Pentax *ist DS review

At the time of announcement new Pentax *ist DS was the lightest and smallest of digital SLRs you could get. Now Canon is releasing even smaller EOS 350D but DS still beats all competition when it comes to price (unless you count in Canon EOS 300D that is morally outdated). When I went through the technical specification it sounded all very nice. How did it come out of my 4 day test-shooting? Read on and find out.



The first impression about DS is: "Wow, that is small". To get size and weight down Pentax has switched to SecureDigital memory cards (I think all other DSRL cameras support CompactFlash that is physically twice as big). Size wise I would even compare DS to prosumer class digicams, that have small size sensor and fixed lens. Instead we're dealing with a decent entry level digital SLR that supports huge range of Pentax lenses. It has Pentax KAF mount compatible with PENTAX KAF2, KAF and KA mount lenses and even some K and 67/645 lenses, latter require special adapter.

With all the smallness going on, I wouldn't say that *ist DS was uncomfortably small in my hands (and I have average size hands). After two days of using there wasn't anything special about the body, buttons or handling to complain about. I prefer slightly bigger and heftier camera body, especially grip part, but DS sits firmly in your hand and will not slip out if held with only one hand.

Body is all plastic Correction: DS has stainless-steel chassis covered with plastic, grip is covered with rubbery material to reduce slip. Tripod screw and lens mount are metal. Overall good build quality, only OK button in the middle of navigation buttons feels sluggish. You would expect more buttons from a DSLR so to change anything you need to use combination of presses and turns. For example: ISO, white-balance, flash and shooting mode are changed by pressing FN (function) button, then selecting up-down, left-right with navigation key and confirming with OK button. Sounds more complicated and time-consuming than it really is. Everything is nicely shown on the screen and after a little practice it's fairy quick operation.

Scroll-wheel on the back is unusually placed quite into the middle. Exposure compensation button is at a very uncomfortable position.

As with all cheaper digital SLRs viewfinder is smallish but should pose no real problems for shooter without glasses. When you turn camera into portrait position you might have to move camera to see shutter, aperture and other information that is hidden to the side of the viewfinder. To simulate usage with glasses I simply moved DS away from my eyes just a little and it definitely starts feeling as if looking into a tunnel. When compared to Olympus EVOLT / E-300 (link to my review) and Canon Digital Rebel / 300D I would say that DS has superior viewfinder that works well when trying to focus manually. In fact, when using manual focus DS tries to help out and lights those focus points that are actually sharp.

Kit-lens SMC Pentax DS 18-55 3.5-5.6 complements DS with small size and gives a good impression. Zoom ring has decent width and texture and 5 bonus-points to Pentax for adding meter scale on the lens. With a little practice you'll be able to really shoot from your hip.

What surprised me about kit-lens was its ability to focus really close. Not macro of course but close enough, with some cropping you'll be able to impress your friends with macro-like photos.

The only downside

I've read some other Pentax *ist DS reviews and have not found this issue raised anywhere else but... Focusing speed is something that is left to be desired. I got a feeling that DS focuses more like compact camera. When you press the shutter it takes some time for the signal to reach cameras "brain" and then when lens kicks into action it's pretty fast process. Which actually makes me think that this can be improved with firmware updates but we'll see. Maybe better optics will help as well.

And I have to constantly remind myself that similar entry-level film cameras have similar focusing speed problems. Only difference is that for similar film camera you shell out maybe $275.49 (price of Canon Rebel) and not $829.95 which is how much *ist DS costs in Amazon.com at the time of writing this.

Switching on and waking up from standby is speedy, takes about 0.5-1 seconds so very good performance.

I cannot give any comments on battery life as DS comes with CRV-V3 lithium batteries and you have to pay extra to get rechargeable batteries and recharger. Of course using disposable AA-s is also an option but in the long run will be more expensive.

A bit surprisingly there's the least amount to say about shooting and pictures. It's actually a compliment to the camera because you know a good camera if it doesn't hinder your shooting and does not give reason to think about picture quality too much.

