My new (used) Pentax camera arrived from KEH Tuesday, right on schedule, along with a 16-50/2.8 zoom.  They’re beautiful together!  The camera body is small, heavy and solid.  It fits well in the hand, has a nice big screen on the back and looks like it could take lots of abuse.  The lens, likewise, feels very well built.

I haven’t had too much chance to use the camera yet, this being a work week, but playing around with it inside the house at night has made me feel certain I’ll keep it, unlike the 5D—which, to my great surprise, felt bulky, uncomfortable and slow to the point that I sent it back.

Coming back from the world of Canon, I found the Pentax user interface strange and uncomfortable at first.  The control dials are no longer right where my finger and thumb expect them to be.  More perplexing, the entire philosophy of operating the camera is different.  You use a Canon most easily by putting it in program mode, then adjusting exposure with either a program shift or exposure compensation, or both, using those two dials.  Exposure compensation on the Pentax, with default settings, requires holding down a button with your thumb while spinning the front control dial with your index finger.  That would take some getting used to, except that the Pentax can be programmed to work like the Canon. (Is the reverse true? I don’t think so.)

In fact, the Pentax offers a veritable blizzard of custom control possibilities.  You can change the two control dials to do just about anything you want if you go deep enough into the camera’s menus.  You can shift along the program line, you can do exposure compensation, you can set aperture or you can set shutter speed on either dial.  That’s the good news and the bad news—so many choices makes it difficult to decide which direction to take.  For now, I’ve programmed the dials to work like the Canon’s so I don’t get too confused.

The great Pentax innovation, which I am surprised no one has ever copied, is the green button.  In manual mode, press the green button and the exposure is instantly set to the program line, saving lots of fumbling with the dials. Another nice touch is a RAW button, which allows a one-touch shift to RAW capture.

I’m sure this all sounds—and seems—much more complicated than it actually is.  Once I get out tomorrow (it’s a holiday!) and take some pictures it will all become perfectly clear.

One thing that is totally clear already is how much better the image quality is on the K20D, playing around in the living room last night, than on my Canon 20d—at ISO 3200!  It didn’t even require pixel peeping to see that the Pentax image was much sharper, clearer, and more accurate in color than the Canon shot.

A problem though: my current version of Breeze Browser Pro converts Pentax PEF (RAW) files, but not very well, and I didn’t get the Pentax software with the camera.  I’ll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy.

My first impression of shooting with old M-series Pentax lenses, which don’t play well with the new electronic bodies, is that it’s still probably worthwhile to use them.  They work fine in manual mode, though they require stop-down metering.  I like the bokeh of the old 50/1.4 shot wide open; it will make a great portrait lens.

More as I figure it out.