urje
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Regular Member
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Posts: 112
K-m vs. DS - direct comparison!
Dec 29, 2008
Since I got a DS mostly because it was small and had everything I wanted back then, I was pretty excited to hear about the new K-m in all its smallness. I got even more excited when a roommate pulled the trigger and got one, so I could easily compare. I haven't seen any threads in which these two are compared directly, but if there are, feel free to point out the uselessness of this thread
Anyway, some shots:



I know these aren't the best, but you at least get a feel of how similar they are...
Handling
First thing that came to mind was that the K-m is significantly lighter than the DS. This might be partly due to the lithium batteries in it in contrast to the Ni-MH ones in my DS, but that's surely not all there is to it. The grip is different, smaller. The DS grip is more beefy, but the K-m has this grip for the middle finger which feels like I could get used to it. Buttons feel fine, although i think i prefer to have the row of four on the left side of the screen. Not a dealbreaker, though.
The menus and buttons do feel a lot quicker on the K-m. This is where some 4 years of faster electronics can be felt.
Viewfinder
Ok, prism vs. mirror makes a big difference. the viewfinder of the DS fills much more of my view, the image is a lot bigger. Clarity and frame coverage feel rather similar, though. Especially for my MF lenses I think this makes a big difference. I like the larger range of info in the viewfinder of the K-m, but i like the top-LCD of the DS too, so that would be a tie
Image quality
Unfortunately, Rawtherapee seems to be unable to open K-m .PEFs, so I can't make a real comparison yet. I only made some ISO1600 test shots, and at first sight, they seem not so different from each other. I did notice a blown-out section of the DS image which was not blown out on the K-m with the same settings. This could mean a larger dynamic range for the K-m, but it could also be a slightly lower sensitivity or a slightly different angle or so. Anyway, I hope to compare RAW-files soon...
Overall
The two main specs for which i would like to upgrade from my DS are SR and high ISO performance. Higher dynamic range would be nice too. The main thing I do not want to downgrade would be the viewfinder. It turns out the K-m isn't for me at the moment. Low budget and small pockets keep me away from K20, so it seems I'll keep on using the DS for another while