Writing speed to SD memory card is very good, when shooting RAW I did not notice any considerable writing times when used for normal shooting. Perhaps those who shoot sports and action a lot want something faster but good planning and pressing the shutter at the right time goes a long way. There's no challenge in 8fps and 40 frames buffer :)

For nighty shooting there's noise reduction mode that doubles exposure times but eliminates "hot pixels" that show up with long exposures giving a cleaner result. Results from night shooting are impressive but kit-lens disappoints as even with smallest aperture there's visible flare around street-lamps.



Noise at ISO 800 (DS offers range from 200-3200) is pretty good, used it on a cloudy winter day to do some street shooting and cannot complain. High ISO noise is much less visible than on Olympus Evolt / E-300 that is in the same price-point. Still, ISO 1600 is very noisy and 3200 should be used only when really no other option.

What annoyed me was the fact that DS does not auto-rotate photos shot in portrait format, don't know if it really helps to keep the price down...

Let's sum up. Pentax *ist DS is in no way better than the competition. It does not have any special features or is really above others in certain respect. But body that handles well, good menu system and good picture quality mean that this is an overall good contender in entry-level DSLR market. The only minus in my opinion was slow autofocus. As Mike Johnson wrote in his review of the same camera, it's the K1000 of digital SLR. If you have Pentax lenses, get it.

How to make money from your photos

The eternal question, no mistake here. Any advanced amateur has thought about it - how to have fun, do something you love and make some money on the side. Most even don't want to do photography full time because that means actually taking responsibility and delivering good results every time, sometimes pictures that you normally would not take and that you don't find value in. But I thought I'd share my experience as I've sold couple, I'm actually selling one every week or even more often. But I've certainly not become rich because of my photos.

First a little about promoting yourself. I started posting my photos on my homepage long time ago. First just for friends to see because they were on them, as my audience grew I started being more critical and publishing a bit less. I also seldom wrote on photography, this even grew into a special website about photography - foto.diip.ee. Because I was now showing photos in several places people started to notice and occasionally someone would ask if it was OK to use a picture here or there. So I decided to give my photos away with only 2 minor restrictions. First I asked people to link back to me and I they could only use pictures for non-commercial things. This approach proved to be very successful as my photos got used on websites, in PowerPoint presentations etc.

If you lack skills and webspace you might want to check websites that offer photo hosting (Flickr being my favourite) but anyone who is a bit more serious about presenting their work should invest (not necessarily money) in nice personal looking galleries. It gives much better overview of their work and if done well will make people take you much more seriously.

Orders did not pour in, they never have. But I've developed good relationships with couple of designer friends who use my photos for their client works. I don't do any assignments because I shoot film and have a huge backlog of rolls waiting for development but if you shoot digital that is an option.

When I put up new photos I promote it on my homepage and also paste link to couple of friends, just to remind them that the photos are there for viewing pleasure.

Royalty-free ripping you off?

Couple of month ago I was reminded of a site called istockphoto.com that has a vital market for photographers, designers and everybody else who deal with photos, vector images, flash clips etc. Just to see how it works I uploaded couple of photos (see my gallery). Results have been interesting. Selling one photo makes you very little money because it costs very little to buy it. So it's a volume game - you have to sell a lot to make decent sum of money. But because it's a big community and buying one photo costs so little people actually buy a lot.

When I compare to my direct sales the difference in pay is tremendous. I might make 60 UDS from direct sale of a photo in Estonia but when I put the same photo up in iStockphoto then one sale only creates me .60 USD. If you value your photos higher then this solution is definetly from you.

Also, read the licence really carefully so you know what rights you're giving away. And you need model release for all photos that have recognisable people on them. This might be a dealbreaker as many photos that I like have been taken some time ago, of totally unfamiliar people and I have no way of finding them and/or getting them to sign model release.

But. If you can get some friends to pose for free (give them a free print for example) and create some fun, cool, different photos then these could easily sell in tens if not in hundreds. Key to success is finding out what buyers are looking for and to have a large portfolio.

iStockphoto is actually very helpful - they try to give topics that always need photos (and also those that they have more than enough already), they don't accept everything so make sure yours are sharp, good quality and of course visually strong. They run forums as well, most useful is "Photo Requests" where one can detail what image s/he's looking for. Keep your eye on those forums, they might help you earn a few bucks but also give insight into what images are currently sought after.

