The *ist D's 16-segment metering system nailed this colorful sunrise scene with the 80–320mm zoom lens. Pressing the AE-L button while metering the misty morning sky silhouetted these great-tailed grackles, then pressing the AF button after recomposing kept 'em sharp. The world in a dewdrop, 200mm (300mm 35mm-camera equivalent) focal length, hand-held, program mode. Pentax lenses are famous for their excellent SMC antiflare coatings. Other Features You can make up to nine exposures on a single frame via multiple exposure mode; just press the multiple-exposure button and rotate the Tv dial to select multiple-exposure mode, then the Av dial to select the number of multiple exposures you wish to make. (A tip: More than two exposures on a single frame generally results in a too-confusing photo, whether you're shooting film or digital images.) Shutter speeds, courtesy of an electronically controlled vertical-travel focal-plane shutter, range from 30 seconds to 1/4000, stepless in program and aperture-priority AE modes and settable in 1/2- or 1/3-step increments in shutter-priority and manual modes. You can make longer exposures by rotating the mode dial to B to select bulb mode, in which the shutter will remain open as long as you keep the shutter button depressed (the optional Cable Switch CS-205 is helpful here). The *ist D provides four drive modes, selected by pressing the drive-mode button to the right of the LCD panel until the desired icon appears on the panel: single-frame, consecutive (in which you can shoot up to six full-resolution frames at 2.6 fps), self-timer (delays release until 12 seconds after you press the shutter button), and remote control (allows operation via an optional remote control). Pulling the tip of the main switch to the right stops the lens down to the set aperture, making it easy to check depth of field—no fumbling around the body for the depth-of-field switch; it's right there by the shutter button. There is also a mirror prelock that works in conjunction with the self-timer (accessed via the custom menus). Flash Flash fans will love the *ist D. It's got a built-in TTL flash unit (ISO 200 guide number 51 in feet, 15.6 in meters—remember, 200 is the lowest ISO setting this camera provides) that covers the angle of view of a 35mm-equivalent lens, a hot-shoe for the dedicated Pentax AF360FGZ flash unit, wireless off-camera TTL flash capability with the AF360FGZ, wired multiple off-camera flash capability, plus a PC terminal for studio flash. To use the built-in flash, press the flash button to pop it up (it doesn't automatically pop up in dim light), and select a flash mode by pressing the flash mode button to toggle to the desired mode: automatic (the flash fires in dim light and backlit situations), red-eye reduction automatic (the unit fires a preflash to "stop-down" subjects' eyes and thus minimize red-eye), wireless remote, wireless high-speed sync (more on these in the next paragraph), flash on (flash fires for every shot regardless of light level) and red-eye reduction flash on. Only the two automatic modes are available in the fully automatic Green Program exposure mode, and all but those two flash modes are available in the other exposure modes. When FA J, FA, or F-series Pentax lenses are used, you get P-TTL flash, where the camera fires a pre-flash and uses the 16-segment metering system for greater exposure accuracy. Attach the AF360FGZ flash unit to the *ist D's hot-shoe, and you get all the features of the built-in flash plus more power, trailing-curtain sync (with the built-in flash, too, but only when used in conjunction with the AF360FGZ), high-speed flash sync (up to the camera's top shutter speed of 1/4000—normal maximum flash-sync speed is 1/150), a tilting head for bounce flash, and more. You can remove the AF360FGZ from the hot-shoe and fire it wirelessly with P-TTL control, fire one or more off-camera flash units via accessory flash cords, and get contrast-control flash, in which the built-in flash provides one unit of light and an off-camera unit two units—handy for portraits, using the off-camera unit as the main light, and the built-in unit for fill. Digital Features The *ist D's 6.31-megapixel interline/interlace scan CCD sensor provides 6.1-megapixel resolution, turning out RAW 3008x2008-pixel images, non-compressed TIFF images at 3008x2008, 2400x1600 or 1536x1024 pixels, or compressed JPEG images of the same pixel counts at three levels of compression (Good, Better and Best). Images are stored on removable Type I or II CompactFlash cards or Microdrives. A 512MB card holds approximately 34 RAW images, 27 3008x2008-pixel TIFF images, 119 "Best" quality 3008x2008-pixel JPEG images, or up to 2832 "Good" quality 1536x1024-pixel JPEG images. One thing we