Pentax K2000

	Design & Handling Summary
• Camera is very compact but still feels substantial • Grip ideal for smaller hands, but comfortable for larger hands too • Mode dial moves a bit too easily, can be shifted accidentally • Few buttons, relying instead on well designed control panel on LCD • Menu system sometimes unclear on which category will contain a particular setting • Manuals well designed and written (including a software manual) • Built-in help system useful, but lacks guidance for menu settings
	Controls	Page 11 of 18	Speed & Timing

Handling (7.00)

The Pentax K2000 is a small but substantial handful. At 18.5 oz. (524g) without a lens, it doesn't have the featherweight feel of the Canon Rebel XS or XSi, which is fine with us: a little extra heft helps the camera set well in your hand, yet it's still nearly half a pound lighter than the Canon 50D. The body measures 4.8 x 2.7 x 3.6 inches (122 x 67 x 91mm).

As for maneuverability, the camera would be a more comfortable fit for someone with smaller mitts than this reviewer. The grip is small, not very deep and relatively narrow. This leaves plenty of room for your fingers between the grip and the lens, but it can also create an uncomfortable gap between your palm and the camera body while shooting, which makes balance more difficult. It isn't a dealbreaker, but it's not ideal either.

On the plus side, the shutter is nicely positioned on an angled platform up front,where it falls naturally under your index finger. The smooth plastic thumb rest on the back could use some texture, but it's substantial enough and in the right spot to counterbalance the camera weight effectively.

Working with the controls is comfortable for the most part, though there is some room for improvement. It's a little too easy to accidentally turn the mode dial; we found ourselves shooting in Sensitivity Value mode instead of Shutter-Priority mode more than once. The buttons could also use a bit more click and travel when depressed, and we would have given the Menu button the top position in the four-button Playback/Info/Menu/Erase line-up, to make it accessible more quickly while shooting. The control dial is in a nice spot, next to your thumb but far enough away to avoid accidental adjustments.

Overall, we found shooting with the K2000 comfortable, even with big hands, and would particularly recommend it to those with daintier digits.

Our lovely model has relatively petite hands and found the Pentax very easy to manage.

Controls (8.25)

The Pentax K2000 doesn't offer up a huge array of buttons, relying instead on the LCD menu system for fast access to many shooting settings. We found the layout generally practical, though the buttons aren't raised very far from the camera body, which was an issue when trying to navigate the camera back by feel alone.

Back Controls
	Flash Press to pop up the built-in flash. The camera can automatically raise the flash when shooting in Auto Pict and appropriate scene modes.
	e-dial What anyone else would call a control wheel. Adjusts setting while shooting, controls on-screen image enlargement during playback.
	Playback Switches to playback mode. A second press, or a touch of the shutter button, returns to shooting mode.
	INFO Turns the LCD info display on and off while shooting, toggles information displayed during playback.
	MENU Brings up the on-screen menu system while shooting, backs out of submenus while navigating the menu system.
	Delete Erases individual images during playback or image review.
	Drive Mode Accesses drive mode and self-timer options. Part of four-way controller navigation cluster.
	ISO Accesses ISO settings. Part of four-way controller navigation cluster.
	Flash Accesses flash mode controls. Part of four-way controller naivgation cluster.
	WB Accesses white balance settings. Part of four-way controller navigation cluster.
	OK Confirms menu selections. During shooting, turns the LCD information display into a navigable control panel for quickly changing settings.
	AF Autofocus lock. Can also be set to function as autoexposure lock

Top Controls
	Mode dial The mode dial includes the key exposure modes plus direct access to five scene modes, the full scene mode menu (SCN) and a position to turn off the flash.
	AV +/- Toggles e-dial control wheel to adjust aperture value when shooting in manual exposure mode. Accesses exposure compensation settings in other shooting modes. Also used in the menu system to capture a preview image to demonstrate the effect of certain settings changes.
	Help By default, accesses the built-in on-screen help system. can also be customized to access digital preview, custom image, digital fillter and RAW settings.
	Power Sliding switch around shutter turns camera on and off.

Menu (6.00)

As we're seeing with more and more SLRs today, the Pentax K2000 offers both the traditional hierarchical menus system you reach by pressing the MENU button, which covers all the available settings, and a quick menu system for use while shooting, which makes the rear LCD screen an interactive control console providing fast access to the most commonly changed image settings.

The standard information display turns into the control panel with a press of the OK button. Once its activated, you navigate from section to section using the four-way controller. When a setting is highlighted, you can move through available options sequentially by turning the e-dial, or bring up a menu with all choices for that setting by pressing OK. The display is logically arranged, easy to read and reasonably simple to use, though the small, barely raised buttons on the four-way controller made it difficult to use effectively when shooting in dark conditions.

