14 DAY TRIAL // P
entax is going to launch its first mirrorless interchangeable lens DSLR camera later today, but it looks like some info made it to the web a bit sooner than the company intended.
Pentax is getting ready to send out the K-01 camera, though it is unclear if sales will start immediately or sometime after the release.
The formal announcement should be made today (February 2, 2012), so that mystery won't last much longer.
Speaking of mysteries, the availability and pricing are the only pieces of information that still qualify as unknown.
Everything else, or most of it, has been revealed by a press release issued by one of Pentax' retail partners.
Design-wise, the company did not go for anything too fancy, choosing to stick to what it knows will work, namely a so-called traditional shape.
Also, the K-01 isn't overly compact, but the aluminum frame and the multitude of dials and buttons are precisely what professionals need, so quality is not an issue.
Spec-wise, a 16-megapixel APS-C size CMOS sensor lies at the heart of the item, supporting more than one aspect ratio and even sensor-shift image stabilization.
Furthermore, pictures can be shot in burst mode at 6 FPS (frames per second) and shutter speeds of 1/4000 to 30 seconds. The ISO range is 100 to 25,600.
That said, in addition to photos, video can be captured in 1080p30 as well as 720p60 quality, H.264 encoding.
The list goes on with a 3-inch LCD (920,000 dots), easy manual focus (via focus peaking) a built-in pop-up flash, the Pentax hot-shoe and support for HDR, JPEG and RAW capture, among other things.
The Pentax K-01 will have a price of about $749, or 568.50 Euro, though lenses will add to it: a 40mm pancake lens takes the tag to $899/ 682.3 Euro, while a 18-55 and 50-200mm lens bundle sets the price at $999/ 758 Euro.
