[ManuH]

I just received my K20D yesterday. I loved my K10D and for that reason when I received the new K20D I was not as excited as with the K10D, especially since the K20D looks like exactly the same as the K10D.
I took very quick shots and tested each new feature that was not available in the K10D.

1) Live view. More useful than it seems. It works very well as a digital preview to judge DOF, something that is not easy with the optical preview. For focusing manually it’s also very useful, the effects are seen immediately and could help to determine BF/FF. Only gripe, the magnification is pixelised.
It looks like some firmware updates could improve the usefulness of this mode.

2) Picture styles. Interesting, especially for B&W. Otherwise I’m shooting raw anyway.

3) Speaking of raw, I found the flushing buffer faster than the K10D. Surprised by this. Disapointment: Picasa no longer recognize correctly the PEF or DNG. The colors are completely messed up.

4) Burst mode 21fps. Fun but I don’t see a lot of use for that. They should have beat Nikon and offer a video mode, so they could brag about being the first. Good for marketing.

5) Intervalometer. Very cool and I can foresee some cool use for that feature. Only small gripe: it’s limited to 99 frames.

6) The raw button gets a bit better but it’s still not very useful. I would prefer for it to cycle through all the options available (there are not much: RAW -> RAW+ -> JPEG). But no, it will only switch to one option from the current recording mode. Stupid IMO. Also stupid to have to press for more than 1 second the button. Even more stupid, the change is not memorized when you switch the camera off/on. Oh well… I guess we’ll have to wait for the K30D.

7) I love the bracketing on one shutter press. Should be implemented in a firmware upgrade for the K10D. Thing that did not improve: the bracketing is still limited to +/- 2 stops. They don’t have HDR in mind.

8) Nice touch: you can now input the focal length after a lens is attached, useful for old manual zooms I guess.

9) You can now cutomize the first 4 letters of the filename.

10) The Dust alert is nice and save time, especially when you are the field, this is a great idea still not copied by any other brand.

11) Speaking of Dust Removal, the shaking is now more intensive. It remains to be seen if it’s more effective (couldn’t be less as the one the K10D was essentially useless).

12) AF adjustements. I didn’t used it yet but I think that should be implemented in every DSLR, not just the ones for “advanced amateurs”.

13) The LCD screen is OK, maybe a bit better than the K10D but not by much IMO. I’m waiting for the 3” VGA just like the 50D, D300, A700, etc.

I didn’t notice any difference in AF speed. I still have to take more pictures to make my mind about Image Quality and things like metering, etc.

[Gooneybird]

Very interesting overall. As a K10D owner for about 14 months now, who is still trying to learn and avail himself of all of its features, I see only one item here that pushes me toward the K20D. That is the Live View. I shoot almost exclusively in .jpg, so Raw and its variables are of little interest at this point. Maybe later.

Olin

[Aegon]

I like that the RAW button cannot disable RAW capture.

I only capture RAW. If I accidentally hit a button, I want the camera to continue capturing RAW. Under no circumstances should it fail and only provide JPG. No convenience is worth the risk.

[ManuH]

Very interesting overall. As a K10D owner for about 14 months now, who is still trying to learn and avail himself of all of its features, I see only one item here that pushes me toward the K20D. That is the Live View. I shoot almost exclusively in .jpg, so Raw and its variables are of little interest at this point. Maybe later.

Actually if you are a jpeg shooter, the K20D maybe even more interesting because it offers multiple picture styles above "natural" and "bright". They are Portrait, Landscape, Vibrant and Monochrome. You can choose them quickly with the fn button and press OK. They also show you color gamut graphic for each and it changes in real time when you change parameters such as contrast, saturation, etc.

I found something interesting with Live View tonight. I could take sharp pictures with my FA50/1.4 at f1.4. Usually the DOF is so short that any error in AF will result in a less than crisp picture. Focusing manually with Live View solved that. Of course people with a Katz Eye may not find that very useful.

[ghost]

I like that the RAW button cannot disable RAW capture.

I only capture RAW. If I accidentally hit a button, I want the camera to continue capturing RAW. Under no circumstances should it fail and only provide JPG. No convenience is worth the risk.

Not to start an argument, but does the review mode not work like my K100D? There is a big RAW in the top left of the review screen after each shot. That would be the safety net if it were to go through all of the options. Just thinking and typing...

