Pentax Q - Best camera for $200

[CaptainSi]

Pentax Q review ($240 $200 price point considered)

http://www.amazon.com/Pentax-Black-Standard-Zoom-Lens/dp/B007SQB896/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380812131&sr=8-1&keywords=pentax+q

I'm writing this for a number of reasons, firstly because the Pentax Q is my favourite camera, secondly, because I want to debunk the bullshit that sensor size directly correlates to image quality, thirdly because I want to debunk the bullshit that bloody brilliant cameras don't exist at the ~$240 $200 price point, fourthly because I love reading my own stellar and impregnating handle of the English language and fifthly because I've actually never used the word fifthly before. I'm not even sure it's a word. Fifthly.

 

I'm exposed to perpetual genius in my seasoned travels and adventures. For example (and speaking of seasoned), just last night I found a joint that makes nacho pizza - I'll let your tiny minds absorb the sheer genius of that for a second before sinking my teeth into the delicious molten cheese body of the review. Pentax's Q is of the same genus as this genius. Like Slick, it's powerful, utilitarian and arguably sexy, and like Linus it's small and cheaply bought. It's exciting, but measured at the same time, and given this brief overview you should be fricken enthusiastic about this camera - even more enthusiastic than Pentax was at my suggestion of using the Slick/Linus comparison for the review section on their website.

 

Build & Handling

Starting with the basics, it's an interchangeable lens, mirrorless camera and it's the smallest one in the world. It has on board, extend-able flash (guide number ~7, the extend-able arm will prevent a shadow cast by longer lenses in your shot and eliminate red-eye) and a standard hotshoe, an ample scattering of buttons and dials, a stabilized 1/2.3" CMOS sensor and uses Pentax's Q mount. The Q, in typical Pentax fashion, it's built as well as any professional jobbie out there. A magnesium alloy exoskeleton wraps around the whole unit, with a flush and thick glass panel occupying most of the rear of the camera. Function buttons are small and recessed, however give a great tacticle click when depressed, and honestly are the correct decision as it effectively adds to the longevity of the buttons as they can't get caught when being removed from your bag or pocket. Yes, pocket, it will fit in yours. It's 98mm across, 57mm tall and 31mm in thickness, however I want to point out that after you whack a lens on it it will be considerably thicker, so I'd only pay attention to the width and height, as parting the lens between shots really isn't practical. The screen is okay. In sunlight it's serviceable but the pixel density nor brightness is going to knock your socks off. The dials click nicely - a bit heavy for my liking, but their propensity to static only adds to the solid feel of the camera. Doors are plastic but nice and solid and the shutter release button is awesome. I also want to point out that Pentax's Q mount is one of the nicest mounts I've experienced. The clasping ratchet is powerful, and there is absolutely no movement once a lens is mounted, so props to Pentax for that. It's small, however comfortable, and the buttons will never be accidentally depressed due to the heavy, polar state switches used.

tldr; The build quality is second to none.

 

Image Making
I used the word "exposed" as the second word in the second paragraph of this review, which is good for two reasons, primarily because it makes for a fucking brilliant segue and secondly because I can now talk about the point of its existence. Image making. The Q spits out raw DNG and/or JPEG files at 12.4 megapixels, and if you suddenly lost interest at the respectively low megapixel count then you already have something in common with this camera's megapixel count, and that would be your age. The camera fires at a maximum shutter speed of 1 8000th of a second and will expose to 30" on board, with single stop rungs between these two polars, so nothing surprising here. It also includes manual exposure timing (BULB). Iso ranges from 125 to 6400. The camera can be shunt into full manual mode for both stills and video, which is basically unseen on a camera at this price point, and features aperture and shutter priority, which is bloody useful. It sucks in full hd video at 30p, however auto focus is disabled in video mode. This isn't as crippling as you might think, as the small sensor gives you tonnes of hyperfocal room, and the inclusion of focus peaking (update your firmware if you don't have it) makes manual focus terribly easy. There is an on board interval shooting mode, which will accept up to 999 photos to be taken between 1 second and 24 hours apart, and a bunch of filters and effects for you to play around with (which surprisingly function really well here. Hell, I'd say they're class leading). Also has an in built neutral density filter which can be toggled on via the menu, and a trailing flash optionm which are two awesome surprises, which are surprising awesome! Auto focus works well too. It's fast enough, doesn't hunt too much and can be switched into zone, center, spot and grid modes. Auto exposure metering can likewise be switched to center, zone and grid. The camera can burst at 5fps for 1 second also, which is too limited to be a terribly useful function though it's there.

