There it is, sports fans, the K2000 aka K-m. It’s a small, lightweight true entry-level DSLR from Pentax. A lot of folks over at dpreview and other forums weren’t so sure the K2000 was small enough or lightweight enough, but I can tell you that it’s significantly smaller and lighter (20.8 ounces) than the K200D (24.3 ounces). The controls are well placed and the camera can be easily used with one hand. The grip is more squarish too. The interface is much different that you’d find on any other K-series DSLR, but I didn’t have enough time with it to get a real feel for it. You can see a bit of it on the last photo, though. Apologies for the quality of these photos but John was using his janky Canon. This should do well against its counterparts in the “entry-level” tier and you certainly can’t beat the $700 price tag with lens, flash and handful of features. I kind of want one because it is so compact and lightweight.

There’s more! Digital Photography Review has its own in-depth look at the entry level dSLR, including the entirely too long press release.

The K-m was “leaked” several days ago and today at Photokina, Pentax officially announced the K-m aka K2000 (here in the US) DSLR. Most of the specs that were “leaked” are spot on and nothing much differs from the official announcement. What the leaks failed to mention was the bump in ISO to 3200, but a weaker AF with five points as opposed to the 11 you’ll find on the K200D. But the K2000 does get shadow detection. However, the earlier reports mentioned a jump in continuous drive mode to 3.5FPS, but maybe I’m reading the spec sheet incorrectly.

The K2000 is truly an entry-level DSLR with a simple control layout that can be easily manipulated with one hand. Read More