[Grimlock]

I'm moving up from my trusty K100d in the next few weeks, and I was wondering if there was anything in the way the K20 works that hasn't been mentioned in reviews/first looks that I should be aware of, besides the hot pixel "breu-ha-ha" that's fired up as of late. My main reasons for stepping up are:

-Live view would allow me to better judge manual focus: due to my crappy eyes (I have some astigmatism), I'm a horrible judge of manual focus, even using the magnifying eyecup O-EM53 and a Katz-eye split-prism. Unfortunately, my best lenses are MF only. I'm aware I can't change any settings on the camera once Live-view is activated, but I was thinking I'd set up everything and focus last anyway, so no biggie.

-significant increase in crop room: I'm not all that good at following the "rule of thirds" and other compositional standards and can gaff my compositions a little bit. I print at 300dpi, & there's been a few times when I could've used some more resolution. I think more than doubling the resolution would be a good thing, eh?

-more precise autofocus: my K100d seems to be a little worse than most, but considering how often this comes up as a weak-point...

An example of a "quirk" I'm looking for would be like how the K100d doesn't have an orientation sensor, which was a heck of a hassle at times until I came across Faststone Image Viewer & its ability to rotate pictures in Batch Conversion.

Thanks in advance.

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Last edited by Grimlock; 05-12-2008 at 11:24 AM.

[DAZ]

K20D "quirks" that you should be aware of? That kind of depends on what you consider a “quirks”. To get the higher “resolution” you will need to be more “feistiest” with your technique. This means more attention to focus, DOF, shutter speed to lens length, things like that. You may find that your old favorite lens may not be as sharp as you would like. This may start you on LBA if you don’t already have that problem. On the other side the old favorite lens that may not have focused just right may really shine with the K20D. This like that could be called “quirks”.

One thing for some that could be a “quirk” is you can’t turn off dark frame subtraction NR. If you are going to do astrophotography this may be a big thing. If you are only going to do an occasional night seen this may only be a small nuisance.

There is the “quirk” of what to do with 200% D-Range or having the battery last so long that you forget to change it.

One persons “quirk” is another person’s problem and a third person's “shrug”.

DAZ

[PentaxPoke]

Grim,

I don't own a k100d but I do own a k10d and a k20d and I can give you my impressions if that would help.

First off, ignore the Hot Pixel BS. It just isn't there based on the fact that no one can seem to reproduce it. I have never seen it on my k20d even with long exposures.

I don't use live view at all so I can't comment on that. I have played with it and it does work. You can actually see the SR working with it on.

The resolution increase is nice in the k20d for cropping, assuming you have the lenses to take advantage of it.

I love my k10d, but to me, the k20d feels like the perfection of the k10d. It is just better in so many ways. Some of them subtle like AF speed, shutter sound, menu improvements, etc. Some are significant like ISO performance. I started a thread here on the k20d high iso performance:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/26796-k20d-high-is...00-6400-a.html

You are going to love your new camera.

[Confused]

Hi Grimlock

Re your comment:

Live view would allow me to better judge manual focus

Thus far I've not had an opportunity to handle the new K20, but from past experience I have yet to find any LCD screen on a DSLR or point & shoot camera that has sufficiently sharp resolution to accurately judge critical focus, but that's just my point of view.....YMMV !

Best regards
Richard

[Grimlock]

Thanks to all who've posted so far. I guess I should add what lenses I'm using, if that might mean anything:

Sigma 17-70mm 2.8/4
Tamron 19AH 70-210mm 3.5 with matching 2X teleconverter
Pentax 50mm 1.4 K lens-before the "m" version.
Pentax 50-200mm 4/5.6 DA lens
Tamron 1.4X K-mount teleconverter with AF pass-through.

To Confused-I was thinking that too, but I can miss focus by a lot at times, so any help in this regard is something-I want to be able to get my focus to the point where it won't look back reduced to a 4X6, or where I can use the "octave-sharpening" proceedure to rescue a shot.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

Primary "quirk": all of a sudden the memory cards and the hard disk shrunk in size!

[jbinpg]

K20D shooter here. Not necessarily a quirk, but the only negative I have with the K20D is that you cannot turn off the in-camera noise reduction on any exposure longer than 1/10s. Many long exposure shooters including myself prefer to do their dark frame/noise reduction in post-processing. Pentax knows of this issue so hopefully it will be fixed to be user-switchable in the first firmware update. Other than that, I really do not have any issues with the K20D. It is a marvelous piece of technology that can take stunning images.

[tranq78]

Quirks?

It makes you want to buy fast, expensive glass.

[Maxington]

Hi Grimlock

Re your comment:



Thus far I've not had an opportunity to handle the new K20, but from past experience I have yet to find any LCD screen on a DSLR or point & shoot camera that has sufficiently sharp resolution to accurately judge critical focus, but that's just my point of view.....YMMV !

Best regards
Richard

Yup, ignore Live View, you can't judge focus accurately enough on it for it to be useful, the resolution on the LCD is nowhere near good enough.

