I bought my Pentax K200d through Amazon at the end of July 08, and recently returned from a 47 day trip to the great American West. I took nearly 2,600 photos under a wide variety of conditions: dust, rain, surf, museums, near freezing mountain camping, bright sun and twilight. I am still on my second set of lithium batteries. The original batteries that came with the camera were good for over 1400 exposures (with very little flash usage). The results are amazing with superb color saturation and definition. And the camera is tough, much tougher than I expected. It feels good to hold.

I am principally familiar with less expensive Nikon DSLRs, the D40, D50, D60 and D70. The Pentax is far above these fine cameras. I am not talking about the K20d, which I understand is even more remarkable. At under $600 including a quality 18-55 kit lens, it is, to say the least, a bargain compared to other offerings in a very competitive field.

I have been slow to break away from the world of 35mm. However, digital has more than caught up in terms of image quality, and it has surpassed film in terms of convenience and cost. With that in mind, I set aside my Nikon FM2 and lenses and after considerable soul searching, turned to Pentax. In 1975, I had owned a screw mount body and later a Pentax ME, which I loved but lost to a camera snatcher. In the `80s, I turned to Nikon, and still believe that, overall, they provide excellent products. So I have a hand full of Pentax K and Nikon A1 lenses, which I hoped to be able to use.

I was considering an upgrade to a Nikon D80, and checked it out. The D80 was a fine camera back in 2006, but it seems a bit dated now. The Pentax K200d feels better in my hands, much better. The Pentax has both shake reduction in the body and a dust management system, both of which are lacking in the Nikon, and Pentax offers some marvelous new prime lenses, including a 50mm f1.4, made for dslr bodies. My old Pentax K-mount lenses work wonderfully well and provide and inexpensive alternative. [In the K200, you just have to go to Custom Menu, item 23 to enable the older lenses.] After some initial experimentation, however, I stuck mostly with the 18-55 kit lens, quick, versatile and also dust and weather resistant. Moreover, with the shake reduction, I have been able to hand hold with good results at 1/15th of a second or even less depending on the focal length. Perhaps soon I will add the 50-200, or a nice prime lens.

You can't go wrong with this camera.

If you are considering a DSLR I highly recommend it.

I have been using my K200D for 4 months now and love it. I compared several cameras (Nikon D60, Canon EOS XTi, Olympus 520), and then ordered the K200D after reading many online reviews (DPReview, CameraLabs and others).

This is my first DSLR, after having used a film SLR (Canon) for many years and digital point and shoot cameras (Kodak and Canon) for the last few.

The Pentax feels so much more solid than the other DSLRs in my hands, a piece of real equipment. The camera's features were superior to the Nikon (tho you can never go wrong with Nikon), and the image quality per reviews and my experience has been great. The price point on Amazon made the decision a no-brainer, and I have not been disappointed.

The camera operates in any range from point-and-shoot auto everything (including flash) down to full manual, and incorporates many scene modes in addition to the program, shutter priority, aperture priority, and fixed ISO program modes. Settings such as white balance (including custom WB), self timer, continuous shooting and more are rapidly accessed via the function button followed by one of the cursor keys, and there is a switch on the body at the base of the lens to switch to manual focus. Anti-shake is built into the body, keeping lenses simple, reliable and less expensive, a plus over Canon and Nikon. Sensor size is APS-C (a plus over Olympus), and I have read it is the same sensor used in the Nikon D60, which appears to be born out in online reviews.

Only thing lacking IMO is a focus assist lamp for low light focusing, and that can be remedied with a Pentax external flash which has the focus assist lamp. Really it has been only in unfairly low light conditions where focus has failed me (dimly lit indoor displays viewed from a moving cart - like some of the dimmest portions of rides in Disney World). If you are bent on live view that is not here either, but realize live view as implemented on DSLRs has many limitations anyway. The viewfinder on the K200D is very good, BTW, and it is a better tool than live view - with the exception perhaps of the occasional shot with the camera held far away from your face, perhaps shooting over a crowd.

I have read some comments that the JPGs produced by the K200D at default settings are overly sharp, exhibiting "jaggies" on edges. I have tried a few times to reproduce this to see how changing the JPG quality settings would affect it, but have been unable to see the effect at all. BTW the same article indicated shooting RAW the K200D was fantastic - if you process your photos on the PC and don't mind the extra storage for RAW, then the JPG issue is moot.

Added bonus: if you have other Pentax K mount lenses they will work here, and if you have the older screw mount M42 lenses there are K mount adapters available to make them work too. So unlike the Canon FD glass cluttering my closet, your old Pentax lenses are still much more than paper weights. Browse ebay and see how many older Pentax lenses are available for a great price if you can handle manual focus for those special times you need the lens, like for low light. And - unlike Canon or Nikon - Pentax's in-body image stabilization still works with the old lenses! If you have Pentax-A lenses, exposure is still fully auto and only focus is manual - not bad at all.