[raystownboating]

What is a Katz eye ?

[ManuH]

What is a Katz eye ?

A special focusing screen that allows manual focusing to be much easier to achieve.

Katz Eye™ Optics - Custom Focusing Screens

[Stratario]

5) Intervalometer. Very cool and I can foresee some cool use for that feature. Only small gripe: it’s limited to 99 frames.

I had forgotten K20D has this feature. How is it used?

[Mike Cash]

I

2) Picture styles. Interesting, especially for B&W. Otherwise I’m shooting raw anyway.

I love the B&W mode and sometimes will spend the whole day shooting in that setting. It is nice to be able to choose (and preview) the effects of applying different in-camera color "filters" to the shots.

[WMBP]

Re interval shooting, Stratario asks,

I had forgotten K20D has this feature. How is it used?

Not sure whether you're asking how you set it up; or what you'd use if for. So I'll explain both.

Setup is easy. On the second page of the Rec Mode menus, there's a menu named Interval Shooting. You select that, then enter your options. If you enable interval shooting, you can select the interval in seconds, minutes and/or hours; the number of shots you want to take (up to 99, apparently); and when to start shooting (now or at a later time you specify).

What would you use it for? Anything you can think of. Say you're decorating your living room for a big party. Set the camera up and turn interval shooting on to take a shot every five minutes (or whatever). When you're done, you'll have a record of the transformation of your living room. Say you want to take photos of yourself dancing with your wife. Set interval shooting to every 2 seconds. Lots of uses.

I haven't used it a lot but occasionally it's a fun thing to have.

Will

[Michaelina2]

3) ... Speaking of raw, I Disapointment: Picasa no longer recognize correctly the PEF or DNG. The colors are completely messed up.

I shoot DNG almost exclusively and use Picasa (MS Vista and XP) for quick and dirty PP with no color shift problems on my K20D. You may wish to check to see if you are using the most up to date version.

PEF files are are another story. They appear not compatible and suffer from a color shift. I figure its due to the compression applied to PEF files that's not recognized by Picasa (yet).

You get what you pay for, I guess.

[Ash]

K10D's DR function is not all useless.
Certainly, the dust resistant low pass filter helps not to allow dust to settle on the sensor, but I have seen a few dust spots disappear after a couple of rounds of sensor shake.

Was a significant difference to the K100D, though, which didn't have either of these features, and I ended up with dust particles refractory to removal by even the toughest of treatments.

If K20D's DR is that much better than the K10D's, I'd expect no-one would have any of their shots marred by dust.

[ManuH]

I shoot DNG almost exclusively and use Picasa (MS Vista and XP) for quick and dirty PP with no color shift problems on my K20D. You may wish to check to see if you are using the most up to date version.

OK, with DNG the colors are correct now, thanks for the tip, but I still have the black stripe, small at the bottom and bigger on the side.

K10D's DR function is not all useless.
Certainly, the dust resistant low pass filter helps not to allow dust to settle on the sensor, but I have seen a few dust spots disappear after a couple of rounds of sensor shake.

Was a significant difference to the K100D, though, which didn't have either of these features, and I ended up with dust particles refractory to removal by even the toughest of treatments.

If K20D's DR is that much better than the K10D's, I'd expect no-one would have any of their shots marred by dust.

I am pretty sure the K10D DR was almost useless. The big difference with the K100D is the dust coating which is probably much more effective. But I never managed to remove a speck with the DR unless it was a very big speck.

[Peter Zack]

I agree with Ash. I use the DR on start up and have noticed dust that was there in a shot, dissapear in another. It's also much easier to clean and after 1000's of images, I've never had to do a wet cleaning.

K10D's DR function is not all useless.
Certainly, the dust resistant low pass filter helps not to allow dust to settle on the sensor, but I have seen a few dust spots disappear after a couple of rounds of sensor shake.

Was a significant difference to the K100D, though, which didn't have either of these features, and I ended up with dust particles refractory to removal by even the toughest of treatments.

If K20D's DR is that much better than the K10D's, I'd expect no-one would have any of their shots marred by dust.

[Michaelina2]

Just an FYI...

When you do your lens research pay close attention to the camera body used by the reviewer. Don't get stampeded by an iffy outcome. The K20D can make glass considered marginal really dance.

Unless the lens is paired with a K20D, I consider the review interesting, but mostly irrelevant.