Pentax K10D: A camera I did not expect to love but now can’t put down
When it comes to these 20-year-old cameras, I think you usually don’t buy them because you expect them to really improve your photography in a technical way or be the best photography tool there is. I bought mine at the end of last year just to have a camera that I could take out in any weather during the upcoming winter and not worry about it being ruined by rain or snow—something tough, relatively cheap, and maybe quirky so that I wouldn’t need to baby it and could maybe experiment a bit.
Pentax cameras, in general, are famous for their weather sealing, and using the most cliché phrase there is—this Pentax K10D is built like a tank. Just note that, as usual, not all lenses are weather-sealed, so I had to buy a weather-resistant version of the kit lens (DA-L 18-55 AL WR) for an extra $40. Now, after several months with this camera, using it in many different conditions, if you ask me, “How exactly weather-resistant is it?” my answer would be YES.
But now, about 1,000 photos later, it is becoming much more than just a bad-weather camera for me, and I dare even say it is one of my favorite cameras, especially in this category of vintage cameras under $100. And this is despite the fact that I struggled with it a lot at the beginning. Also, it really makes me want to try more Pentax DSLRs, which I might do in the near future.
CCD Sensor - that look
Released in 2006, the Pentax K10D has a 10MP CCD APS-C size sensor. Translating this for non-camera nerds out there—it has the same sensor size as most modern mirrorless cameras. For instance, this is the standard for most modern Fuji cameras. The only major difference is that the Pentax K10D uses CCD technology instead of modern CMOS. Many people associate CCD with a vintage look and colors, and this sensor is very nice and somewhat film-like. However, some reviewers argue that this vintage look has more to do with the color science that companies adopted at the time. The early 2000s were still a transition period from film photography, so many digital camera manufacturers tweaked color rendering to somewhat resemble film.
It took me some time to find JPEG settings that I enjoy—the camera really leans into magenta by default, so I needed to tweak the white balance compensation. Luckily, the camera allows you to do that, and also lets you adjust things like contrast, sharpness, and saturation, which again opens up some room for experimentation and custom recipes. Also, the pictures turned out really dark on neutral exposure compensation, so I had to set it to +1 to get somewhat decent results.
I really like the RAW files from this camera, though. So recently, I have been primarily shooting in RAW and making minimal adjustments with a preset I created for pictures from this camera. The whole process is actually very fast and consistent. And I’m still surprised by how much detail and contrast you can get from this old camera—I’ve definitely fallen in love with Pentax colors. You really don’t need a lot of adjustments to make pictures from the K10D look great.
K-Mount – a portal to the past and lots of cool lenses
Another thing I really love is that Pentax has had the same lens mount for the last 50 (F I F T Y) years—since 1975. Firstly, this is incredible and Pentax deserves a lot of credit for that (why don’t more people talk about it?). Secondly, it means you have a very large selection of lenses. And thirdly, you can use all vintage Pentax lenses and third-party lenses with a K mount on this K10D without any adapter. And look how nice and compact it looks with a 50mm f/2 Pentax lens!
Pentax K10D with the vintage SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/2 lens
The only issue is that you get the usual 1.5x crop factor on the APS-C sensor, so this 50mm actually becomes 75mm, but I think this is acceptable. I do want to get my hands on the full-frame Pentax K1 now though and try vintage lenses on it, but probably not in the near future.
But in general, using a vintage lens on this Pentax K10D makes the whole experience feel even more analog, and the pictures turn out to be really special.
Size and feel
I also ended up really liking the size and feel of this camera. When I pick up this Pentax after spending a lot of time with digicams or smaller mirrorless cameras, my hand immediately relaxes because of how comfortable these old DSLRs are to hold. It is a bit heavy, but not to the extent that it makes you tired or anything. (it’s 793g) You also get a lot of buttons and dials, all of which are just in the right places. And because it is a DSLR, you get that satisfying mirror slap sound and physical feedback when you take a shot—I feel like it makes me addicted to taking pictures.
The only struggle - the autofocus
At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I struggled a lot with this camera when I first got it, and the main issue was actually autofocus. My standards for autofocus speed are actually quite low, I would say, and I almost never use any intelligent features on modern cameras, like subject detection—except when I record video. But my Pentax K10D was missing almost every shot by far, even though the picture seemed in focus in the viewfinder.
After some research, I diagnosed my particular camera with a back-focusing issue, which luckily was fixable, but I had to disassemble it a bit and turn some screws inside the camera to adjust the focusing mechanism back to normal. It was basically just a trial-and-error process. There’s an instructional video somewhere on the internet (I’ll link it here just in case). Other Pentax DSLRs actually have a software solution for this issue.
But after the adjustments, it works okay—when it does. The autofocus is still slow, and you cannot rely on it to be precise on the first try, but you learn to work with it, even if it means taking multiple shots sometimes.
Conclusion
In general, I give this Pentax K10D a big like and will definitely continue to shoot with it. An APS-C size CCD sensor with great colors and contrast, in a comfortable body that you can use in any weather or with vintage lenses without an adapter, makes for a great recipe in my opinion. I’m starting to suspect that this won’t be my last Pentax DSLR either, but for now, thanks for reading, and see you next time!
