The Little Red Corvette barrels down the infoSync Highway in our full Pentax K-r review. Is this a major improvement from the White Storm Trooper? Read the full review to find out.
Pentax K-r Overview
In the sub-$1,000 digital camera landscape, we're ambushed by more gangs of cameras than we could ever imagine shaking a stick at. The Pentax K-r is one of the few worthy intruders, flaunting several improvements over its next in command, the Pentax K-x. We loved Pentax's new K-x because it decimated nearly all in its price range. No competing Micro Four Thirds or DSLR could touch the Pentax K-x, and now, for a few hundred Benjamins more, the company's mid-level Pentax K-r brings serious trouble to the amateur DSLR world. It's faster, more intelligent, and more capable, from the LCD screen to the extended ISO range, to the power source. The Pentax K-r is a bonefide upgrade from the K-x in our eyes, so let's find out why.
Pentax K-r Design
One of our primary concerns with entry-level Pentax cameras focuses around their power source, as cameras like the K2000 and K-x rely solely on AA batteries to power them throughout the day. Pentax went back to the laboratory and formulated a highly functional solution to this—melding a lithium ion battery slot into a AA battery housing. This means that the Pentax K-r can run on either source, which can be a blessing out in the field when the lithium battery decides to cash in its chips in the middle of a shoot. The catch is that you must purchase the D-BH109 AA Battery Holder, which will run you an additional $35, if you want to use AA batteries. We applaud the innovation, but feel as though Pentax should include the holder.
The Pentax K-r is not a revolutionary divergence from its predecessors when we discuss architecture. In fact, it's difficult to discern between the K2000, K-x, and K-r because they are all of similar dimensions and feature nearly identical control placement. The Pentax K-r even ships in our favorite Storm Trooper White, as well as a new Fire Engine Red and Black. But the Pentax K-r receives a significant upgrade in the LCD department, sporting a 3-inch, 921,000-pixel display. We also had the privilege of shooting with all three kit lenses offered for the Pentax K-r, consisting of an 18-55mm, 50-200mm, and 55-300mm, but the great thing about Pentax cameras is that any DSLR model is compatible with any Pentax lens ever made.
Aside from the revamped LCD screen, the Pentax K-r features a large popup flash, color viewfinder with focus point indicator, E-dial for quick menu selection, and a four-way directional pad. A fully stocked Mode dial sits on top of the camera, and we get Exposure Compensation, White Balance, ISO, Flash, Self-Timer, Menu, Info, Live View, Playback, and Green buttons for control. Although this is a fairly simple spread of external controls, all of the magic happens within the K-r's quick, robust menus. For portability, the Pentax K-r is similar to the Nikon D3100, so it won't take up the whole room like a professional DSLR.
Shooting with the Pentax K-r
Pentax has been praising the K-r for its burst speeds, which reach up to 6fps, but the highlight for us was the Roadrunner speed of the camera's firmware. The Pentax K-r allowed us to rifle through options at a blazing pace, with not even a hiccup, proving itself one of the fastest cameras we've tested to date. Adding to our expedited shooting experience was the lightning fast Auto Focus in Live View. When set to Live View, the Pentax K-r will swiftly zoom in on a point of interest, focus, and zoom back out, all the while spouting mechanical shrieks. Yes, it's not quiet, but it's highly efficient, especially when we used the 11-point SAFOX IX AF system and took advantage of the customizable focus point box.
The Pentax K-r also brings enhanced manual controls to the table, and we'll start with its obscene 25,600 ISO level. With an ISO range of 200-25,600, the Pentax K-r was a versatile beast, though we'll talk about its high ISO performance in the next section. The Pentax K-r also featured a boosted max shutter speed, which allowed us to shoot at 1/6000-second. We had a base speed of 30 seconds, with the ability to shoot in Bulb as well. For White Balance, the Pentax K-r offered a slew of presets and Manual, with the ability to fine-tune each setting via a 4-color grid. The K-r's aperture range could reach a minimum of f/3.5 at full wide-angle with the 18-55mm lens, and f/32 with the 55-300mm lens.
