my outdoor adventures. This includes cycling, hiking, and snowshoeing. I need something that I could confidently bring with my on all of these occasions.
Enter the grip. It's deep. I can hold it with my hand comfortably and securely without needing kung-fu tightness to make sure it stays put. I don't use a hand strap. The only strap I have is a loose wrist strap from one of my old point and shoots, essentially just as insurance in case the camera slips out of my palm or some jerk tries to run and grab it from me.
What does this mean? It means I can have this in hand, ready to shoot, in any situation. When hiking/snowshoeing, I have this in one hand and my trekking pole in the other, and I am confident that even if I stumble, the camera won't fly away (landing on top of it and crushing it is another matter
).
Perhaps the most impressive display of the grip I've found was on a recent bicycle ride. My friend (a dirty Canon shooter
) introduced me to cycling one-handed with a DSLR in hand ready to go. At first I was wary, but after some hesitation, I found that the grip was both comfortable and secure, and I proceeded to take shots while riding (note: lens used was the 18-250). What's more impressive is that I had some regular cloth liner mittens on, and I still didn't need any sort of extra insurance other than my loose wrist strap (my Canon buddy has to use a tight hand strap with his camera). Now I would feel confident in taking my K30 in hand on a roller coaster, such is the security that the grip inspires in me.
Compared to the K7, it's no contest. I couldn't even wave the K7 above my head without having to check myself from swinging too fast, lest the camera launch into the sky.
So moving forward, this is an absolute deal breaker. Any camera I get now has to at least match the grip I can get with the K30.
#1
HIGH ISO CAPABILITY
So again, I had no idea what ISO and noise and grain were prior to owning the K30. My first thousand or so pictures were taken in AUTO mode, with the ISO in auto mode ranging between 100-12800. Even with these basic settings, I was happily shooting away and getting good pictures with only my kit lens, with a few excellent ones smattered in there.
As I've started reading more and more into about photography and cameras, I've come across discussions about ISO. People were complaining about ISO in the 6400, 3200, even as low as 800 and 400 settings. This puzzled me since I couldn't really tell the difference between those settings in the pictures I took, at least without some close inspection.
I finally saw what these people were mentioning when I had a chance to use the K7. That thing had awful ISO capabilities! Its max ISO setting was only 6400, and even then pictures were super grainy and only usable after some heavy post-processing. 3200 wasn't super either. On my K30, I regularly leave the ISO in auto mode with a range of 100-6400 and I can get shots that are great straight out of the camera in the upper end. I also feel confident that I can routinely bump it into 12800 and even 25600 as needed and get shots that can be okay with some post processing.
Having awesome ISO capabilities means I can get shots in the dark that I wouldn't be able to get with my other cameras. It also lets me get away without having to use big, heavy, fast, expensive glass. My current normie prime is the F 28 2.8, and it's plenty good enough for what I need in dimly lit restaurants, apartment interiors, and street scenes.
I never really knew what I had when in terms of ISO capability, but now that I do know, I don't think I can live without it. It would simply be too limiting.
Honorable mention: FOCUS PEAKING
It's always on when I'm in live view. I resort to it in tough situations. It always impresses those who do not have focus peaking on their cameras, and I can sometimes beat the accuracy of the already impressive autofocus on the K30. It's now a deal break for me, even though I did not know about it when I got my K30.
Now, the one reason I would give for not recommending the K30
THE SONIC BOOM MIRROR SLAP
It's loud. REALLY loud. It can sound like a machine gun when you're rapid-firing photos. Easily heard above chatter in a restaurant, or while on the street in close proximity of your intended target. When you're taking pictures, people will turn and look. Don't even think about using it in a situation that calls for quiet such as live theater or some sort of classical concert.
This is one area where the K7 handily wipes the floor with the K30. The mirror slap on the K7 is whisper quiet. Why couldn't they just use the same mechanics in the K30? It's like the designers said "it's going to be an outdoorsy camera" and the engineers took that as a cue to just make the camera as if it was ONLY going to be used outdoors.
So if someone came up to me and said "I need a camera for stealth/discrete shooting situations" such as behind the scenes at a theater play, despite the exceptional low-light capabilities of the K30, there's no way I can recommend it to them on the basis of the super loud mirror slap.
There you have it. Despite that last point, overall I'm extremely happy with my K30. It has set the bar extremely high for what I expect from a camera in the future.
Sometime near the end of March/early April I hope to have an epic review of the K30 up in the database which will expand on thse points and more.