Baxter Bad
Well-known member
Arrived from Amazon after lunch. While the battery charges, I put in an SD card, mounted my 21mm Ltd, and have been turning it around in my hands getting familiar with it. Some thoughts on the body itself:
Build quality is tight and solid, neither heavy duty nor cheap. All the buttons depress with a definitive pressure click, the dials have clear detentes and the on/off switch snaps firmly between positions. Pretty happy about this, I can't stand vague controls and hard-to-activate buttons (like the Menu button on the Fuji X100).
Without the battery in yet, the camera is left-heavy and you can feel how inadequate the grip is. Your fingers want at least another 1/4 inch.
The biggest design flaw I see right now is the rubber cover. As I feared, once I opened it I couldn't get it back in place. After five minutes of opening and closing, I worked out the best technique, which is to seat it flat a little bit out from the body, then slide it closed. This is truly lousy. An Eye-Fi card is the only one way I see around this problem. I'm assuming the transfer rate is much slower than with a cord or card reader, but I'll probably get one rather face this fiddly mess on a regular basis. The little cover over the mic input isn't such a hassle.
Battery door cover is excellent, spring-loaded and no vagueness there. You'd be surprised how many battery doors really suck (cough, Nikon D5100).
The 'clunking' of the SR mechanism we're used to feeling from the DSLRs with the power off, is almost non-existent. You feel it shift just a bit (there's much less play) and you barely hear it. The flash doesn't pop up without power, so no feedback on that.
Overall, the controversy about the appearance seems overrated. You look at it sitting there on your desk for half an hour, it becomes just another camera, at least in black with a regular Ltd prime mounted (originally I had ordered yellow, then chickened out). I skipped on the XS lens, I already have a 40mm.
If there's anything surprising to report about using it, I'll follow up, though I'm guessing over the next week we'll see enough reviews rolling in that most questions will be answered. Right now I'm mainly curious about the LCD visibility in sunlight.
Build quality is tight and solid, neither heavy duty nor cheap. All the buttons depress with a definitive pressure click, the dials have clear detentes and the on/off switch snaps firmly between positions. Pretty happy about this, I can't stand vague controls and hard-to-activate buttons (like the Menu button on the Fuji X100).
Without the battery in yet, the camera is left-heavy and you can feel how inadequate the grip is. Your fingers want at least another 1/4 inch.
The biggest design flaw I see right now is the rubber cover. As I feared, once I opened it I couldn't get it back in place. After five minutes of opening and closing, I worked out the best technique, which is to seat it flat a little bit out from the body, then slide it closed. This is truly lousy. An Eye-Fi card is the only one way I see around this problem. I'm assuming the transfer rate is much slower than with a cord or card reader, but I'll probably get one rather face this fiddly mess on a regular basis. The little cover over the mic input isn't such a hassle.
Battery door cover is excellent, spring-loaded and no vagueness there. You'd be surprised how many battery doors really suck (cough, Nikon D5100).
The 'clunking' of the SR mechanism we're used to feeling from the DSLRs with the power off, is almost non-existent. You feel it shift just a bit (there's much less play) and you barely hear it. The flash doesn't pop up without power, so no feedback on that.
Overall, the controversy about the appearance seems overrated. You look at it sitting there on your desk for half an hour, it becomes just another camera, at least in black with a regular Ltd prime mounted (originally I had ordered yellow, then chickened out). I skipped on the XS lens, I already have a 40mm.
If there's anything surprising to report about using it, I'll follow up, though I'm guessing over the next week we'll see enough reviews rolling in that most questions will be answered. Right now I'm mainly curious about the LCD visibility in sunlight.
I own a Sigma DP2 and it does struggle a lot, even with the latest, --AF-improved-- firmware, to AF on moving subjects fast enough in order to get the shot. I know K-r's LV AF is faster than the DP2's but I can't tell from the available AF-related videos how K-01 compares to K-r's in terms of LV AF speed.