Check Mark Roberts' Pentax Lens Compatibility page at http://www.robertstech.com/compat.htm. For detail on using older fully manual lenses see the article "K100D (Super) Pictorial guide to using manual lenses" at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&message=24921509.

I have had a 35mm SLR for several years but it has been collecting dust since the digital revolution and I purchased my first digital point and shoot. Lately I have missed the control that I have with the SLR. After doing some research as to if my film lenses would fit and what the reviews were I purchased the K200D and was surprised by all that it has to offer. I love the fact that it uses AA batteries which I use rechargeable without any problems, the good battery life was also a surprise. This is a great camera and has renewed my passion for enthusiast photography. This camera has all the convenience of a point and shoot with the quality and control of an SLR great entry to midlevel camera with lots of room to grow.

Hello fellow Amazon.com shoppers,

As there are many reviews about this camera I will keep this one short.

Pros:

-Great PQ

-Lots of user settings, but auto settings work as good, it picks up the correct scene every time in auto mode. You will quickly understand the menu UI and different settings as they are very good described both visualy and as text on the screen.

-Good VR, you don't hear or feel a buzz, which is good.

-I was able to use my old ('87) 35-70 and 70-210 Pentax lenses. Autofocus works as it should razor sharp and exposure is correctly calculated.

-I really like the kit lens, it is of far better quality than other brands kit lenses. It comes with lens hood and has a professional look to it. Very fast AF (way faster than Nikon!)

Cons:

-The included lithium batteries (AA-size) gave me 750 images instead of the 1200 images as advertised on the box. (12MP JPEG, 10%flash,little screen use).

The next set were Alkaline batteries and gave me 200 shots. So stay away from Alkaline's. Make sure to get the battery grip BG3 and 2 sets of high capacity NIMH's. The camera is quite compact compared to Nikon's but slightly larger than comparable Canon's. I have large hands as I'm 6'6" and I really need the battery grip to have a good feel on the camera. I guess the body is the right size for normal people :)

-The power consumption was higher with the 8GB SDHC card I used at first. Now I get about 900 images with a normal 2GB SD card and one set NiMh's GP 2700mA. I think the SDHC cards use more power, stay away from them if you don't need the capacity.

All in all, very satisfied Pentax customer and feel happy everytime I go out and use it. I noticed I take the camera with me more often than I used to because it is so intuitive to operate. You are always fast enough to get that 'drive by shot' in the city :)

Having owned a Pentax ME Super SLR for more years than I like to admit, and having had a Minolta digital point and shoot for a few years I decided it was about time I bought a DSLR. I used to shoot slide film all the time, but it is now getting ridiculously expensive to develop and hard to get hold of.

I wanted to use all my old Pentax lenses so the K200d seemed a natural progression. I bought one from Amazon with the 18-55 lens autofocus lens.

I am so pleased with this camera!! I have read some negative comments regarding size etc, but to be honest, I love the solid well engineered feel of it and since I bought it I have looked at a Canon and a Nikon and thought the build quality was inferior.

If you want a DSLR It would be hard to be disappointed with the K200D. I have tried my old standard 50mm 1.7 lens and a Tamron zoom with Carl Zeiss lens and got terrific pictures immediately and being an ME Super user I didn't even miss the autofocus

The built in flash is good enough for short range stuff and I have taken some good flash fill daylight shots with it, but I will now be buying a Pentax flash and I expect I will be happy with this camera for many years

I love it...get one.

Have been experimenting with the camera since getting it back in early June. I did LOTS of research, wanting to get the most for my $$ in the "prosumer" range. Sure, it would be great to spend mucho $$ on a Nikon D300 but I have to put gas in the car too.

I would say that the positive reviews others have posted are accurate. The camera quality is excellent - its hard to put into words what it feels like, but it does feel more solid and well put together than others. The kit lens is surprisingly good as well. Very sharp and quick. I looked at others in this price range and while the Sony A300 had a cool LiveView feature, it felt "plasticky" and the reviews for the kit lens were usually horrible. After going to a Circuit City and playing with the Sony for awhile, I had doubts as to its potential longevity. The Canon's, Nikon's and Olympus' in this genre all cost more and were missing one or more key features.

Definitely put this camera/lens combo on your short list. Great build quality, nice lens for a great package price, plenty of accessories, compatibility with a ton of older lenses, wireless flash sync, shake reduction in body, weather resistant. Done! Now I'm thinking about a nice complimentary lens to go with the kit. 55-300 is looking nice...

