Pentax K10D - Waterproof & Efficient

by Susan Hiland
(Hartington, NE)

My husband bought a Pentax K10D digital camera in 2007 for me as a Christmas present. I had been looking at digital cameras for several years and because of the bad pixel quality refused to buy a camera until they came out with one that had decent pixels.

I could not be happier with my Pentax K10D. I am not going to go into a totally techie talk about the K10D because if you want specs you can find them on the internet. But what I will talk about is why I love this camera.

First, the quality of the pictures is tons better than the 35mm film camera. The pixel count on the Pentax K10D is 10 megapixels, this is nothing to sneeze at but the new K-7 has 13.4 megapixels. At the time, this was awesome for a digital camera.

Second, my camera is waterproof. I went to photograph a local fair for the newspaper and it was pouring rain, I sat in the car seriously considering coming back another day but the specs said it was waterproof. So I jumped out and started shooting. The camera worked great.

I got some wonderful pictures, while I was soaking wet my interior camera was dry as a bone. One point I really have to make, a waterproof body does not mean a waterproof lens! Meaning, that if you take the lens off the camera and change it you can ruin the lens or even the sensors inside the camera.

On to the lens for the Pentax K10D, K100D, and K20D digital camera’s they have a Pentax KAF2 bayonet mount which means that it works with all Pentax lens going back through the 70’s that have the K-Mount.

This saves a person hundreds of dollars. You do not have to go and buy new lens for this Pentax. But one big draw back, I have a manual focus 25mm wide angle lens when I put that on my camera it doubled the 25mm making the lens a standard 50mm. This is due to the APS-C and it's crop factor.

Speaking of drawbacks-my Pentax K10D has disappointed me in one area taking pictures in auditoriums and in low lighting situations. For taking pictures in an auditorium, I had to play with my camera for 15 minutes before I found a setting that got good exposure in this situation.

I tried to photograph a play inside the school gym with the lights out and only got six good pictures. Turns out this camera has difficulties focusing in low lighting situations. So, I am very disappointed in that area.

Sometimes it’s not possible to use a flash and this camera just can’t focus when the lighting is low.

I hear that the new K-7 has overcome this problem with a better sensor. When I get more money I probably will purchase this camera has a replacement for my Pentax K10D.

Recently I shot my first lightening storm, this camera worked great. It took sometime for me to figure out the right settings but once I put it on 'B' and took off the autofocus everything fell into place. While outside humidity rose so high that the camera was soaking wet in minutes thank God for waterproofing.

After wiping the camera off and the lens, I shot for two hours without incident. It was a great shoot and I got some wonderful pictures.

The pros do not consider Pentax cameras a serious contender in the world of pro-photographers but I disagree. I believe that getting the shot is what is important and you can do this with any of the Pentax DSLR range of cameras including the Pentax K10D.