With a lot of help from technology and marketing (sensor with 10 million pixels, mechanical stabilization, anti-dust system, weather proof, and high performance autofocus) Pentax attempts to break into the world of semi-pro numeric reflex, largely dominated by Canon and Nikon. Even as an outsider, the Pentax K10D can proudly stand up to the comparison, and even go beyond this. With its large viewfinder, high quality construction, almost exemplary ergonomics, and high end technical specifications, this Pentax reflex shakes things up a bit for the Canon EOS 400D, Sony Alpha 100 and to a lesser extent the Nikon D80.

With its minimalist interface, the first reflexes from this brand (series *ist D) had the advantage of being very easy to use. On the K10D, we have something different and the interface is a lot denser with information. Also, there are a number of shortcuts to rapidly modify shooting parameters. The result is that the first impression can be a bit daunting. However, after this is overcome the K10D proves to be very intuitive and extremely functional like the new ISO prioritized modes ISO (sensitivity) on the camera body. Only the older linear menus could use a little modernization to gain in efficiency.

Good ergonomics would be useless without good image quality. In this area, the K10D does quite well even if the 18-55 mm lens that comes with the camera isn’t really up to this reflex’s claims. Images are definitely too soft and demanding photographers will have to rely on other objectives like fixed (and expensive) lenses from this brand or better alternatives from Sigma, for example. Without being miraculous, noise control has definitely improved and shots are useful up to 800 ISO. Beyond this, blur and colored pixels are easily discernable. In this area, the Canon 400D and Nikon D80 are better. On the other hand, the K10D’s rather good mechanical stabilization allows us to limit an increase in sensitivity. In automatic mode, there is slight underexposure and white balance isn’t always correct, especially indoors with tungsten lighting. These are small problems that expert photographers will quickly know how to remedy on the camera while others can edit images afterwards on a computer. In  semi-automatic mode, results are significantly better.