Ricoh turned more than a few heads when it announced the Pentax K-S1 ($649.95, body only). To call the 20-megapixel D-SLR quirky doesn't do it justice. Yes, it's shaped like an SLR, but bold color choices, an angular design, and a slew of disco light buttons leaves you wondering just what the target market for this camera is. The K-S1 may be designed to attract a younger set to D-SLR photography, but omitting a touch screen and in-camera Wi-Fi alienates that crowd. If you want to shoot with a small SLR that will turn heads, give it a look, but most folks in search of an entry-level SLR are better served by our Editors' Choice, the Nikon D5300 ($839.99 at Amazon) . The Nikon omits some functions that veteran photographers will miss, but it includes GPS and Wi-Fi, and does a better job with video autofocus.

Design and Controls

The K-S1 ($388.00 at eBay) is very small when compared with other SLRs. It measures just 3.7 by 4.8 by 2.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.2 pounds without a lens. That's just slightly bigger than the smallest SLR on the market, the Canon EOS Rebel SL1 ($599.00 at Amazon) (3.6 by 4.6 by 2.7 inches, 14.4 ounces). Pentax opted to use angular lines for the body, as compared with the more rounded edges that I'm used to seeing on an SLR. It's not all right angles; the handgrip does have a more rounded design, but like the SL1 I found it to be inadequate for my hands. The K-S1 is also noticeably heavier, which exacerbates my difficulties holding it comfortably, but if you have small hands, you may actually prefer the size of the K-S1. If you want a small SLR with a more traditional handgrip, don't count out the Nikon D3300 (3.9 by 4.9 by 3 inches, 15.2 ounces), which has a compact body with an adequately deep grip.

Much has been made of the K-S1's lights. There's a column of green lights that run down the front of the handgrip when the camera is turned on, more green lights ring the shutter button and illuminate the active shooting mode, and the OK button on the rear is lit up blue. I'm of the opinion that, like most of the design choices that brought us the K-S1, you either like them or you don't. The handgrip lights aren't completely ornamental—they flash when the self-timer is counting down—and when shooting in dim conditions the others do make it easier to locate control surfaces.

Our review unit is in white, with a matching lens and gray accents. Pentax is also offering the standard version of the camera in black and blue (both with black zoom lenses), and is launching a bevy of limited edition color options. The first of these are the Fabric Collection—they aren't covered in textiles, but rather have colors that are reminiscent of certain materials. It includes Cotton Beige, Denim Blue, Linen Brown, and Tweed Gray. This will be followed by a series inspired by colors in nature, the Night Sky Collection.

The K-S1 omits the front command dial and physical depth-of-field preview control that's included with the entry-level K-50 ($421.93 at Walmart) , but other than that it has same control buttons. The top plate houses the rear command dial, the combined shutter release and power switch, the Exposure Compensation button, and Pentax's unique Green button. The power switch has Off, On, and Movie positions, which is a change from other Pentax cameras. Normally moving the power switch beyond on activates depth-of-field preview, which stops down the attached lens to the set aperture so you can preview how much of the frame is in focus in the viewfinder. If you want to use that feature with the K-S1, you'll have to remap the Green button to perform the function. That's an improvement over the Nikon D5300, which doesn't include depth-of-field preview support at all.

Rear controls include a Live View button, located to the left of the viewfinder, and the standard playback and menu controls. There's an AF/AE-L button integrated into the rear thumb grip that can be set to engage the autofocus system or lock exposure, and a four-way controller with a center OK button below it. The directional presses give you quick access to ISO, white balance, flash settings, and the drive mode. The OK button lights up blue when in its default position, and if you have manual autofocus point selection enabled, you can hold it down to change the function of the directional buttons to move the active focus point around. When set to that function, the OK button doesn't light up.

The directional controls are surrounded by the mode dial, which is a flat control on the rear. That's a departure from the top-mounted mode dials you'll find on every other D-SLR on the market. The active mode is lit up in green. I did find the dial a bit uncomfortable to turn, as it's just a bit too tight, but its placement does make efficient use of space. In addition to the standard shooting settings available via the dial, there are a couple that are unique to Pentax. Sensitivity Priority (Sv) lets you choose the ISO and have the camera set the aperture and shutter speed for you, and TAv (Shutter and Aperture Priority) gives you control over the shutter speed and f-stop, but lets the K-S1 set the ISO automatically. The K-S1 also includes Scene modes and Effects modes, which are essentially Instagram filters applied in-camera.

