Pentax K110D > Reviews > Good first digital SLR on a budget

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Good
Range & Quality of Features	Average
Ease of Use	Easy
Overall Look & Design	Good
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Price, solid construction, good bundeled lens, detailed pictures
Disadvantages:	Automatic and manual light meter not up to standard, no image stabalisation

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Pentax K110D is a good introduction to the world of digital SLRs. If you already own a 35mm Pentax camera you can use your old lenses and makes it an even better choice. I purchased a kit with a very versatile Tamron 28-200mm lens for around $550 / £225 a year ago. In the time I have owned it the camera has produced very good results. Most of the time I just throw it in my bag without any extra case and the body hasn't even gathered scratches. The construction feels very solid, and I can imagine it would take a drop without any problems. I have had a problem with the auto-focus/ manual focus switch and the camera is being fixed under the 1 year warranty. I have been quite impressed with the service when I called the UK warranty center.
The camera supports SDHC (SD Cards with capacity above 2gb). It is one of the first Digital SLRs to support this standard.
Functionally the camera performs exactly as one would expect. Controls are easy and intuitive. I purchased the K110d over the K100d for because I thought the image stabilization was not worth the extra £100/ $200. I think when it comes time to upgrade I would be likely to buy a camera with stabilization. I am used to taking low light hand held pictures, but I think the advances made in this field would really ease the process and produce superior results. This camera is also a bit behind the times now as it doesn't have live preview, which is something that people who want to ease the step up to a digital SLR might miss. This means you have to look through the viewfinder to take pictures, whereas the newest Digital SLRs often allow you to view them through the preview screen.
Specs wise the camera has a 6.1MP CCD with a large 23.5mm x 15.7mm CCD area which allows for more detail. It is capable of shooting at a shutter speed of up to 3200. When new this high shutter speed was a best in class feature, and still compares very favorably with other DSLRs. It runs of AA batteries which can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage. Personally I like AAs because they are available world wide, many people already have invested in NIMH AAs, a proprietary charger and expensive battery packs are not needed, and it reduces the build cost so features can be used elsewhere. The LCD is 2.5" and is sharp, bright, and easy enough to see in sunlight. Lastly it has a micro USB connector that supports USB 2.0 speeds.
My biggest complaint with the camera is that in manual mode there is no light meter information. An external light meter or guess work is all there is. I'm not sure if this is common in all digital SLRs or budget cameras, but I really miss this function as I often like to manually set shutter speed. I find the automatic light meter mode on this camera can often produce quite dark results or occasionally they are washed out which requires more post editing than I would like. Even with these problems, the camera has been well worth the purchase price and the resolution/ detail is much better than hand held 5MP cameras. I even managed to sell one of the photos I took with the camera which helped to offset the price. The results are easily of publishable quality.