I don't want to talk about JPEG too much as I don't use this function, however from what I have used, the JPEG compression algorithm is nicely executed here. It isn't anywhere near as harsh as Sony's implementation in the outputted sharpness and dynamic range, and doesn't obliterate shadows and blacks like Canons', which is nice. I think the low megapixel count probably helps the Pentax out here, so it may be a bit unfair to make those comparisons. I personally think the JPEG's are too vibrant, however I think this was Pentax's way of catering for the people who might use this camera as a point and shoot and not work on the images in post, which kind of makes sense, as people who won't use it as a point and shoot should know that RAW is where it's at, yo. To be honest, I'm not a fan of the DNG format, as I prefer a separate xmp profile to be created when importing my photos into editing suites so the original file is completely untouched, so another format like ARW would be appreciated however this is just a clerical complaint, nothing more.

It's worth talking about the video mode in more depth, as this is a very capable video camera. As I mentioned before, no auto focus in video mode, which is poo poo. The video it spits out, however, is clear and compression isn't harsh. It's encoded in H.264 and is nicely wrapped in the MP4 container, which isn't at all surprising, as every lad and their snapback uses this. No mic input or headphone out, and is limited to 25 minutes record time per file, which is more robust than Canon dSLRs, however still limited. I dislike how vibrant the video profile is, as it can lead to colour artifacts and I like to grade my own footage, but it's still a vastly more capable video camera than any competitive options at this price point.

I'm not going to throw any more numbers at you, as I think judging a camera by statistics is monumentally stupid so here are a bunch of sample images. (Captured raw, processed in Photoshop CS5.

 

I own 5 lenses for my Q, the 01 standard prime, 02 standard zoom, 06 standard telephoto, as well as a couple of vintage c and d mount lenses for fun. Barrel distortion is fairly harsh on the 01 prime, however the camera can rectify this in-body, and photoshop has auto profiles included, so don't worry about it. Interestingly the 02 zoom is basically distortion free, however being a zoom it's naturally softer than the prime. Chromatic aberration is minimal, and center to corner sharpness is maintained on both lenses. The 06 is an maintains a constant, fast aperture at 2.8 (e f15) throughout it's range, is insanely sharp and absolutely distortion free at all focal lengths. This isn't a lens review, so I'll leave it at that, however I thought I should mention them, seeing as the Pentax Q ecosystem is very VERY tightly integrated.

I would now ask the reader to make a note of the fact that I've just written a list of dSLR features and functions for a camera that performs like a dSLR, that sells at $240 $200 and isn't a dSLR. gg.

tldr; gg.

[Raboo]

WOW a dslr for $240 i got my T3i for $550. The pics from the Q are great.

[DaftBehemoth]

 Like Slick, it's powerful, utilitarian and arguably sexy, and like Linus it's small and cheaply bought. 

I actually laughed out loud

 

A hilarious and well written review. The examples you showed look beautiful and I am seriously considering picking up this camera. As a person who has never owned a camera before (besides a phone lol) and a person who's likely to only use this camera to take pictures of computers... do you think I'll be fine with the included lense? I know very little about cameras.

 

Also, 500th post! Woo!

[RatedBlam]

Looks pretty good, too bad I can't afford a camera right now BUt I didn't know that slick is all about the good of the country, if that is what utilitarianism even means

[CaptainSi]

I actually laughed out loud

 

A hilarious and well written review. The examples you showed look beautiful and I am seriously considering picking up this camera. As a person who has never owned a camera before (besides a phone lol) and a person who's likely to only use this camera to take pictures of computers... do you think I'll be fine with the included lense? I know very little about cameras.

 

Also, 500th post! Woo!

The included lens is the 02 standard zoom I briefly mentioned towards the end. It covers a greater range than most lenses included with cameras do (it can zoom further), is built exceptionally and takes great photos, so yeah, it will be fine. For $240 you can't really go wrong, and if something does go wrong you can always use the exceptional video mode to film some dirty little tapes, "leak" them onto the internet and become the next Kardashian, so that's reassuring!

[CaptainSi]

Looks pretty good, too bad I can't afford a camera right now BUt I didn't know that slick is all about the good of the country, if that is what utilitarianism even means

Utilitarian, as in.. practical, functional, almost like a... a... utility

[That Norwegian Guy]

Sensor size doesn't correlate to image quality? Then explain all the noise in your shots.

[CaptainSi]

Sensor size doesn't correlate to image quality? Then explain all the noise in your shots.

uhm...wha? What noise? Also, how's the Morrowind mod coming along?

[That Norwegian Guy]

uhm...wha? What noise? Also, how's the Morrowind mod coming along?

 

On the shadow on the closest hill in the topmost picture and on the trees in your long exposure shot.

