DPReview posts Pentax *ist D samples
By
Mike Tomkins
(Monday, September 22, 2003 - 11:13 EDT)
Our good friend Phil Askey over at the Digital Photography Review website might be on vacation, but that doesn't mean he's stopped working - he currently has a production-level Pentax *ist D digital SLR in hand, and has just posted a bit of a treat for readers...
If you're not familiar with the *ist D (pronounced ist-dee), which was first announced in February, you might want to look over our item from August 8th for the full specifications. To recap briefly, though, the *ist D is a 6.31 megapixel interchangeable lens digital SLR which can save images to CompactFlash Type-I or Type-II cards including Microdrives.
Phil has now posted a gallery of 25 sample images shot in his old home of Singapore. He comments on the camera's performance briefly in his introductory news item: "So far the *ist D is looking quite good, there are two sides to the *ist D's image quality story. Firstly tonal balance and color response are both good, a natural color response and lifted shadow detail with highlight clipping at about the same point as most other digital SLR's. Noise is also quite low, about the same as the Nikon D100 (which is what we'd expect as they both share the same sensor). The other side is that Pentax has clearly chosen a low sharpening approach, at 100% view most images have a soft look but do sharpen well and can be delivered sharper out of the camera by pushing up in-camera sharpening." If you've ever been to Singapore, you'll know it as an incredibly photogenic place - and Phil's samples are as gorgeous as we've come to expect from his site. Definitely check them out if you're in the market to buy a digital SLR!
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