After the (well deserved) commercial success of the K10D, Pentax had to offer a replacement that was up to par with this brand’s ambitions and the expectations of photographers.  So, the K20D arrives on the scene with an "overpixelated" sensor with 14 million photosites which enables going as high as 6400 ISO.  It also maintains the main advantages of the previous model: a large viewfinder, water-resistant construction and a stabilization system.

Handling

The Pentax K20D is an expert reflex particularly destined for photographers that appreciate the power of being able to fine tune their camera.  Thus, the K20D is embedded with all kinds of buttons and levers.  It’s a profusion of controls that could scare away the neophyte but will most likely please the more technical minded. 

The K20D is truly comfortable in your hand.  Dimensions are ideal to assure a good grip and the weight, relatively heavy, lends to the overall impression of this camera’s solidity.  Construction is high level with a metal skeleton and moisture proof body (the 74 parts are well sealed to assure good protection against moisture).

Ergonomics are remarkable and despite the impressive number of controls, you can pick up this reflex and configure it easily.  One good point is the RAW button (PEF or DNG format) and the sensitivity priority modes which are still available.  Thus, the Sv mode enables quickly defining ISO with the dial while the TAv mode lets you define the aperture/speed combo and automatically adjusts to the proper sensitivity. 

The LCD screen has increased slightly in size to 2.7 inches (a bigger screen would have probably meant modifications to the interface).  It’s unfortunate that definition isn’t better (230,000 pixels) but viewing angles are still as large.  There has been no modification in the autofocus which is a high performance system although it uses non-motorized lenses (notably the 18+55 mm that comes in the kit).  In good lighting conditions, reactivity is excellent.  In more delicate conditions, AF struggles a little.  The optical viewfinder is still as good with proper 0.95x enlargement and brightness.  It’s just too bad that Pentax didn’t take advantage of the occasion to equip the K20D with a 100% viewfinder. 

Finally, if the K20D is rather reactive (in startup and autofocus in good lighting), the burst mode limited to 3 i/s still left us a little unsatisfied.  Others will be able to overcome this shortcoming thanks to an ultra fast mode (21 images per second) with a definition of 1.5 megapixels.

Quality of images

Of course, with the arrival of the new sensor (co-signed Samsung - Pentax), there was some suspense involved regarding image quality.  However, for a first try, its creators produced a pleasant surprise.  Despite the density of photosites, the sensor gave us very clean images up until 400 ISO.  Granulation was progressive but contained up until 1600 ISO.  Beyond this, noise is much more noticeable and photos lose quite a bit of detail (notably in darker zones).  Colors are quite accurate and automatic white balance was good outdoors, although it had trouble (as is usually the case) establishing colors under tungsten lighting (red dominance). 

The Pentax K20D also offers a new mode called DRE for increasing the dynamic which is supposed to bring out details in bright lighting.  In the field, gains were random and in the end insignificant.  Note that on contrasted subjects there was the appearance of purple fringes on the edges of images.  Another small improvement could be in the K20D’s slight tendency to overexpose.  Finally, the flash produced good results and we should point out that there is wireless remote control.  This is very appreciable for creating a small photo studio or changing lighting angles.