On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 09:16:44PM -0700, Joseph Tainter wrote: > Me: > > Given the noise problems that the 10 MP model will > have, I might be more interested in the mid-range one, > except that the features I use will be available only deeply > buried in electronic menus. So I'll probably get the 10 MP one. > > Aaron: > > I'm guessing since you know so much about the layout and > performance of the two of them that you've seen 'em?
Photographs of the cameras shown at the Russian show (and several photographs taken with the 6MP "K100D" with SR) were fairly easy to find a few weeks ago. Personally, I don't read too much into it. Just because a mule exists, with the current 6MP sensor, doesn't mean that this is a camera that will ever make it into production. I'm sure 10MP sensors weren't exactly readily available at the time Pentax would have been creating prototypes, while they had a whole production line full of 6MP sensors. We have, more or less, seen confirmation from Pentax that there will be a 10MP camera with Shake Reduction, and also at least one cheaper model (and, usually, suggestions that there will be models priced at both the DS and DL levels). Will these cheaper models have SR? Will they use a 10MP sensor, or will Pentax try and sell a 6MP camera against models from the main competition with 8MP or 10MP sensors? (It will be several months, and more likely close to a year, before the cheaper models are on the shelves; I'd expect to see a D50s from Nikon in about the same time, and probably a new 10MP Rebel 380 from Canon as well). I'm not particularly worried about the extra noise that a 10MP sensor might produce - technology has progressed fast enough that I suspect a modern 10MP sensor is at least as good as the three-year-old design currently in the D/DS/DL. Pentax, after all, seemed to have less noise problems with the *ist-D than Nikon did with the same sensor in the D100, so I wouldn't be shocked to see the K10D outperform the D200.