HDR image capture on the Pentax K-r was improved with various levels of intensity, though it was still difficult to use without resting the camera on a solid surface or using a tripod, especially in Night HDR mode. The K-r also Multi-exposure with the ability to layer up to 9 images, a bountiful Cross Processing filter menu, and Custom Image settings like Vibrant, Muted, Bleach Bypass, and Reversal Film. And the K-r would not be a Pentax without its digital filters, including High Contrast, Toy Camera, Starburst, Extract Color, and a Custom Filter, that enabled us to combine numerous filters in one. All of the effects can be applied to images already taken. For a beginner or advanced amateur, the Pentax K-r is one of the most well-equipped cameras in its price range.
Pentax K-r Still Image Quality
If you're going to upgrade the wildly popular K-x, you might as well toss a new CMOS sensor into its new big brother. The Pentax K-r has a redesigned APS-C sized 12.4-megapixel CMOS sensor with PRIME (Pentax Real Imaging Engine) II processing. The K-r offers the ability to shoot in RAW, JPEG, or RAW+ JPEG at three different quality levels. In order to take advantage of HDR or most Digital Filters, the K-r must remain in JPEG mode, so that brings us to the topic of the hour—image quality. Is there a significant improvement? How about RAW vs. JPEG?
We will say that it's very difficult to follow the Pentax K-x. Even the K2000 gave us images that rivaled some of the best DSLRs in its class. For the money, you'll be hard-pressed to find a camera with better image quality, and this time around it was overall noise that took a bit of a licking. The Pentax K-r preformed well at high ISO levels, though 25,600 was a noise blizzard, as we would have expected. Also, RAW performance is more detailed than JPEG and offers better color tonality, unless you shoot at high ISO levels. The high ISO JPEG images we captured, compared to the RAW images shot in identical conditions were slightly less detailed, but exhibited less noise. So, shoot in RAW and convert into JPEGs in any shooting environment, unless you plan on boosting the ISO past 1600.
Still, the Pentax K-r is a game-winning slapshot goal in the DSLR minor league. Its SilkyPix software is a little buggy and crashed on us a few times, but the K-r can shoot in .DNG RAW files in addition to .PEF, so that's Photoshop compatibility right out of the box. Take a look at our samples, and be sure to compare them to the Pentax K-x and Pentax K2000 review samples.
The Pentax K-r's 720p HD video mode is one of the few untouched regions of the camera, and we could have used some improvements in that department. First off, there's no Continuous Auto Focus in video mode, so anything involving depth had to be manually focused. Also, the Pentax K-r records 25fps Motion JPEG files, which are not the top of the heap when we talk about video. Low light sensitivity was impressive, though noise was rampant. For static shots in adequate lighting, the Pentax K-r is fine, but as a versatile DSLR/camcorder hybrid, the K-r needs some more work in the video department before we can envision it as a multi-faceted tool.
Pentax K-r Final Answer
If you take a Pentax K-x, improve the image sensor by a hair, add a hybrid lithium/AA battery source, make it faster with a 1/6000-second shutter and 6fps burst mode, extend the ISO to 25,600, boost the LCD screen resolution to 921,000 pixels, add a viewfinder focus point indicator…well, you see where we're going with this. The Pentax K-r is more expensive than the K-x, yes. However, the aforementioned improvements are well worth it, and in the end, we were left with a camera that outperformed the beloved K-x — a feat we thought would take longer to accomplish, especially in this price range.
With Micro Four Thirds cameras barreling out of the starting gates of the sub-$1,000 price range, and even fixed lens compacts like the Canon PowerShot G12 and Nikon Coolpix P7000 hitting the register at $500, the $850 Pentax K-r with 18-55mm kits lens package does not seem like such a sacrifice for the photography student or advanced amateur looking to break away from the fixed lens universe. The Nikon D90, Canon Rebel T2i, and Olympus E-600 cameras are other major contenders, though the Pentax K-r holds its own amongst the spectrum. We highly recommend the Pentax K-r if you're serious about your first DSLR. The Little Red Corvette is here to sweep you away, as it already did with us.
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