Introduction

Ease of Use

The Pentax K-S2 is one of the smallest DSLRs on the market, and in fact it’s being billed as the smallest weatherproof DSLR you can buy. The new kit lens, being retractable, also makes the overall package very small - you can slip it neatly into a small bag with ease.

One downside of having a retractable lens is that it needs to be extended before you can shoot with it, but of course you can always leave it extended if you’re planning to take a few shots in quick succession. There’s plenty of K-mount lenses available for the Pentax system, and most of them too are also small, so although this is not a compact system camera, its lenses and overall size is more akin to something like a Panasonic or Olympus, than competing DSLRs from Canon and Nikon.

The Pentax K-S2’s grip is not quite as deep as some of the other cameras on the market, but that’s not to say that you can’t get good purchase on the camera. There’s a small recess for your middle finger to sit nicely, while your forefinger rests pretty naturally on the shutter release or the front scrolling dial. Around the back, you’ll find a small rest for your thumb, again helping it to sit nicely in your hand.

Front of the Pentax K-S2

Most of the Pentax K-S2’s buttons can be found on the right-hand side of the camera, making it easy to make changes with just your right hand. There are some notable exceptions though - for instance, the Live View button is found to the left hand side of the viewfinder. On the side of the camera, you’ll also find the AF/MF switch, as well as a button which is labelled with RAW/Fx but can be customised to one of six different functions when in shooting mode. By default this button allows you to switch between raw format shooting and JPEG at just the press of the button. You can set it to perform the set action just once, or to keep the selected setting the same. There’s also a button for raising the camera’s inbuilt flash found on the side of the camera.

On top of the camera is a large mode dial which contains the different exposure modes which you can shoot with. There’s all the usual modes you’d expect to find on a DSLR, including Manual, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Program modes, but there’s also automatic HDR, scene modes, automatic modes, and space for two different groups of custom settings - which is useful if you often find yourself shooting one particular kind of scene (such as low light). Other interesting modes include TAv (Shutter and Aperture Priority AE), Sv (Sensitivity Priority) and B (Bulb Mode).

Rear of the Pentax K-S2

Also on top of the Pentax K-S2 you’ll find a button for altering exposure compensation - you don’t need to hold it down, just press it once and the scrolling dial on the back of the camera can be used to adjust the compensation. Press the button again and the scrolling dial will control whatever is its default function for the mode you’re using - so if you’re in aperture priority, it will go back to controlling aperture.

A useful button which can be found on top of the camera is a green button, which returns certain settings back to their default position. So, if you have dialled in a few stops of exposure compensation, pressing this green button will quickly take it back to 0EV without having to scroll.

Pentax has got rid of some of the flashing lights it used on the K-S1, but there are still some lights which remain here on the K-S2. For instance, around the shutter release button, a green light will slowly pulse green when the camera is switched to stills shooting but in standby mode, or will stay a constant red if you move the on/off switch position into video recording.

Top of the Pentax K-S2

Finally, the last button on top of the camera is a Wi-Fi button. Hold this down to switch Wi-FI on or off.

There are two scrolling dials on the Pentax K-S2, both controlling a particular function depending on the shooting mode you’re in. If you’re in manual exposure mode, the front dial will alter shutter speed, while the rear dial will control aperture. In aperture priority mode, only the rear dial will control something, and vice versa for shutter priority mode. If you prefer to work in a different way, you can customise how the scrolling dials work in each mode in the camera’s main menu.

On the back of the camera is a four way navigational pad, with each of the directional buttons controlling a certain function. The screen also displays the corresponding function. The down button allows you to control white balance, the left button flash modes, the up button ISO (sensitivity) and the right button drive mode / timer. If you hold down the central OK button, you can use the directional keys to change autofocus point. You must hold down the central OK button again if you want to change any of the previously mentioned settings. Once you get used to this system it becomes quite natural.

