Body Elements
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The K-01 is a bit of a handful - even with the tiny 40 mm pancake lens attached. |
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Here you can see the K-01 without a lens attached. If you haven't been following along, that's a K-mount in the picture, and it supports virtually every Pentax lens ever made. As always, there's a 1.5X crop factor to keep in mind, so that 40 mm pancake lens is equivalent to 60 mm. Speaking of the sensor, that's a 16.3 Megapixel APS-C sized CMOS sensor hiding behind the shutter curtains. |
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Straight above the word 'Pentax' is the K-01's pop-up flash, which is released electronically. This flash is the most powerful one available on an ILC, with a guide number of 12 meters at ISO 100. |
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At the center of the photo you can see the flash (closed here) and the hot shoe. The hot shoe will work best with Pentax's own flash, as they'll sync with its metering system, which allows for things like high speed flash sync. If you're using a third party flash, you'll probably have to set the exposure manually, and you're limited to an x-sync speed of 1/180 sec. Unlike Pentax's other cameras, the K-01 does not support wireless flash control. |
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The two pinholes that sit above the lens mount make up the K-01's stereo microphone. |
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You can switch between manual and automatic focus modes using this chunky switch on the K-01's body, next to the lens throat. |
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There are just a few things to see on this side of the K-01. The first is the speaker (two small holes), which sits above the AF/MF switch, which does just as it sounds. I'll have a bit more on the camera's manual focus features after the tour. |
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The red-colored thing at the base of the hand gripis the combination IR receiver (for the optional remote control) and self-timer lamp. |
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Moving to the upper-right, you can see the K-01's AF-assist lamp, which puts out a blinding green light to help with low light focusing. |
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On the bottom of the camera you'll find a metal tripod mount, in-line with the lens. |
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And on the base of the K-01 you'll find the battery compartment. The plastic door over the battery compartment is of decent quality. |
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At first glance, it looks like there's nothing on the right-hand side of the K-01. However, if you peel back the rubber piece of the left side, you'll find this: It's the I/O ports! They include the memory card slot (which has a cover of its own), the USB + A/V out port, and mini-HDMI.
The rubber cover that protects these ports leaves much to be desired. As you can see, it has just two small straps that attach it to the camera, and I don't know how long those will last. It's also surprisingly difficult to close properly. |
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Under the small rubber cover at the bottom of the photo is a external microphone input. |