And I agree with the fact that the K20D shrinks your memory cards and hard drives!

[DAZ]

I am going to have to disagree about not being able to focus with the LCD and live view. I don’t use it much but I have tested it. With Live view I can focus about as accurate I can with the optical viewfinder or the camera focus indicator. In live view you can digital zoom in either 4X or 8X to help see the details. The real problem with live view is you need something with good contrast so you can see what you are focusing on. If it is to bright the LCD tends to get washed out. If you are hand holding the view tends to jump around too much so it works best on a tripod. These other problems are why I don’t use live view much. It could be good with still life and on a tripod.

DAZ

[Grimlock]

Okay, so far, so good. The long-exposure thing shouldn't be a big issue for me, as I think I've only done dark exposures a few times, and I also think Pentax will address it in a firmware update (eventually). Since I shoot in jpeg, the hot pixel thing won't bother me at all, so *thppt* to DPReview on that. I've got over 23gig in 10 SD cards (I keep my eyes peeled for deals), so storage isn't a problem. I guess to further evaluate what help Liveview would be to me I'll march into a Wolf Camera with my 19AH and a SD card and try it out further-I only had a few minutes during a shopping trip last week with my initial handling of a K20d, but I thought it helped me judge things better, and the pentaprism can't hurt. Besides, the K20 felt good in my hands-just like the K100d did when I first handled it. I'm still keeping my K100d as a backup/light duty camera, btw. Thanks so far, guys.

[Confused]

Hi DAZ

I'm obviously aware of the 'zoom' magnification facility on the K10D/K20D's integral LCD screen, but am naturally delighted to hear that in your experience:

With Live view I can focus about as accurate I can with the optical viewfinder or the camera focus indicator. In live view you can digital zoom in either 4X or 8X to help see the details.

However with due respect, on this occasion I have to wholly concur with Maxington's summation when he said:

The resolution on the LCD is nowhere near good enough......you can't judge focus accurately enough on it for it to be useful

Incidentally, we are talking critical focussing here, particularly where subjects like macro-photography are concerned. Nevertheless, I remain fairly confident that were you to carry out a straw poll asking 100 seasoned professional/serious amateur photographers whether they would prefer to use a 2" or 3" LCD screen as opposed to an optical prism viewfinder for critical focussing purposes, an overwhelming majority of them would opt for the optical viewfinder ! In my book, an LCD screen currently remains a poor substitute for a bright high quality prism, but that may well change as progress in LCD/OLED technology advances.

Best regards
Richard

[Lance B]

No quirks that I can report, only praise. The K20D is a fabulous camera and the highlights are the resolution, overall image quality including high ISO performance and the AF adjustments.

I have the O-EM53 and the Katz Eye screen. My Katz Eye screen has *only* the ground glass screen with 1/3rd grid lines, no split prism or microprism collar for me.

[Maxington]

I really can't see the point in Live View at all yet, without Sony/Olympus style articulated screens, Nikon/Sony or better resolution screens, and Sony/Olympus style fast TTL phase detect AF....


...WITHOUT the corresponding downsides of a pathetic optical viewfinder, slow screen refreshes, mirror up/down for AF, hit on battery life and loss of weather sealing/ruggedness and so on.

Tripod or studio use, if you really need it, use a tethered laptop.

Its pretty much a gimmick on all the DSLRs at the moment, so I don't even care if my K20D has it or not. I'll buy a Sigma DP1 if I want Live View + decent image quality, and even that has a lot of downsides.

[jsherman999]

Grimlock,

I also upgraded from the K100D to the K20D. I really like my K100D, and have never really found anything about it I would change - for the price, it's a perfect and fun little camera, with exceptional IQ, very good handling and noise control.

The K20D is in a different class, though, and you're going to really enjoy it.

Here are the most significant differences that I've found coming up from the K100D, in order of effect for me:

1) Resolution - 6MP to 14MP is like going from Kansas to Oz.

2) High ISO quality - The K100D was good, the K20D is exceptional. The noise you do see actually doesn't look bad - not so much chroma, a bit like film grain.

3) Focus - faster, more accurate with SDM lenses. Non-SDM is a bit better too.

4) Color - a bit subjective, but the K20D's sensor to me just pops color

5) Viewfinder - bigger, brighter

6) Quieter shutter

7) Size - much bigger in your hand. I highly recommend getting the BG2 grip - I've found that it's given me an extra stop of shake reduction.

8) 21FPS mode - fun, and much more useful than I thought it was going to be

9) Dials, buttons - much quicker to change settings when you have the tactile feel of physical buttons and dials on the body vs. having to use the Fn button or menus for everything.

The resolution is the single biggest difference - you will be able to crop like you wouldn't believe, while retaining IQ and sharpness. I love that.

And you will want to get the sharpest lenses now. The K20D sensor just says bring it on. (A cost-effective way to get incredible K20D-worthy sharpness? Super Takumar!)

Congrats.



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