Skip to main content

My thoughts on the Pentax Q

If you haven’t noticed, Pentax will be joining the small sized mirror-less interchangeable lens camera club. There is a lot of information out for the camera excluding sample photos.

Here are a few images borrowed from Pentax USA and the USA president Ned’s blog:




Now I’ll give some opinion on what I see as the positives and negatives of this new camera and lens system…

First off, I’ll go over the negatives to get them out of the way:
– As everyone and their brother on the Internet has pointed out, it has a small sized sensor. I’m going to just say wait and see what the quality will be like once full reviews are available. The physical laws of nature can be a harsh mistress though.
– The Q is stuck between a rock and hard place considering economics. Digicams and entry level SLRs are cheap. I’m not sure there is much room to fit the Q in due to the small sensor at $800 with a prime lens. I think $800 is well into SLR and mirrorless-large-sensor territory.
– An optical viewfinder is only possible as an expensive add-on.
– No weather resistance. Why Pentax? Maybe it was because of that crazy integrated pop-up flash making the camera almost impossible to seal. Using magnesium alloy is a great idea, but don’t go half way with build quality K-7 / K-5 users expect.
– Not really a negative, but I would get one of these cameras just to use it with a full sized add-on flash unit. A comical size difference there. I think it is time for pentax to release something small like Nikon’s SB-400.
– That goofy integrated flash setup. I’m sure it helps the photo results, but it’s like the engineers just had a marathon of transformers videos before their design session.
– Colors over the system feel a bit miss-matched, but I do understand their point. They wanted people to realize the lenses are interchangeable, so they have the lenses in silver and the bodies in black/white.

The transformer integrated flash:


Good things about the camera I see:
– It’s small… really small. Being small has many benefits. From fitting in a large pocket to being very un-intimidating to human subjects.
– It has a quality interchangeable lens system.
– The small sensor allows for truly small lenses. A lot of people don’t seem to realize this. Why buy a Sony NEX if the lenses are just a big as 35mm ones? The same goes for micro 4/3rds lenses. So I think the small sensor in this case is a positive.
– It has true shake reduction. A very good feature, for both stills and video.
– The video capabilities look really strong. They finally decided to use MP4 (AVC h.264) encoding.
– Build quality looks almost top notch. Minus my negative about no weather resistance. The dials looks good and the body is of course magnesium alloy that only high-end cameras have.
– The overall design of the camera and lenses looks good. I especially like the black camera body’s look.
– The camera will probably be fast and responsive. DNG RAW is available and the camera can shoot at 5 fps.
– The camera name/system is logical and easy to say. As other articles mentioned, the “Q” naming means Queen and the 35mm lens mount “K” is for King (look around for old k-mount advertisements that show a king playing card with the camera). It makes sense for them to use Q and I think it was a good decision. Looks like they learned their lesson after the *ist models.
– External flash hot-shoe connector and ability to sync at the maximum shutter speed of 1/2000th/second without high speed sync. Only for the two expensive lenses though.

I see value in a system like this. The camera is small yet has advanced features with build quality to match. There are negatives like having a small sensor, but it is up to you to decide if something like this is right for you. As for me, not having an optical viewfinder is a pretty big negative. As such, I would be more drawn to something like the Fuji x100 if I were looking for a smaller mirror-less camera as an alternative to my primary DSLR equipment. I can see some instances where to Q would be perfect though. Using it for video at conventions would be a blast. 

I’d almost want to get one just for the video capabilities and interchangeable lenses such as the fisheye. For every other purpose, I think something like the Pentax Optio WG-1 with its waterproof and shock proof features would better fit my needs in a small camera. It would also fit in a pocket much easier because it has an internal lens design, but I digress… It will be interesting to see how popular the Q becomes.

Popular posts from this blog

Viltrox AF FE 28mm f/4.5 VCM ASPH ED Lens Overview

Viltrox asked me if I wanted to take a look at this unique compact autofocus full-frame prime lens with a focal length of 28mm and a fixed f/4.5 aperture for Sony E-mount cameras. Viltrox agreed to my standard collaboration terms before sending me the lens.    In the video I talk about features, how it works in practice, and show photos I had taken on a photo walk with the Sony a7S as well as the APS-C a6000. Viltrox is starting this off as an Indiegogo campaign. They told me that it will eventually be sold through normal retailers: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/viltrox-af-28mm-f4-5-fe-chips-size-ultra-thin-lens They said it will be $99 USD or 109 Euros with discounts during the crowdfunding period. Check out Indiegogo for details. I am not an affiliate of that website. You can check on the status of availability through my usual affiliates: B&H Photo Video Amazon As an affiliate of these shops, I earn from qualifying purchases!    The front of the lens. K...

First look at the Sigma 18-50mm F/2.8 for Sony E-mount bought from KEH

I've use a Sony Alpha A6000 and the PZ 16–50mm F/3.5–5.6 OSS kit lens with my computer as a webcam for a long time now. It's a lower cost option that has been very consistent outputting 1080p at 30 FPS to a USB based HDMI capture device. The kit lens is generally fine, but it has a few quirks. The biggest issue is that throughout the zoom range the maximum aperture value is not fixed. This introduces technical challenges when I want to show detailed views of product or similar use cases. There are also other considerations I'll talk about later in this article. So I decided to buy the Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 DC DN | C lens in E-mount as a replacement.  Links in this article are a mix of paid and through my affiliates. I earn from each in different ways. One is a flat fee and the others I earn from qualifying purchases. Considering them for your purchasing needs helps make the creation of this information viable!   I made a video unboxing the lens and trying it out with Open ...

Camera Gear Reviews and Marketing Issues Exposed

A great overview by Gerald Undone on his experiences in the field of camera gear related videos! It is an important topic. The more open the better, I’d say. After over 13 years making photography and videography gear videos, I’ve not had a huge amount of success comparatively, but I’ve also never been especially brand safe to begin with for these companies to consider me. 🤣 I think his mentions toward the end of the video are especially important. The unwritten pressure, or worse with companies like Insta360 , shouldn’t be acceptable and should be publicly called out more often. That’s probably the only way things will actually change for the better. I created a video detailing my opinion on the topic further: More of my comments on the video… His YouTube channel. 4:30 I understand that’s what Gerald does, but are there situations where companies are paying for flights and hotel costs of other reviewers with the expectation of a video/article being produced? (EDIT: I’ve seen confirm...