After 48 hours of ownership, I already love my K-x. However, there are some minor issues (niggles) that I feel the need to mention, some more personal, some more general.
First of all, I've been having a lot of trouble getting photos that achieve "critical sharpness," where no motion blur is evident. This actually seems to happen most often between 1/100th of a second and 1/160th of a second, which seems odd to me. A week ago I was shooting a non-stabilized camera with a 135mm equivalent lens at those speeds and getting sharp images. I also got a decent rate of sharp images at speeds between 1/30th and 1/80th, so I can't help but wonder if it's some sort of issue with the shutter mechanism or SR system (or both) that just affects those speeds. On the other hand, it could just be a combination of coincidence and the fact that I was chilly and the camera is lighter than I'm used to. Time will tell, of course.
Compounding that problem is the fact that the preview jpegs you can view on the LCD screen are of a reduced resolution, so you can't reliably use them to check pixel-level sharpness. My E-330 did this, my 40D did this, and it annoyed the hell out of me. The K20D didn't do this, and consequently I loved it. Sadly, the K-x seems to have picked up the bad habit somewhere, but I'll deal with it.
The blue LED behind the shutter button is something I complained about when I originally posted this; jerrymouse pointed out that I can turn it off in the custom menus. I was delighted to find that not only can you turn it "off," there's also a "low" setting. So it can be "on" if you want to use it as a light in the dark, "low" if you want it to remind you that your camera isn't off but not be bright enough to annoy you, and off if you want it off. I fully retract my complaint and in fact I now see it as a nice positive.
I really miss the top LCD. I just really hate using the back LCD for everything, and in the dark it just kills your night vision. I also miss dual control wheels (doesn't everybody say that?) I'm hoping EC can be programmed to the rear dial in P (in place of program shift) but I didn't see it last time I was in the custom settings. It's lacking some of the overall configurability of the K20D, but it still manages to beat the pants of the semi-pro Canon.
The grip is a little too short for me. I could use a tiny little bit more for my little finger. And my hands are small.
The button layout is getting to me, since I'm just so used to having buttons on the left. In my past cameras, the review, menu, and info buttons were usually on the left, never on the right. When I want to hit up the menus or review images, I constantly find myself pressing the only button on the left, which pops up the flash. Not cool. My fault, though, I suppose.
The lack of lit-up AF points doesn't really bother me, I find, since I've always used center point and essentially ignored the little flashing lights in the viewfinder since I always knew exactly where they would be.
Aside from all that, it's a tiny, solid, well-designed camera that operates fast and delivers fantastic images. In my opinion it's the absolute best-overall camera you can currently get for $600 (and it shouldn't take long to drop even lower). I have a personal rule of only buying cameras used, at least a year after they debut, when prices are low and performance is a known quantity. I broke that rule for the K-x, and I couldn't be happier.
Last edited by er1kksen; 11-09-2009 at 03:53 AM.