Pentax Q

UPDATE 02/12/2011: we've decided to move the Pentax Q into our SLR and interchangeable lens camera reviews, as while its sensor is worthy of a compact camera, its design and interchangeable lenses bring closer to micro four-thirds cameras than high-end point-and-shoots. The product review has been updated as a result, and the Q is now only a two-star camera.

While electronics firms like Panasonic, Sony and Samsung led the way with interchangeable lens compacts, historic camera firms are now joining the party. The Pentax Q is a surprising model, as it's a fair bit smaller than the micro four-thirds cameras already on the market, as well as the likes of Sony's NEX cameras. In fact, the Q is a mini mirrorless camera with a mini sensor to match. Technologically, then, Pentax has taken quite a bold approach to cutting down the product's overall size, which almost makes the Q more comparable with regular compact cameras then other mirrorless snappers. Note, however, that it still comes with a price tag worthy of a model with a large-format sensor.

Handling

For anyone who's used to handling interchangeable lens compacts, the Pentax Q feels unusually small in comparison. In fact it's the first mirrorless lens-switcher that we've really thought feels like a compact camera, even if, objectively, it's not really that much smaller than the Nikon J1 or the Panasonic GF3. The downsized lenses probably give a greater impression of compactness, however, and the central lens mount brings the weight closer to your hand and gives the camera a surprisingly lightweight feel.

The Q has a retro-style design with plastics and textured leatherette that are reminiscent of 1970s cameras. Some people like it, others don't, and comments in our office ranged from 'it's cute, I like it' to 'it looks like a kids' toy'. Opinions were mixed about its size too, as while some liked its compact dimensions, others found this camera way too small.

The Pentax Q is a well-made camera, and while the buttons are unexceptional, the thumb wheels are firm but pleasant to use, moving round in well-defined notches (as does the customisable dial on the front of the camera, which can be used to save four colour, format or style settings). The separate battery and memory card compartment doors are sturdy too. The flash is quite surprising, as it pops up on an arm which moves it out of the axis of the lens to help reduce red-eye effects and highlight relief. The two parts of the articulated arm do feel strangely more robust than the straight arm the Nikon J1 flash is mounted on. The only thing we didn't really like was the rubber 'plugs' covering the USB and HDMI ports on the underside of the camera—you'll need decent fingernails to prise them open.


The screen in nice enough, with a decent resolution and good viewing angles. It's nice and bright, but the rather high gamma makes light greys look a bit dark, in turn making bright zones look more contrasted than they should be. Colours aren't reproduced particularly accurately either, although with a deltaE of 6.1 we've definitely seen worse. In fact, that's still above average for a high-end compact.

In spite of its small body and technology that's closer to a compact than an SLR, the Q is clearly aimed at relatively experienced users. For example, the menus are based on Pentax's K-r SLR, there's a dial for direct access to manual modes and a thumb wheel is on hand for changing settings quickly. This kind of control layout is more similar to what we've seen in the Olympus Pen E-P3 or the Panasonic Lumix GX1 rather than consumer-oriented models like the Nikon J1 or Panasonic's GF3. Pentax SLR users will therefore be right at home with this little camera, even though a there are a few slight differences in handling (notably the sensitivity, flash, self-timer and white balance buttons on the back of the cameras are arranged in a different order).

Al in all, the Q is a camera that's nice to use and that's easy to get the hang of for anyone who's used to advanced models. However, for novice users, an Auto mode is obviously on hand too. Our main criticism of the Q is its small battery, as with just 3.4 Wh of power, battery life comes in well below 300 photos. That said, poor battery life is often a problem in interchangeable lens compacts.

Responsiveness

We tested the Q twice to make sure we hadn't made some kind of mistake, but no, the camera did actually take 3.5 seconds to start up—that's the time between us pressing the On button an the Pentax Q taking its first photo! And while we can understand a slight delay in classic compact cameras, often due to the built-in lens waking up and popping out, in a camera that doesn't even have an integrated telescopic lens that's just unacceptable. What's more, according to our test criteria, that should automatically disqualify the Pentax Q from our three-star category!


That's a bit of a shame, as once it's up and running, the Q does its job well. It's not lighting fast, but it's fast enough to handle most situations well.

Picture Quality

It'll be particularly interesting to see how the Pentax Q fares on picture quality, as this interchangeable lens compact uses a genuine compact camera sensor—a widely used 12-Megapixel BSI CMOS, in fact. As a result, this Pentax snapper is at a disadvantage compared with the larger-format sensors used in micro four-thirds cameras and models like Sony's NEX ... or even the Nikon 1 with its 1" sensor.

In light of that, it's no surprise to see that the Q handles noise in a very predictable way. Picture quality is very good up to 400 ISO, and although a bit of smoothing and noise starts to show up at 800 ISO, it's not too much of a problem. A slight green overtone starts to appear at 1600 ISO, and this is the last feasibly tolerable setting you could use for 6" x 4" (11  x 15 cm) prints or 100% size viewing on a computer screen. Even 1600 ISO is a bit tight if you're looking to make large-format prints or crop the shots.

There is, however, a RAW mode, so you can always edit and touch-up pictures afterwards on a computer.


Our Pentax Q came with the 8.5 mm kit lens. At full aperture (f/1.9, which make this lens pretty fast) the lens gives reasonably accurate results, even if the middle of the frame could still be sharper. Quality is, however, already pretty even across the frame, with corners that are much sharper than in many other camera lenses. The best results are seen at f/2.8, with an excellent level of sharpness across the whole frame. From f/4 diffraction starts to limit the optical resolution, and while f/5.6 is still a usable setting, a 4" x 6" print taken at f/8 will look slightly blurred.

Video

The Pentax Q films Full HD video at 30 frames per second with stereo sound. Picture quality is good and images are nicely detailed, even if we've seen cleaner, sharper results in some other models. Speckling noise is kept under control reasonably well and movement is smooth and mostly seamless. The exposure is a little on the conservative side, however, and although this prevents bright, light zones being overexposed, it does tend to flood darker scenes.


The stereo effect is rendered well but the microphones aren't great quality. In quiet scenes, there's an audible 'whooshing', hissing noise, while metallic noises sound muffled (voices do come out OK though).

Note that we got no sound at all when playing files back in VLC, the software we generally use for watching and analysing test videos. This wasn't a format or codec problem either, as VLC simply didn't identify any audio track at all in the files. We haven't had this problem with any other Pentax cameras (which record AVI files rather than MOV), or with any other cameras that record MOV files. Thankfully, Windows Media Player and Kaffeine on Linux played the Pentax Q video files just fine.