I recently upgraded from my beloved Olympus e-510 DSLR with the 14-42mm and 40-150mm kits lenses in order to get a DSLR with better low-light performance and HD video capabilities. I loved my Olympus, but image quality took a nose-dive at ISO 800, and I liked the idea of having an HD camcorder built into my camera to capture high quality family photos and home videos in one device. I eventually settled on the Pentax K-x after first buying, and then returning, a Canon T2i.
I know that the T2i costs almost twice as much as the K-x, and they're not direct competitors, but I think my experience illustrates what a great camera and bargain the K-x is and how, for me at least, it was a giant killer.
I initially pre-ordered a T2i for the $900 MSRP after reading the glowing reviews in the press about the 18MP sensor, the high-ISO performance and the killer 1080p video. When I received the T2i, I was surprised by how cheap and plasticky it felt. It's not that the T2i was likely to fall apart, but my Olympus felt and looked like a higher quality camera, even though it was about $200 less than the T2i when I bought it. I realize that the T2i is a Rebel, but for almost $1000, I expected something more solid.
Even worse was the Canon 18-55mm kit lens, which felt like a toy compared to my Olympus kit lenses. It looked cheap, and the zoom action felt very cheap, and you could hear plastic-on-plastic as you zoomed in and out. There was no lens hood included, and the optional lens hood was only about an inch deep and looked ridiculous. The front element rotated when auto-focusing, which makes using some filters problematic, and you had to switch off AF to manually make focus adjustments. My Olympus lenses did not rotate the front element, and allowed full time focus override without turning off AF. And build-wise, they looked and felt like a higher end lens. But worst of all, Canon kits lens's optical performance was lacking, rendering the 18MP sensor moot.
I could live with the cheap feel of the T2i body and the ugly jelly-bean design, but I came to realize that in order to get a lens that would match the performance of the body, I would need to shell out another $500 or more, and as a hobbyist I just didn't have the budget.
The real deal-breaker with the T2i though, was the use of Quicktime format for the HD video. Quicktime is a proprietary Apple video format, and while I must assume it works well on a new Mac, the QT videos often gave PCs problems. I'd read about this from other users, but I figured that with my high-end PCs and my computer knowledge, I would be okay. But both my new Sony Vaio laptop with Windows 7, ATI 4650 graphics and 4GB of RAM and my desktop computer with Windows XP, dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, Raptor 10K HDD and nVidia 8800GT graphics would stutter on playback of the 1080p files. And finding affordable programs to edit Quicktime HD video files is another headache. I wasn't about to buy a new Mac just to be able to work with the video from my new camera.
So back went the T2i, and my quest for a new camera continued. I was just about to pull the trigger on a Nikon D5000, when I came across the Pentax K-x.
The first thing that grabbed my attention was the styling. I thought the red was killer, but I wasn't that brave. And the camera looked dead-sexy in navy blue, but when I saw the white version, I was in love. One thing I liked about my Olympus was that it was something DIFFERENT than all the Nikons and Canon Rebels you see every other parent carrying to school or sports functions. I would often get questions about it from people who didn't realize that Olympus even MADE DSLRs. With this Pentax, I would again have something out of the ordinary.
Then I started reading reviews of the K-x. One of the great things about the T2i is the high ISO image quality, and according to the reviews and the sample images I was looking at, the K-x was right there with it.
And the K-x also did HD video. There were some limitations, such as 720p and lack of full control over exposure while shooting video, but I didn't really mind since the samples I downloaded looked great, even on my 110" 1080P home theater projector. And 720p files take less space than 1080p and require less processing power to playback and edit. And best of all, the K-x uses Motion JPEG video format, which plays back great on PCs and is compatible with almost any Windows video editing program. The MJPEG format does use more disk space than the equivalent QT file, but hard drives and SD cards are cheap these days, so it's not a big deal.
Another great thing about the K-x is that it has sensor-based image stabilization in the body, so any lens you stick on the camera is stabilized. My Olympus used a similar system, and I was very happy with it. The big advantage is that you can be non-stabilized lenses so they'll be smaller, lighter, and less expensive.
I ended up buying the K-x in white with the 18-55mm lens. The K-x looks and feels like a higher quality camera than the T2i, and matches my Olympus in this department. The kit lens is also a very worthy piece of hardware.
With the money I saved on the Pentax, I was able to buy the legendary Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 lens, a Pentax 55-300mm zoom lens, and a Sigma speedlight. The flash was new, but I got great deals on the slighty-used lenses on eBay and Craigslist.
I've been using the Pentax for a couple months now, and have taken hundreds of pictures. I am absolutely thrilled with the camera and couldn't be happier with the photos and videos I'm getting. The T2i did have just slightly more detail, but other than that I would say the K-x has equal image quality. And the 12MP RAW image files of the K-x are faster to work with than the 18MP files of the T2i and take up much less space on SD cards, so you don't have to worry about filling up nearly as fast.
That's not too much negative I can say about the camera. I would like it to have a mini-HDMI port and a standard mini-USB port, and continuous auto-focus would be nice in video mode, but no other DSLR has that yet. Stereo mics would also be nice.
I suspect that the image stabilization system may not be as good as the one in my Olympus, but I can't say for sure since my 300mm is longer than the telephoto I had with the Olympus and will therefore be more prone to shake.
I get compliments on the Pentax everywhere I go, and it's been a joy to use and own. I could not be happier with my purchase.
In the future I'll probably add a Sigma 30mm F1.4 prime and a Sigma 10-20mm ultra-wide zoom to my lens kit.
Just for the record, I'm not trying to bash on the T2i. It is an amazing camera that is currently without peer in its price range. But if you're like me and you only have about $1000 to spend, I think you will get much more value by going with a less-expensive but almost-as-capable camera like the K-x, and using the extra money on high quality lenses. My F2.8 constant-aperture lens has been a revolution for me, and I recommend every budding photographer make room in their budget for something similar.
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