Pentax K-m

Pentax's K-m seems to be an attempt to regain lost ground in the hunt for the prize of being the smallest digital SLR on the market

While it's a little wider than the Olympus E-420, the current leader, the case is shallower and hardly any taller.

Nevertheless, this 'mini-K200D' boasts an attractive specification, and the slimming down hasn't extended to the good optical stabilization system or quality lenses.

Handling

When you first get your hands on the K-m, it's reassuringly solid.

A lot of the K200D's features have disappeared, of course, including the weather protection and anti-slip coatings on the handle, but the K-m remains a sturdy camera, and feels a lot tougher than Canon's EOS 1000D, for instance.

The small case leads to a dense camera: it's small, sure, but not especially light.

For the first time on a Pentax camera, the screen on the top of the case giving information about important settings has been removed.

The manufacturer hasn't acted hastily, though, and has used the change as an opportunity to re-examine the whole interface, meaning the statistics that are now shown exclusively on the LCD screen at the back are now commendably clear and legible in all conditions.


Another feature of this redisgned interface is a dedicated Help button, which brings up an information screen explaining the different settings wherever you are in the menus.

Pressing the Help key outside of a menu provides general information about the mode that's currently activated, and pressing it again allows you to navigate through a more general help file.

The addition of this extra support is a very welcome addition to an SLR designed for a wide range of non-specialist users, and allows intermediate users to make their way through the various semi-automatic modes without feeling intimidated.

More advanced users won't feel patronized, though, as the Help key can be reprogrammed once you're familiar with the camera, allowing quick access to a particular combination of settings.

Despite only featuring a minimal number of buttons, the K-m's interface is faultless, with all of the controls falling easily under your fingers while you're holding the camera.

The viewfinder has the same comfortable fitting as that on the K200D, but the autofocus system has been reduced to just five areas.

More irritatingly, the autofocus area is no longer shown on the inside of the viewfinder, so it's best to fix it at the center of the frame and then forget about it. 

On the other hand, Pentax has opted to display the current ISO speed on the inside of the viewfinder, and the scene mode in automatic mode, a lead which we'd like to see

Image Quality

The K-m also has the same sensor and image processing chip as its predecessor the K200D, and produces the same solid results.

In particular, images are largely free of noise at speeds up to 1600 ISO, even if this does come at the cost of losing a little detail.

Photos are handled differently by the K-m, allowing it to have a go at 3200 ISO, and while the results are less than perfect, the 'grainy' effect is far from ugly, and it's easy to imagine some decent black-and-white prints at this speed.

Colors are faithfully reproduced, and not too saturated with the default settings.

The automatic white balancing tends to be a little too warm under artificial light.



Pentax's reputation for producing cameras that slightly over-expose some shots won't be altered much by the K-m, but the results can be corrected afterwards to even things out.

Only two lens kits are available for the K-m, which uses the new DA L system, a 18-55 mm and a 50-200 mm (see gray box).


The K-m vs. the Competition

Competition in this part of the digital camera market is extremely fierce, with all the brands offering their own entry-level digital SLR:

• The Canon EOS 1000D is less solidly built with a smaller viewfinder.  It stops at 1600 ISO, but has less noise at that point.  A liveview system allows you to line up and focus your shot using the LCD (like on a compact digital camera), but is disappointingly slow.  Two other noteworthy features are its anti-dust system, widely recognized as one of the best in the industry, and its excellent lenses, although it is also available as-is for those with their own lenses already.

• The Nikon D60 has the same sense as the K-m, and therefore produces images of a similar quality, and also lacks a liveview.  However, the absence of the Help system that Pentax has included on the K-m is all the more telling on the D60 whose menus are complex and intimidating for beginners.

• The Sony Alpha 200 too has the sensor has the Nikon D60 and this Pentax K-m but is a little less strong at handling the images it captures.  Noise is visible at 800 ISO and an irritation at 1600 ISO.  It's also the biggest of the bunch, without proposing any new features--live view is still not available, for instance.  Fortunately, the 18-70 mm lens that ships with it does well, even if it isn't as powerful as some of the others we've tested.

• The Olympus E-420 has a number of weaknesses: a very narrow viewfinder, film speed that's limited to 1600 ISO and a tendency to overexpose bright areas of the frame.  The fact that it doesn't feature any kind of image stabilization can be annoying, but it’s the natural consequence of such a small case.