Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Amazon was selling the K-r kit with 18-55 and 55-300 lenses for a really good price around Thanksgiving 2010. I had been wanting to upgrade from my k200d for sometime and jumped at the opportunity. 3 weeks with the camera have given me a good perspective on the pros/cons of this upgrade.
My primary motivation for upgrading was the rave reviews about low-light/high-iso performance of the K-r (and K-x). I chose the K-r over the K-x because the high fps and focus point in viewfinder features were well worth the minor difference in price. Here are the pros (+) and cons (-):
+ high ISO performance is excellent. I am shooting ISO1600 indoors all the time. Processed images have no noise at this setting. The performance is comparable (or better) than the k200d at ISO400
+ auto-focus is really fast as promised
+ burst shooting is really fast.
+ camera button controls are much better than k200d (direct iso/flash etc. buttons)
+ it's a much lighter camera (but that's a negative as well)
+ automatic white balance without flash is way better than the k200d (the latter had very warm overtones in tungsten for example - the K-r produces perfectly natural white balance for common indoor and outdoor lighting situations)
+ the supplied 55-300 kit lens is excellent. compared to my current 70-300 Tamron lens - it's much sharper on the long end.
+ live view is cool and allows shooting holding the camera at all sorts of angles. the screen is bright enough to be visible from just about any angle.
- focusing is fast but not as accurate. in particular my camera was front focusing and i found this to be a commonly reported problem on the web. i almost considered returning my camera before reading about the focus fine adjustment option. setting the camera for the maximum front-focus adjustment got rid of the problem for the most part (although it still doesn't seem perfect). not all lenses suffer equally badly - unfortunately my favorite lens (Tamron 28-75 f2.8) does.
- auto white balance with flash feels weird (it seems that it over-compensates for flash)
(updated: i found that (for my home shots) changing the white balance to 'warm white flourescent' in the raw editor (silkypix) largely fixed the issue).
- the supplied software is absolutely terrible. i process RAW images on the PC and the old software was simple but usable. The new one is a labyrinth of features - except the ones u really need (like not resetting the adjustment settings on every new image). Morever it crashes (i cannot even start it on one of my pcs)
- the new 18-55 lens feels cheap to the one that was supplied with previous models (plastic mount and no hood). i am planning to dispose off the new one and hang on to the old one.
- no weather sealing and body doesn't feel as substantial. the k200d used to sell at the same price point but had a magnesium alloy body and was weather sealed. the K-r is neither. The body is not as substantial to hold - in particular the battery compartment is smaller and the hand grip around the compartment doesn't feel as secure as before.
- doesn't take AA batteries by default. this is really lame - i will have to spend extra money to buy a special adapter. rechargable AA batteries are much better than proprietary ones.
- movie mode is pretty much useless because of lack of auto-focus. almost all DSLRs are like this - so it's not a ding against K-r - just dont buy it for taking videos. (Updated: i have found the video to be very jittery even slow moving everyday scenes. it's not clear why that is the case since 24fps is supposedly good enough)
- (Updated) one additional annoyance is that choosing the fully automatic 'A' mode does not reset all the customized settings - specifically the focus point and AF mode. This means i can't simply set the camera to 'A' mode and hand it off to a P&S photographer (since i always leave the camera at center point focus). That's really painful.
there are a lot of new image processing features in the K-r (HDR, shadow lighting, filters etc.) - but these can all be done in software and are not so valuable for me (may be for other users).
if i was shooting daylight/outdoors in good light - the K-r is actually a downgrade from the k200d. however - the gain in low light conditions are exemplary and outweigh the negatives (of which there are many). So it's a keeper for me. Considering that i would give a five star to the k200d - this is at least a four star.
For people looking to buy Pentax for the first time - one word of caution. Pentax seems to be falling further and further behind in the choice of lenses available on their platform. For example the Tamron 18-270 lens is still not available and the 18-250 lens has been taken off the market. There's no cheap 50mm prime lens available (the cheapest one is now $350). It's a rather sorry state of affairs and if i was not already invested in some Pentax mount lenses i would have definitely taken a much closer look at the Nikon D5000 that seems really close to the K-r in price/capabilities. At the same time - the supplied kit lenses are very good and if you don't plan to buy a lot of lenses - the Pentax is an excellent value (always more functionality and nicer build per $ than Canon/Nikon).
Click Here to see more reviews about: Pentax K-r 12.4 MP Digital SLR Camera with 3.0-Inch LCD and 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and 55-300mm f/4-5.8 Lenses (Black)
Brains, meet beauty. The Pentax K-r has it all. On the brain side, it's a powerful DSLR with advanced features like 12.4 Megapixels, HD video, a 2.7-inch LCD display and custom modes and functions.On the beauty side, taking photos has never looked this good. There's basic black of course. But the K-r also comes in classy white and PENTAX red, with even more body colors to come. The PENTAX K-r competes with higher-end DSLRs and looks great doing it. Now, that’s brilliantly colorful.
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