Originally posted by amateurguy101 Hey guys, I have just recently purchased the bundle listed below and it should arrive at my house by Tuesday. My purchase was based off the reviews I found on multiple sites and the price difference between the X-5 and my other options. I will be taking mostly portraits and full body shots of people/models in indoor and outdoor settings. Anyone have any thoughts on to what I should expect?
First, the small sensor and lens combination means that you will find it somewhere between difficult and impossible to get a well-focused subject and an out of focus background. On the other hand photographs of groups of people with all of them in clear focus is easy.
Second, with low lighting and dark subjects - people dressed in black for example - your images will be a lot noisier than from a DSLR camera with a bigger sensor. And the noise gets worse as you increase the ISO setting.
Third, the lens is not bad for a point & shoot camera, but don't even imagine that it is going to be anywhere as sharp as a good quality prime lens for a DSLR.
Fourth, the flash on the X-5 is not nearly good enough for anything but snapshots and some fill-in flash on side or back lit subjects.
Fifth, take some of the money you saved on the camera and buy some good post processing software including noise reduction programs.
In short, the X-5 is a pretty small, pretty light, pretty easy to carry around camera that can handle most shots you are likely to encounter and produce a fair to reasonable image quality when viewed scaled down on a PC screen. Viewed at 100% you are likely to detect some faults like image noise, chromatic aberration (purple fringes on the edges of highly contrasted subjects), lack of pin-sharp focus across the entire image but those should only bother you if you are really looking for professional results. For an album full of holiday pics to bring back memories it is just fine. Just how good a photographer you are, your technical knowledge and ability to "see" and compose images correctly will determine whether your results are great, good or mediocre.
I have taken some really knock-out shots simply because I happened to be in the right place at the right time with the camera. Every one of them was better than I would have had with a top quality DSLR and a bunch of lenses in a bag back home. Have a look at the monthly point & shoot contests on this forum and you will see some really good images. The X-5 will match up to those standards. Then look at the Pentax Exclusive Gallery and you will see the difference. The point is its a very nice camera for less than $250 compared with a K-5 II and a selection of lenses which is way expensive compared to your camera.
Take some time to learn it, get onto P, Av and Tv modes just as soon as you can and enjoy the fun of taking pics with it. Its fun!