The Pentax K-S2 In-hand

Just underneath the navipad is an info button which accesses a quick menu. Press this and you’ll be displayed with a range of settings which you can change by scrolling to the setting you need and either scrolling with a dial to make a quick change, or pressing OK to be taken to a more detailed explanation of each setting. Examples of settings you can find in this menu include File Format, Custom Image Setting and Metering. I’d like to be able to customise this menu to discard less often used settings, but it’s still quite a good quick menu to use.

The other two buttons on the back of the Pentax K-S2 are a Playback button and a button for accessing the Main Menu. You may find you don’t need to use the Main Menu all that often as there is a quick menu, but it’s still arranged pretty sensibly on the most part, being split into well defined sections.

For the first time on a Pentax DSLR, the KS-2’s screen is fully articulating. Its hinge feels sturdy and secure, and it’s good to be able to fold the screen into the body of the camera to protect it from scratches and scuffs while in your bag. It is of course also very useful when you want to shoot from awkward angles, or shoot group or self-portraits.

Tilting LCD Screen

Connecting to the Pentax K-S2’s Wi-Fi is very easy. If you have an NFC enabled device, it’s even quicker - you simply tap the NFC chip in your device to the NFC chip on the side of the K-S2. If it’s the first time you’ve tapped the two together, you’ll be prompted to download the Image Sync app, which is free from the Google Play store. If you have a Wi-Fi only device, such as an iPhone, you can connect to the camera’s Wi-Fi network by entering the password displayed on the screen. The Image App can also be downloaded manually from the App Store.

Once you have the app and you’re connected, you can shoot remotely, and very pleasingly, you have pretty much complete control over the camera’s shooting capability. So, you can change aperture, ISO, shutter speed and more - the only thing you won’t be able to change is the focal length of the lens, or whether the flash is raised. On the whole it’s a great app to use, and other manufacturers could look to this app for inspiration on how to produce a genuinely useful smartphone remote control app. The other option you have is to download images taken on the camera across to your smartphone or tablet for quick sharing to social networks or email.

The Pentax K-S2 is reasonably rare in that its viewfinder offers 100% coverage - something quite unusual for cameras at this level. This means that everything you see in the bright viewfinder will appear in your final image. On the downside, the fact that it is optical means that you won’t be able to see any changes you’ve made to settings until after you’ve taken the shot.

Image Quality

Directly from the camera, images display a good level of colour warmth and vibrance. If you’re not happy with how the images look, you can experiment with colour by changing the Custom Image setting, and you’ve got a good range of options to choose from including Vibrant, Bright, Neutral, Radiant and so on, along with other more creative options such as Monochrome, Bleach Bypass and Reversal Film. The good thing here is that you can shoot in raw format so you’ll have a clean version of the image should you need it.

You can also experiment by using different digital filters, such as Toy Camera or Invert Color. These are more extreme, but they’re worth investigating if you like that kind of thing to see if any take your fancy.

There’s also a good amount of detail resolved by the Pentax K-S2’s AA-filterless 20 million pixel sensor. If you look at an image at full size at low sensitivity, you can see hardly any occurrence of image smoothing, which is pleasing to see. Moving through the sensitivity range, we can see that detail is retained well even when using high settings, such as ISO 3200. While there is some image smoothing to be seen at these kinds of values, noise is barely apparent which leaves you with an overall great impression.

The Pentax K-S2 can shoot at up to ISO 51200, and while this isn’t something that is generally recommended for most scenarios, if it’s really, really dark and you need to get the shot, it’s better than nothing at all - although of course you will be left with grainy, noisy images. The top setting I’d recommend using for most scenarios is 12800, which leave you with an overall good impression of detail if you’re sharing or printing at small sizes. Stick to ISO 3200 or below for the best quality.

Automatic white balance copes well most of the time to produce accurate colours. It became ever so slightly confused by an overcast, late afternoon sky on a couple of occasions, but otherwise the camera is pretty good in natural lighting conditions. Under artificial lighting, it’s very good, erring on the side of ever so slightly too much warmth. If you’re after ultimate accuracy, it’s a good idea to switch to a more appropriate white balance setting, such as Tungsten.

Generally speaking, the Pentax K-S2’s all-purpose metering system copes well to produce accurate exposures, perhaps requiring a little extra exposure compensation to be added in some high contrast conditions.

