The Pentax K10D was my faithful companion since 2007 and I was very satisfied with this DSLR. But six years is a long time and I decided to retire my good old K10D.

My choice was the Pentax K-5 II, which was announced by Pentax Ricoh end of 2012. Like the K10D the K-5II is weather sealed to be water resistant and dust proof as well as capable of operation in temperatures down to -10°C (14°F). The camera comes with a 16.3 megapixels CMOS sensor and a newly developed SAFOX X AF sensor that delivers the broadest autofocusing EV range (-3 EV to +18 EV) in its class.

Shutter speed can range from 30 seconds to 1/8000 of a second and the continuous shooting rate is up to 7fps with a buffer capacity in practice for approximately 27 JPEGs and 23 RAW images.

The sensitivity range from 80 to 51200 ISO. At 3200 ISO the K-5II starts to produce noise, for small prints, e-mail sharing etc you could use 12800 and 25600 ISO. For large prints I would recommend max 1600 to 3200 ISO. 51200 is the setting of last resort.

The K-5II selling price is hundreds or thousands of euros less than the high-end models from Canon, Nikon and Sony and offers a lot of top end features. I am really impressed by this model and I recommend it to every passionate, budget-conscious photographer.

Apple iPhone 4 | 1/460 @ f/2,8 | ISO 80

Apple iPhone 4 | 1/500 @ f/2,8 | ISO 80

Apple iPhone 4 | 1/690 @ f/2,8 | ISO 80

Apple iPhone 4 | 1/1150 @ f/2,8 | ISO 80