Just recieved my 645D today and thought I woud share my first impressions. I went for the 22mp version as the 39mp version was both a little more than I need, and a lot more than I could afford. However, with the savings I made on the lesser body, I was able to splash out a few extra dollars for the new 70-200mm f2.8 lens, with the stock lens being the 80mm f2.8.
The first thing I noticed when I picked it up was the wieght, or rather, the lack of it. It weighs in about 500g heavier than my old *istD, making it easy for carrying about for some time. Armed with this bad boy I took a little trip to the local church where a wedding was in progress to check its low light and high ISO performance. I must say I was not dissappointed, the fast autofocus made quick shooting simple and at ISO 6400 the low noise on the images is amazing, it is far superior to the K10D at ISO 400. Even in the low light, the combination of fast autofocus and anti-shake proved a winner. I was only inside a few moments when the ceremony ended and we all moved outside where I was able to shoot off a number of images at ISO 50 in the sunlight. Once again the snappy auto focus secured a number of images, but sadly at only 2.8 frames per second this would not be a sports photographers best tool although with shutter speeds up to 1/10,000 you could stop a bullet. The shutter speed can also be optionally set to go as low as ISO 25. I found the dials easy to use and the new 'intuitive' menu system not too intuitive but the basic functions are simple enough to access and only when I wanted to fine tune things did I need to consult the manual. Access to the various internals (batteries and storage card) is quite simple and have a second lithium battery for it. I have yet to purchase the power cable which would be great for those in a studio environment. I chose to use the CF card option over the SD as I find the SD cards too fidgety. I do like the idea of being able to plug the camera directly into a computer and have the images stored directly on to the hard drive, but have not explored that option yet. I also had a few of my older 645 lenses about and took a few shots with the 50mm macro and the resulting images are just amazing, Anybody buying this camera will never use 35mm again. My favourite feature though is the ability to change the degree of the spot metering allowing me to choose the area I wish to meter on. The only down side I could find was that all of this, took place in my imagination. Patiently waiting Kevin -- "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