especially liked about the *ist D was being able to set the image quality directly via the mode dial and Tv/Av dials, without having to wade through LCD monitor menus. You can activate the camera's built-in noise-reduction function to increase image quality in dim-light shots. As with all digital cameras that shoot RAW images, the *ist D's RAW files must be accessed via the supplied proprietary software. RAW images provide potentially the best quality, since they retain all the data captured by the image sensor, and they allow you to change such things as white balance, sensitivity, contrast, saturation, sharpness and color space (sRGB or Adobe RGB) after shooting, then save the resulting images as 8-bit or 16-bit TIFFs, or as JPEGs. TIFF and JPEG images can be opened in standard image-editing programs like Photoshop. We tended to do most of our shooting in the highest-quality JPEG mode (3008x2008 pixels, "Best" compression level) as a happy medium between ultimate image quality and number of shots storable on our CF cards. The images accompanying this article are all "Best" JPEGs (L*** setting). The camera comes with a CD containing Pentax PHOTO Browser and Pentax PHOTO Laboratory software. The browser makes it easy to view images, access image data, and organize images. The laboratory processes RAW images. A third software program, Pentax REMOTE Assistant, will allow control of the camera from a computer, but is not yet available; it will be an extra-cost option. On the back of the camera is a 1.8-inch TFT color LCD monitor, used for menu settings and image playback. In playback mode, you can zoom in up to 12X, display nine images at a time, display info about an image, or run the images as a slide show. The LCD monitor doesn't preview the image as on consumer digicams (the SLR viewfinder serves this purpose admirably), but does display the just-shot image for 1, 3 or 5 seconds (your choice, via a menu function) after exposure, so you can make sure the exposure and composition are as expected. In Use Autofocusing and metering performance seemed to be on a par with the best of Pentax's film SLRs, which means very good. The camera recorded excellent detail in clouds and smoke, and seems to have a good dynamic range. Color reproduction is natural, and auto white balance handled most situations well. If in doubt, we'd switch to daylight white balance, to get performance similar to color slide film. The AF system quickly locked in on birds in flight and tracked them well, and it's nice to be able to select single-shot or continuous AF and know what the camera is going to do focuswise. The *ist D is the smallest of the interchangeable-lens digital SLRs currently on the market, half an inch narrower and half an inch less-deep than the next smallest, and also the lightest, by 0.3 ounce—this despite its sturdy stainless-steel chassis and glass pentaprism. This small size is a good thing for those who like compact, but makes it more difficult to hand-hold long lenses (the long end of that 80–320mm zoom is 480mm with this camera, marginally hand-holdable anyway). Our left-eyed shooter found the placement of the AE-lock button just to the right of the viewfinder a little awkward, and you have to be careful not to catch the strap when opening or closing the CF-card door, but otherwise the camera is quite comfortable in use, and the controls are easy to get at and operate. We do wish Pentax had "stolen" a feature from its delightful little Optio 430RS consumer digicam, and reversed the orientation of the CF card. In the 430RS, the little lip on the end of the card faces out, where you can catch it with a fingernail to remove the card; on the *ist D, the lip faces in, making card removal a bit awkward. One very pleasant surprise was battery capacity. The camera comes with two CR-V3 lithium batteries, and the manual says they're good for about 1000 shots without flash. We have just gone past 1680, and the low-battery warning hasn't made an appearance. The camera can also use four AA batteries (lithium, rechargeable NiMH or even alkaline in a pinch—lithiums provide about 900 shots, NiMH about 450 per charge, and alkalines around 110 shots). The optional Battery Grip D-BG1 holds another set of batteries for added capacity, and provides a vertical-format shutter release and Tv/Av dials, while the AC Adptor D-AC10 lets you power the camera via AC current where available. All in all, image quality and performance make the *ist digital a worthy contender in the "affordable" digital SLR field, and one you certainly should check out if you're considering a camera in this category. Camera: Pentax *ist D Category: AF digital SLR AF Performance **** Metering Performance **** Feature Set ***** Ease of Use **** Ergonomics *** Value ****