Digital Trends

Pentax is the Rodney Dangerfield of camera companies—they just don’t get any respect. The fact they operate on a shoestring budget, have recently been taken over by lens-maker Hoya and have as much clout with your local mega-retailer as I do may have something to do with it. Many photographers made their bones with Pentax K series cameras (back in the film days) so there’s a bit of nostalgia for the brand. Most new shooters don’t know Pentax from Pampers. This is too bad because the company makes decent D-SLRs—forget their point-and-shoots since they’re light years behind Canon and Sony. With this sad tale on the counter, DigitalTrends was happy to receive Pentax’s new entry-level D-SLR, the 10.2-megapixel K200D which costs $799 USD with the basic 3x 18-55mm lens--about the going price for an introductory 2008 D-SLR. Yes you can get the older 8MP Canon Rebel XTi and 6MP Nikon D40 for less but why bother when you can a new one with higher resolution? And you know you won’t pay $799 USD—more like $725-- for this kit since Pentax doesn’t have the cachet of the new 12MP Canon XSi, 10MP Nikon D60 or recently reviewed Sony DSLR-A350 . Let’s see if this one gets a little respect or not…