 

Dunno about the mod to be honest, the rest of the guys have a lot of RL stuff atm

[CaptainSi]

On the shadow on the closest hill in the topmost picture and on the trees in your long exposure shot.

 

Dunno about the mod to be honest, the rest of the guys have a lot of RL stuff atm

I can't see it, perhaps you're talking about the detail being crushed when they're sampled at this size? I have a sneaking suspicion that you might have rammed the colour or contrast up on your monitor? Who knows, pixels are complicated little buggers. Noise at an ISO of 125 is basically non existent unless it's added or enhanced in post, and I can assure you I didn't do that! I even mentioned that the sample images wont demonstrate the Q's noise capability at it's shot at said ISO. As for the mod dev team, give them a friendly kick up the bum, compliments of CaptainSi

[Mysticode]

WOW a dslr for $240 i got my T3i for $550. The pics from the Q are great.

Tis not a DSLR good sir, it's an  MILC 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorless_interchangeable-lens_camera

 

Also what's up with the 30 to 40 minute power on battery life with this thing?

[Raboo]

Tis not a DSLR good sir, it's an  MILC 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorless_interchangeable-lens_camera

 

Also what's up with the 30 to 40 minute power on battery life with this thing?

Ok its not a DSLR, but it does have interchangeable lens.

[CaptainSi]

Tis not a DSLR good sir, it's an  MILC 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorless_interchangeable-lens_camera

 

Also what's up with the 30 to 40 minute power on battery life with this thing?

Camera battery tests are always horribly off in my experience. I think they are run in constant exposure or at settings requiring full processor load to stress the battery at absolute conditions. For example, my Sony a77 is quoted at ~600 photos in most reviews, however just last week I filled four 32gig sd cards (which is thousands of shots) without even hitting 30% battery usage. Likewise, I can go multiple days of shooting on the Q without issues, taking perhaps 200 - 400 shots per day. Couple that with power saving functions that most cameras have such as auto screen dimming, auto-off periods and shutter-bound sensor shift stabilization it really doesn't have any battery issues to complain about. It's certainly not as robust as a ~1700 mAh battery that professional grade dSLRs use, however spare batteries are 1/10th of the price and 1/4 of the size, so if you aren't happy just grab a few more.

[megadarkwood]

What lenses are compatible and are they on the expensive side or "cheap" side?

Also, can you plug it into the computer and control it there? 

[sperkowsky]

I already have a dslr but this is very interesting

[James_AJ]

DAMN, besides the camera and everything, you take real good photos!

[CaptainSi]

What lenses are compatible and are they on the expensive side or "cheap" side?

Also, can you plug it into the computer and control it there? 

Within the Q mount ecosystem there are 7 high quality lenses only, which cover anything you could possibly need for a camera, excluding a properly robust extreme wide angle and a likewise extreme telephoto. The Q lenses, due to sheer size are much cheaper than equivalent FX and DX lenses (about 8 times cheaper at $100). On the telephoto side, however, you are very lucky, as Pentax makes cheap K to Q mount adapters, which allow full electric and mechanical compatibility with Pentax's full range of K mount lenses on the Q (which is hundreds of brilliant current and legacy lenses).

 

The reason I mentioned this is especially useful for telephoto photography is due to the small sensor size you're given a 5.5x crop factor. This means any lenses mounted on the Q will be effectively magnified by 5.5 times (whilst loosing 5.5 times the light). What this translates to in the real world is, for example, Pentax's K mount 50mm f1.4 (which is an incredibly fast lens that's really affordable for the quality of the glass) which would typically be a lens for street/general photography and low light shooting will be the equivalent of a 275mm f7 lens when mounted on the Q. Lenses like that simply can't exist for full frame or aps-c cameras (typical dSLR/mirorless sensor size), and suddenly you have yourself an incredibly compact, albeit, slow telephoto lens.

On top of this, most micro four thirds (which is a massively well supported sensor size) lenses can be adapted to the Q mount as well.

Another huge advantage of the Q mount is, due to the flange distance and small sensor size, can be easily adapted to accept vintage C and D screw mount lenses, which are respectively 16 and 8mm film cinema standards from the 50s-80s (I'm talking twin lens reflex cameras old). You can get some immensely well performing legacy glass for a single digit percentage of the cost of what they were worth. Obviously these lenses will be fully manual, but it's really good fun and they can look anywhere between hilarious and fricken awesome.

 

 

In regard to the computer control thing, I'm not sure what you mean. If you're talking about controlling stuff like zoom/focus via a computer, though I've never tried it, I highly doubt it. Obviously firmware updates for the lenses and body are computer controlled though.