Peter, I had two of the Ds, with no hot pixels to speak of. I'm using a K10D, but think the Ds is a great way into Pentax digital. Make sure you get the download off the Pentax USA site. It will upgrade the Ds functions to a Ds2 (2gig sd cards). Pentax USA has the DS2 manual if necessary. Regards, Bob S.
On 1/15/07, Peter Lacus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > and bought istDs. :-) Crazy man am I not? > > The K10D is admirable camera but it's on the big side of comfortable for > me (both size and weight). The K100D was also ruled out, because the > viewfinder is not up to the quality of K10D/istDs viewfinders and build > quality seemed to be lower as well. > > The istDs fitted my hand like glove. Or my hand fitted istDs? Whatever... > > Cost was also a deciding factor - it's my first DSLR and I wasn't sure > if I'll like the thing so I didn't want to spend too much (I was > shooting mainly with M era cameras until lately). > > What I like so far: > 1. size, weight, perfect fit, well thought interface - it's a joy to use > this camera. I've set up various custom functions, then switched main > display off and never looked back (the LCD screen on the back suck for > any other purpose anyway). Quality of the viewfinder is excellent, > topped by maybe just K10D or about every mechanical Pentax of yore (but > these don't count :-). Even the size of the viewfinder information is > right (not that I look at these numbers too often ;-)). > > 2. image quality - I started shooting RAW straight away and I like it > very much. Just the ability to choose between different processors is > IMHO worth it. So far I've tried Pixmantec Rawshooter Essentials > (prefers sharpness over smoothness so it's probably better suited for > printing), Silkypix Developer Studio (prefers smoothness over sharpness, > which is coincidentally what I prefer as well), Pentax Photo Laboratory > (output is similar to Silkypix and it should be, as version 3.0 is > powered by Silkypix engine), Google Picasa 2 (nice for cataloging and > casual use) and Zoner Photo Studio (good quality automatic conversion > and some advanced tools, especially for those who don't have Adobe > Photoshop). > > The only disappointing (well disappointing is probably too strong word > in this circumstance) thing I've encountered so far is a "hot cluster" > of pixels in the upper right corner. It looks like a cross made from > about 5 pixels and is always lit. Overall not a big deal, usually one > setting within a RAW conversion software will remedy this but I'm > curious how common is this fault? > > That's all for now, folks. :-) > > Peter > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