The bottommost button, Info, changes what's shown on the rear display. By default the screen shows current shooting settings and devotes part of its area to mirror the directional controls to its right. Pressing Info again changes to an on-screen menu that allows you to adjust a bank of shooting settings. These include the focus mode, JPG output settings, metering pattern, image quality settings, and others.

Features

The rear LCD is a 3-inch panel with a 921k-dot resolution. That's par for the course with a D-SLR—you wouldn't want to buy a new SLR with anything less—but it's perfectly fine for use in Live View and when reviewing images. It is fixed, unlike the vari-angle display that Nikon puts on the D5300, and it lacks the touch input support that Canon includes with the svelte SL1.

Wi-Fi is not built into the K-S1; Pentax has been slow to add that functionality to its cameras. You can add it, though, either via a standard Eyefi Mobi memory card, or via the Pentax FluCard Pro ($99.95). The Eyefi Mobi simply transfers images to your iOS or Android device wirelessly, but if you opt for the more expensive FluCard, you can also remotely control the K-S1 via any device that has a Web browser. I first tested this functionality when we reviewed the K-3, and found that it works just as well with the K-S1. A Live View feed streams to your phone, tablet, or computer, and if you're using a touch-screen device, you can tap and choose a focus point. Full manual control is available, which is a boon to photographers who want to wrest control away from the camera. The K-S1 only has a single card slot, and the FluCard isn't the quickest memory card in the world. But burst shooting with this model isn't a strong point, so losing some speed isn't as much an issue as it would be with a camera with a faster burst rate and dual card slots like the K-3.

Canon and Nikon SLRs put vibration reduction in lenses, rather than the body. This means you've got to buy stabilized lenses to benefit from the technology, which often adds to the cost. Like Sony, Pentax puts stabilization into the camera body, opting to move the sensor to counteract vibrations and shaky hands. Any lens that you attach to the K-S1 is stabilized, including third-party lenses like the excellent Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 DC HSM ($679.00 at Amazon) . The K-S1 inherits one neat feature from the high-end K-3—it can use the shake reduction system to simulate the effects of an optical low-pass filter (sometimes called an anti-alias filter). This type of filter is normally built into the camera sensor to counteract color moiré effects, but at the cost of adding slight blur to every image. The K-S1 doesn't have this filter, so its image output isn't hampered by it, but you can engage AA Filter Simulation for scenes when moiré is an issue.

Weather sealing is not something that's expected from a camera at this price point, but it is something that Pentax shooters have come to expect from any camera with a K-mount. It's missing from the K-S1, so don't take it out in a downpour. If a weather-sealed design is important, look to the K-50 or K-3 instead. One thing that's not missing is a bevy of custom settings in the menu that allow you to configure the camera to use vintage Pentax lenses dating back to 1975, set exposure based on the active focus point, enable exposure bracketing, and fine-tune the autofocus system. You don't get that level of control in a lot of cameras in this class.

Performance and Conclusions

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The camera uses an 11-point autofocus system, identical to that of the K-50. There's some loss of precision when compared with the 39-point AF system Nikon puts in its D5300, but I didn't have any issues with focus accuracy with the K-S1. The camera can lock focus and fire less than 0.1-second in bright light, and slows to about 0.9-second in very dim light. Live View focus is a bit slower all round; it requires 0.7-second to lock in bright light and 1.3 seconds to do the same in dim conditions.

We're reviewing the K-S1 as a body only, but it is available in a kit with the Pentax 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 DA L lens for $699.95. The $50 price increase is modest enough to make you consider getting it, even if you already have Pentax lenses that exceed the 18-55mm in optical and build quality. The lens itself is a pretty standard example of an 18-55mm. It's quite light, has a plastic lens mount, and is a little loud when autofocus is engaged.

I used Imatest to check its optical performance when paired with the K-S1. At 18mm it shows a lot of barrel distortion, about 2.2 percent, which makes straight lines appear to curve outward. Its sharpness is better than the 1,800 lines per picture height that we like to see—it scores 2,060 lines using a center-weighted scoring method at f/3.5. But like a lot of kit lenses its edge quality is disappointing (1,468 lines). Stopping down to f/5.6 sharpens the edges to 1,921 lines and improves the overall score to 2,119 lines.

At 35mm the barrel distortion goes away, and the lens scores 2,186 lines at its maximum f/4.5 aperture. Edge performance is fine (1,889 lines). Image quality drops off a bit at 55mm; the lens shows about 0.8 percent pincushion distortion there, which gives straight lines a slight inward curve. The resolution drops slightly to 1,981 lines at the maximum f/5.6 aperture, with edges that are just shy of 1,800 lines.

