Pentax K-30 Performance

Generally good performance for a consumer SLR, though sluggish startup.

Startup was sluggish for an SLR at just over one second, but buffer clearing times were good with a fast card.

Play to Record was very fast as was displaying a recorded image, but switching from Record to Play was somewhat sluggish.

The shutter lag numbers above measure time from shutter button press to image capture, with the lens already set to the correct focal distance. This largely removes the issue of differences in lens focusing speed, and measures how fast the camera can measure and act on focus information. In this metric, the Pentax K-30 was faster than average for a consumer SLR. The Pentax K-30 required 0.162 second for full AF when using Single-point (center) AF mode (our default full AF lag test). This increased only slightly to 0.177 second in Auto area AF mode, which is still quite fast. Continuous and Manual focus lag times were 0.099 and 0.098 second respectively. When prefocused, shutter lag was 0.098 second which while fast, isn't quite as fast as some competing models.

As expected, the Pentax K-30's Live View mode was much slower to focus using contrast detection, though performance here was pretty good compared to most other SLRs. Full autofocus shutter lag was 0.871 seconds, which, while quite a bit slower than when using the optical viewfinder, is pretty good. Prefocused shutter lag was also good for Live View mode, at 0.253 second.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance. We also use the same Sigma 70mm f/2.8 macro with every camera (on all platforms except Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds and Nikon consumer models lacking an in-body focus motor), to further reduce variation, and because our tests showed that focus-determination time with this lens was close to the fastest, across multiple camera bodies from different manufacturers. Being an older design with a non-ultrasonic motor, it wouldn't be the fastest at slewing from one focus setting to another, but that's exactly the reason we measure focus determination speed, which is primarily a function of the camera body, vs focus adjustment speed, which is primarily a function of the lens.

Shot-to-shot cycle times were pretty good at just over 0.4 second no matter the file type in Single Shot mode.

Continuous Hi mode was good for a consumer SLR, at about 5.5 frames per second for Large/Best JPEGs, and oddly slightly faster when DNG  files were captured, at about 5.7 frames per second. These results are a little short of Pentax's 6 fps specification, though. There is also a Continuous Lo mode available, rated at 3 fps.

The Pentax K-30's buffer depths were quite good for best quality JPEGs. We captured 45 frames before the camera slowed down. (You'll likely do even better, as the target image we use for our tests is designed to be difficult to compress.) Buffer depth with RAW files is a bit shallow, though, at only 8 frames for RAW, and 7 for RAW+JPEG. Buffer clearing was quite quick with a fast card.

The Pentax K-30's flash took 2.6 seconds to recharge after a full-power shot, which is pretty fast.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, downloads speeds are good, though we've seen much faster.

Bottom line, the Pentax K-30's performance is generally pretty good. Startup is a bit sluggish and so is switching from Record to Play, but autofocus is swift, burst speed good, and buffer clearing fast. Buffer depths with RAW files are however on the shallow side.

Battery Life
Below average battery life for an SLR using a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

The Pentax K-30 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. The camera can also use four AA batteries with the optional D-BH109 battery holder.

Battery life with the included lithium-ion battery is well below average for an SLR using an optical viewfinder, and if you plan to use Live View or shoot movies much, you'll definitely want to have a spare battery or two to bring along. Battery life with disposable lithium AAs is quite good though, at a CIPA-rated 1,000 shots.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on either a fresh set of disposable batteries or a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))