The main menu system menu text can be set to either standard or large type, but that's less useful than it sounds. The standing text doesn't change at all when you choose large type. Instead, the text under the cursor bar is magnified, in a fairly unattractive way. As for navigation, the good news is that the individual menu screens show all the available options at once, so there are no hidden choices you have to scroll down to find. This does mean that several menu sections have multiple screens, so finding the option you need can take some time. And sometimes, it's not intuitively clear which menu a setting will fall under. For example, we'd expect to turn noise reduction on and off in the Shooting menu, or maybe Setup, but those settings are actually found in the Custom menu. Similarly, we would expect to determine what happens when you press the programmable Help button in the Setup menu; it's found under Shooting.

Menus
	Overview The menu system is divided into four sections: Shooting, Playback, Setup and Custom. Moving between the horizontally arrayed sections is easiest by turning the e-dial. The four-way controller can be used for this purpose if the cursor is at the top of a list, but if you're anywhere else the four-way will take you deeper into menu choices. No matter where your cursor is currently, the e-dial will always move you from menu screen to menu screen.
	Shooting Menu This three-screen menu provides access to the image style and filter options, file size and format, color space selection, metering modes, autofocus point selection, instant review duration, help button function, and shake reduction setting. A nice carry-over from Pentax compact cameras is the Memory function, which lets you decide individually which of 10 functions will have their settings retained when you turn the camera off and on.
	Playback Menu The Playback menu includes options for image review and image editing. You can access a rudimentary slideshow, resize, crop, or apply a digital filter to an image, process RAW files, use a side-by-side view of two photos for comparison purposes, and set the number of thumbnails to be displayed in thumbnail playback view. The index page creation tool is also here, along with the option to delete all images on your memory card.
	Setup Menu All the basic language, date and folder naming and video output options you'll probably set once and never revisit are grouped here, along with the option to beep or not to beep and brightness and color adjustments for the LCD screen. Switching the USB port from PC connection to PictBridge direct printing is accomplished in this menu, along with auto power off time setting. You can manually select the type of battery you're using here (it affects the on-screen power gauge accuracy), though we found the auto settting was fine. Dust removal and sensor cleaning options plus memory card formatting round out the Setup Menu.
	Custom Menu While newbies will fear to tread here, we were impressed with the in-depth customization options provided on this inexpensive camera. from setting increments for EV and ISO adjustment to noise reduction and dynamic range expansion to flash operation. You can even set the green power light behind the shutter button to standard or weak illumination, or turn it off altogether.

Manual & Learning (7.25)

The Pentax K2000 comes with a generous selection of documentation, including a quick-start guide, a 280-page Operating Manual, and a separate 108-page manual for the two software programs provided with the camera. We applaud Pentax for providing a printed software manual instead of following industry standard operating procedure and expecting us to suss out how to use the programs via a tough-to-navigate disk-based help system.

The Operating Manual is nicely presented, with enough white space to minimize intimidation and a good combination of text, charts and illustrations to organize and clarify the material. The order in which material is presented is a bit odd, for those who pick up the manual and expect to thumb through it and learn how to use their new camera. Detailed explanations of histograms and all the sections of the control panel come before the Getting Started section, where you learn how to attach the strap, attach the lens and grapple with the initial settings required the first time you turn the camera on. Delivering all the information on a given topic the first time it appears means minutia about one area -- flash photography, for example -- appears before the basics in another. Stll, the writing is clear and comprehensible, and the index was prepared with some care, a noteworthy exception to an unfortunate industry practice. Overall, we think Pentax did a nice job here.

Pentax K2000 Manual

The onboard help system, with its own clearly labeled question-mark button, is an interesting approach to teaching newcomers how to use an SLR. Pressing the button once brings up an explanation of the shooting mode you're currently using. A second press presents a suggestion to "Press the button which you would like to know." Follow the prompt and you get a brief explanation of the selected button's function. The information provided is fairly rudimentary, and the system would have been more practical if you could have continued to press buttons and have information displayed one after the other -- instead, you have to hit the question-mark button to escape from the information display, then go through the double-tap procedure again to select another button. Also, the help system doesn't work within the menu system, the very area where a little guidance would be most appreciated. Still, more help is better than less, and when you lose interest in this particular training-wheel function, the button can be assigned to provide direct access to the digital preview function, custom image settings, digital filter selection or RAW shooting.

 
The help system offers on-screen guidance
about basic camera capabilities..

Controls	Page 11 of 18		Speed & Timing
Pentax K2000 Digital Camera Review Navigation
Intro	Product Tour	Color	Noise
Resolution	White Balance	Sample Photos	Playback
Hardware	Controls	Design & Handling	Speed & Timing
Nikon D90 Comparison	Canon 50D Comparison	Canon Rebel XS Comp	Olympus E30 Comparison
Conclusion	Specs & Ratings