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| Value for Money | 8.5/10  |
|---|---|
| Overall rating | 9/10 |
Full review by
FLYBYU44
expert review 
on 19th Aug 2007
User Rating : 9
Respect :
0
Good Points: Takes good vivid photos with nice color and clarity. Really easy to use, especially for a beginner like myself. Takes AA batteries so you can get batteries any place, and they last a long time in it as well. Also like the built in flash and auto focus. Very durable and resistant to weather, I've used it in temps ranging from -30 degrees C to +45 degrees C and it worked fine.
Bad Points: Auto focus is often slow to lock on to what you are trying to shoot, which means you might miss something unless you manually focus it. Night pictures are best taken with a tripod. Even with the ISO rating that goes to 1600 it still is hard to get a decent hand-held photo at night with it. Mine didn't come with software to download photos, so if it isn't a Windows XP or above computer it can be a bit of a hassle sometimes downloading photos onto the computer, but it's always worked.
General comments: I travel a lot and do a lot of bicycle riding, the Pentax *ist D was the smallest SLR at the time I bought it so that is what attracted me to it, also it was priced so that I could afford it. I never heard much about Pentax cameras so I mainly bought it with little knowledge going in. Overall I'm very happy with the purchase, it has taken some amazing shots that I think I could win some contests with if I submitted. I'm by no means a professional photographer, but after seeing some of my photos with this camera I have friends and family asking me if I could take photos for them. It is very user friendly, with about 15 minutes of instruction I showed my wife how to use it and she took her brothers graduation photos with it, my wife's family was delighted with the quality of the photos. I do abuse my camera a bit, I travel a lot and I bought it to be used so I sometimes use it with little regard to it's well being, it has been subjected to some really extreme temperatures and continues to shoot like a dream. Another reason I bought it was because it used AA batteries instead of a proprietary battery pack like Canon. I bought two sets of rechargeable AA's and a charger for $80 and it works like a dream. The AA batteries last several days in the camera when I'm using it a lot and months when I just use it occasionally. I've recommended my camera to several people who have been impressed with the photos I've taken, overall it's a good camera that works very well.
FLYBYU44's review and ratings | 446 words
Review by
Keith the Astrophysicist
expert review
on 8th Jun 2005
User Rating : 9
Respect :
+2
The *ist D is the more sophisticated of Pentax's two digital SLR's and designed to fill the same niche as the Canon 10D. It is surprisingly compact compared to Canon's rather elephantine models. Without the need for film transport mechanisms digital SLR's should be getting smaller but some makes just grow!
There is a downside to smaller dimensions. Although my stubby fingers manage quite well with the controls, the space between the right hand grip and the lens housing is rather too tight t ...
Keith the Astrophysicist's full review | 864 words | 1 comment added.
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