I own a Pentax 35mm SLR and I invested in some great lenses for that camera. I wanted to move to a digital SLR and salvage my investment in K mount lenses.

I researched Pentax cameras that would give me this option, and chose the Pentax K200D.

I have found that the K200D is everything I wanted in a digital SLR. I would recommend it to anyone entering the digital SLR world.

I recently upgraded from the Pentax *ist DS (DSLR) to the Pentax K200D and am VERY happy that I did. I was never unhappy with the DS - it's still a more capable camera than I am a photographer - but I felt I *needed* to upgrade. The main reason for the upgrade was Pentax's in-body shake-reduction. I'm simply not as physically stable as I was and the shake reduction is everything I hoped it would be!! Extremely helpful to us unstable folks!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shutter is a lot quieter - makes a difference photographing wildlife. The dust reduction feature is nice as is the additional megapixals. All is all, a VERY good upgrade for me. Well built, dust and water sealed, and backed by Pentax! Nice.

I'm new to dSLR photography, moving up from a terrific point & shoot (Canon A620). I've only shot around 500 images so far--still have a lot to learn about how to get the best results--but already I've gotten some great pics from it. A few pros and cons of the camera from what I've seen so far:

Pro:

-Good kit lens, sharp.

-Good in body image stabilization (I've taken some wide angle shots hand held at 1/10th second with no trouble!)

-Built like a tank! This thing feels like a very solid piece of equipment.

-Runs on AA batteries. Huge plus in my opinion. A good set of rechargeables like the Sanyo Eneloops will probably be my next purchase. AA batteries are great because you can find them at virtually any store if you get caught with no juice.

-Logical control layout; easy to quickly change settings.

-Great image quality overall, even at high ISO! It does take some learning to produce the best results, especially if you are not familiar with things like aperture, shutter speeds, exposure compensation, etc. Of course you always have the auto mode to fall back on, but I try to avoid this as much as I can - trial and error with the other settings seems to be teaching me a lot more about the camera and photography in general.

Con:

-Automatic white balance is rather poor when shooting indoors. This seems to be true of other SLRs that I have used too. The different settings (fluorescent, tungsten, etc.) can help here, but indoor lighting can still be tricky, especially when light is coming from two different types of bulb at the same time. My advice is to take a few shot at different white balance settings and see what looks the best to you. Also, a gray card is very useful for setting manual white balance, which in my experience has been the most accurate and pleasing to look at.

-No backlight for the top LCD screen. A minor annoyance.

But at least this camera has a top LCD, as the entry level Canons and Nikons and others do not.

-No live view. Not really an issue for me at all, though I could see why others would not like this especially if they are used to point and shoots.

I know there are many more things that can be said about the camera but these are just a few which I have noticed so far. All in all I think I made a great choice buying this Pentax. It takes wonderful pictures and is really a joy to use.

I tried quite a few cameras to upgrade from my 2003 Fuji, and in fact bought -and returned!- a new Fuji, before this. This Pentax K200D camera does an amazing number of things well. Settings are easy to use, and it does very, very well just as a point-and-shoot on "automatic" setting. The pictures are extremely nice in colors and detail.

I am by no means a professional - I am still re-learning what a lot of those settings mean. The camera does not overwhelm you with a zillion things, but does give you choices. OR there are a lot of basic Scene modes, that do seem to work decently well, if you don't want to try to do the white balance, etc, on your own. For an amateur like myself, who has to bend my brain to try to remember what those things are at all, it is a great way to pick it up without being overwhelmed with a professional camera. And there have been times when I don't have time to try out these things, so I just put it on automatic and let it figure it out as I switch from bright sunshine, inside a darker space, etc.

The megabytes mean there is a lot of info in each picture - using Photoshop to crop or play with the picture results in some spectacular shots when I need it. Recently, I had to take pictures under a large picnic pavilion, without using a flash but with all the bright sunshine outside. The camera did well, and Photoshop was easily able to get me the detail I needed on the inside shots, balancing out the very bright background. Not every camera has pictures that have enough detail to pull a good shot out of those details. The same thing happened at a school assemble - good shots under difficult conditions.

The only problem pictures I have had are NOT the camera's fault - people moving when I do not have it in sports mode. Putting it in sports mode does indeed help if things are going to move around on you.

I am satisfied with the shutter lag - it's pretty fast - and the quality of the camera.

I am particularly happy that my 20 year old Pentax lense works with this. It was the reason I bought the camera, in the end - the ability to use the old lenses from my old Pentax film camera, and even the additional flash (also ancient). Pentax has made it so you can use them, and even makes an adapter for the really old lenses. This makes upgrading to other lenses so much easier, as there are a lot of older lenses around. And I feel better about not just throwing out perfectly good stuff.