Pentax K2000

Buttons & Dials

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.

Custom Image Settings

Pentax offers six ‘Image Finishing Tone’ styles, called Custom Image settings, which work more or less like choosing a particular type of film back in the old days. Each of the settings can be tweaked in various ways, as detailed below. There is no ‘neutral’ mode (you have to choose a virtual film stock, right?), but we found that Natural produced the most accurate color reproduction. That isn’t the default mode, though: that’s set to Bright.

Each of the Custom Image choices above can be further adjusted using the following parameters: Saturation, Hue / Toning, Contrast, Sharpness, and Filter Effects. When adjusting the settings, the camera displays the last photo taken and interactively demonstrates how the settings changes would affect the image. A color space diagram is also shown and updated to illustrate setting change effects.

Filter Effects

Pentax wants you to have some fun with your K2000, so they’ve provided six digital filters for your amusement, each with a variety of customization options, as shown below.

These same six effects, though, along with several more, can also be applied to any photos you’ve shot, using the digital filter option in playback mode. Given that fact, we’d vote to shoot without the goofy touches, save the original image, then fiddle with it later if you like, knowing you’ll always have an unedited version to fall back on.

Picture Effect Samples
Custom Image Settings - Bright Custom Image Settings - Natural Custom Image Settings - Portrait Custom Image Settings - Landscape Custom Image Settings - Vibrant Custom Image Settings - Monochrome Filter Effects - Toy Camera Filter Effects - High Contrast Filter Effects - Soft Filter Effects - Star Burst Filter Effects - Retro Filter Effects - Extract Color More...

In-Camera Editing

There’s a generous assortment of filters to fiddle with, including six that are also available as filter effects while shooting. Up to 20 filters can be applied to a single image, and either JPEG or RAW files can be altered.

You can also create your own custom filter effect if you like. Adjustable parameters include Color Intensity (Off, +1, +2, +3); Color (Red, Magenta, Cyan, Blue, Green, Yellow); High Contrast (Off, +1, +2, +3), Soft Focus (Off, +1, +2, +3), Outline Highlight (-3 to +3), Tone Break (Off, Red, Green, Blue); Shading Level (-3 to +3); and Shading Type (6 types).

The Index Print capability is surprisingly robust. You can choose from five different layouts, ranging from a standard rectangular grid to some artsy collages. Set the background to white or black, choose from 12, 24 or 36 images, and select images to include either one at at time or by the folder-full. The resulting compilation can be saved as a new file as is, or reshuffled if you want to try a different image layout. The resulting images are saved as 6-megapixel files, which is plenty to make a reasonable-size print.

JPEG images can be resized to 10MP, 6MP, 2MP or 640×480 resolution, at any of the three available compression settings (you can’t choose a size larger than the one you shot at, of course). There’s a simple cropping utility, with seven image size options, the choice of horizontal or vertical orientation, and the ability to move the cropping rectangle around the image.

RAW files can be processed in-camera by choosing RAW Development in the playback menu. Many of the image parameters available as JPEG file settings can be applied to the RAW image file, including resolution and quality settings, custom image setting, white balance, ISO, high ISO noise reduction, color space and shadow compensation.

Menu

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 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.

Instruction Manual

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. Still, 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.

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.