Imatest also checks photos for noise, which can add unwanted grain and detract from detail as the sensitivity to light (ISO) is increased. When capturing JPG images at default settings, the K-S1 keeps noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 1600, and shows just 1.6 percent at ISO 3200. Close examination of photos from our test scene on a calibrated NEC MultiSync PA271W display shows that there's a little loss of crispness at ISO 1600 and 3200, but image detail is still quite strong. At ISO 6400 things get a bit rough, with fine lines showing signs of smudging, and it gets worse at ISO 12800 and beyond.

Of course, if you prefer a grainy, detailed image at high ISO, you can always turn down or turn off the noise reduction via the camera menu, or simply shoot in Raw format and apply whatever level of noise reduction you prefer in software like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. You can push the camera a lot further into high ISO territory when shooting Raw and not give up too much in the way of resolution, as long as you are happy with an image that shows strong grain. Even at ISO 12800 and 25600 I can make out the lines in our test scene when shooting Raw, and grain becomes less of an issue at ISO 6400 and below. I've included pixel-level crops from each ISO that the K-S1 supports, both from JPGs at default settings and Raw images with default Lightroom adjustments, in the slideshow that accompanies this review. That will let you gauge for yourself if the K-S1 meets your high-ISO needs.

Historically, video has not been a strong point for Pentax SLRs. The K-S1 does nothing to buck that trend. It captures video at 1080p30, 1080p25, 1080p24, 720p60, or 720p50 quality in QuickTime format. The footage looks fine if the camera isn't moving—details are crisp and colors are accurate—but even slow pans result in the wobbly look that comes from the rolling shutter effect. When you add in an autofocus system that's just plain slow, and needs to be engaged manually via the rear AF button to refocus, you have a camera that's not really suited for anything but casual video clips. That is only reinforced by the lack of a mic input, which is a requirement for any serious video work.

If you want a small SLR that records video, look at the Canon SL1, which offers smooth, quiet focus when paired with an STM lens, or better yet a mirrorless camera. The Sony Alpha 6000 ($549.99 at Dell Technologies) runs circles around SLRs at similar price points in terms of autofocus (both for stills and video) and burst shooting rate, and its electronic viewfinder is excellent. If you do shoot footage, or just want to look at still images on a TV, there is a micro HDMI output port. There's a single memory card slot that supports SD, SDHC, or SDXC cards.

There's no question that the Pentax K-S1 is a very capable D-SLR for still image capture, and one that is packed into a surprisingly compact body. Its image quality is strong, especially when paired with a good lens, and its size pairs well with Pentax's line of compact DA HD Limited prime lenses. Its image sensor captures a lot of detail, even at high ISOs, and its customizability is surprisingly strong for a camera that looks like this. It may not have been the most comfortable camera to hold in my hands, but hands come in different sizes and shapes, and those who wear small gloves may feel right at home with the K-S1. And, as for the lights, I'm not a fan, but that's a purely personal preference.

But there are a few real issues that keep the K-S1 from getting top marks. Its 11-point autofocus system isn't quite as robust as other cameras that cost this much, and its video functionality is just plain disappointing. For a camera that has a bold design that's aimed to grab the attention of the younger smartphone generation, the lack of a touch screen and Wi-Fi is head-scratching. The Nikon D5300 doesn't support touch input, but it does have a vari-angle display, integrated Wi-Fi, better video capability, and a 39-point AF system that allows you to select a focus point with a bit more precision. It remains our Editors' Choice for D-SLRs priced under $1,000. If you're invested in the Pentax lens system, the K-50 is a better value, especially when you take its weather-sealed design and lower price point into account, and the K-3 is a great choice if you're in need of a camera with a more serious autofocus system.

Pentax K-S1 3.5 See It $388.00 at eBay MSRP $649.95 Pros Uniquely designed.

Compact.

Available in many color choices.

Excellent image quality.

In-camera shake reduction.

AA filter simulation option.

Pentaprism viewfinder.

1/6,000-second shutter. View More Cons Slow video AF.

Shallow handgrip.

Small continuous shooting buffer.

Lacks in-camera Wi-Fi.

No microphone input.

Pricey. View More The Bottom Line The Pentax K-S1 doesn't look like any other SLR on the market, but aside from a disappointing video mode, it's a solid performer.

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