By no means is iStockphotos the only option. I'm sure there are tens of similar websites. iStockphotos is not paying me to advertise them, I'm writing about them because I'm using it myself and I hate writing about stuff and tools I don't know and use.

I won't get rid of my own galleries because I have many images that would not sell there but that I like myself, that I like showing to people and that might just by accident prove a sell.

One more thing that relates to your galleries. You have to make very clear what rules apply to using your images. You might want to add copyright icon + photographer name on every photo. At least have (C) Copyright and photographer name and contact email beside each photo. Sometimes people steal photos just because "there was no name on it/beside it so I thought it was for free".

Woman with a bag

Bag, originally uploaded by Siim.

This one is from my countless wanders in Tallinn old town. It was originally shot in color and I thought very long how to present it. Nice light and yellow Fiat gave it really pleasant look but in the end black and white gives a better feeling. At least for me. I cut off the top part that showed some roofs and sky, more interesting format and tighter overall feel. What do you think?

Important day

kasikaes, originally uploaded by Siim.

I shot my first wedding this summer. Maybe I already posted a photo before but this is also one of my favourites. Wedding ceremony and everything took place in Kuressaare which is really lovely small town in Saaremaa, Estonia. I covered the whole day, bride makeup, dressing, shot 2 hours before the wedding for special pictures and then everything until midnight. Had a loaned Canon EOS 10D + my own film eating Minolta Maxxum 7 so ended up with veeeery many photos but because costs were not really important - the shot was my gift to my sister.

A little exciting

lastekaitseliit, originally uploaded by Siim.

I'll get Canon EOS 20D this evening to test out. With the kit lens, but that's OK, I actually asked for that specifically. Next up should be Canon EOS 350D that is just making its way into Estonian stores. Really competitively priced, top marks for local stores for that. Usually stuff is 10-20 percent more expensive than abroad. If you can get a friend to bring it from USA then even bigger price difference. But now there's virtually no price difference which means that it's just as good to get it from here and get local guarantee, support local shopkeepers etc.

Picture is taken with Sony F828 last winter. This was the first 8 megapixel prosumer camera I got my hands on and performed quite nicely. Didn't have external flash so I just took a white sheet of paper and held it up between flash and subjects in 45 degrees. Some flash bounced up to the ceiling, some went through the paper and I think I achieved very good results this way. Not terribly convenient way of taking photographs but works :) And now this picture of Evelin and Hendri ends up in Estonian Child Protection Organisation magazine frontpage.

Reason to dump AIM

This might seems as not so photography related but I'll get to the point. AOL has changed Terms of Service to their popular AIM chat services. It now contains following (on their ToS page scroll down to "Content You Post"):

In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

So. If you're a photographer (or just happy snapper) and send your picture to a friend, faimily member or anyone over AIM, AOL reserves the right to use it anywhere they want. Without letting you know, paying you, asking for your concent. Same goes for texts, poems, jokes and everything else in text format. Songs, videoclips etc etc. If I was AIM user I'd be switching to some alternative now.

Disclaimer: I work for a competing IM company.

Anyone interested in Pentax *ist DS?

So, anyone? I have half review translated (original here in Estonian), half to go but lately been low on energy. Slow on the photography front in every way. Haven't been shooting that much, haven't developed any rolls, haven't really tinkered with older photos to put them online. Still, one photo from August, 2004. My company had it's summer days in a small island called Kihnu, off the coast of Estonia. Sunny weather but really on the cold side, even for Estonia.



I couldn't decide weather I liked the original or black and white version better. To get this gritty look I used The Imaging Factory's tool called Converto to B&W Pro (there's free trial version that is not crippled and it works both on Windows and Mac). It's really great tool, allows fast and intuitive control. I'm thinking of buying it although have used Channel Mixer in Photoshop so far to do my b&w conversions.