One slight concern is that when using the kit lens, it’s possible to see some examples of purple fringing along high contrast edges. It’s something I’ve seen before with Pentax cameras, and although it’s not something that presents itself in every image, it’s disappointing to see it at all.

The KS-2 can shoot in both Pentax’s proprietary raw format, PEF, or in the universal raw format, DNG. At the time of writing, the PEF files from the K-S2 cannot be read by Adobe Camera Raw, but as its universal, the DNG files can be. Looking at the equivalent DNG files, it’s possible to see that a fair amount of noise reduction is applied to the output JPEGs directly from the camera. While this results in an overall good impression for the image, if you prefer to take control over the noise yourself - and therefore produce a good balance between detail and noise reduction, you can do that with the raw files.

Noise

Just as with the K-S1 before it, the Pentax K-S2 has a sensitivity range of ISO100-51,200.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)
ISO 25600 (100% Crop)	ISO 25600 (100% Crop)
ISO 51200 (100% Crop)	ISO 51200 (100% Crop)

Flash

The Pentax K-S2’s built-in flash has an approximate power rating of GN10. Our testing revealed the flash produces only minor vignetting when shooting a white scene from a distance of 1.5m at an 18mm focal length. Red-eye is also successfully eliminated, even without using red-eye reduction.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (27mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (27mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (78mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (78mm)

And here are a couple of portrait shots with the flash turned Off and On.

Flash Off	Flash On

Night

The Pentax K-S2 lets you dial in shutter speeds of up to 30 seconds and has a Bulb mode as well for exposure times of practically any length, which is very good news if you are seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 30 seconds at ISO 100.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Effects

Turn the Pentax K-S2’s mode dial to ‘Effects’ and 11 colour filters are available to help spice up your shots. All are applied at full resolution.

None	Bold Monochrome
Extract Color	High Contrast
Invert Color	Replace Color
Retro	Shading
Toy Camera	Toy Camera1
Unicolor Bold	Unicolor Bold1

Custom Images

11 custom images are available to help spice up your shots. All are applied at full resolution.

Bleach Bypass	Bright
Cross Processing	Landscape
Monochrome	Muted
Natural	Portrait
Radiant	Reversal Film
Vibrant

Anti-Aliasing Filter Simulator

The Pentax K-S2 follows in the wake of cameras like the K-5 IIs and Nikon D810 by not including an optical low pass filter. These are fitted to most cameras to eliminate the problem of moiré. If you’ve ever seen someone on television wearing a pinstripe shirt, chances are strange wavy coloured bands (moiré) may appear across it.

This effect is produced when repetitive detail patterns are too fine for an image sensor’s pixel array to capture accurately. Fitting an optical low pass filter in front of the sensor guards against the phenomena by blurring an image ever so slightly, but just enough to take the edge off fine patterns and eliminate moiré. Trouble is, the filter blurs every single shot, yet most scenes you snap are unlikely to feature moiré-inducing patterns.

Nowadays larger, high-megapixel sensors are less susceptible to moiré, hence the potential to capture more detail by removing the optical low pass filter outweighs the rare instances where moiré may be visible. In reality, the extra detail benefits are very subtle and you’ll probably need to shoot using a tripod, low ISO sensitivity and a high quality lens set at its optimal aperture to see a difference.

But on the flip side, any problems with moiré are so uncommon you’re only likely to encounter them when shooting resolution test charts in a studio environment. If you do ever spot some interference in the real world, the K-S2 has a simulated optical low pass simulator. This works using the sensor’s Shake Reduction mechanics, which minutely vibrate the sensor to create the same level of blur as a conventional optical low pass filter provides. But the beauty of this system is you can choose when to use it.

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Pentax K-S2 camera, which were all taken using the 20 megapixel Best JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Pentax K-S2 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files in either the PEF or DNG formats. We've provided some Pentax RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Pentax K-S2

Front of the Pentax K-S2

Front of the Pentax K-S2 / Pop-Up Flash

Side of the Pentax K-S2

Side of the Pentax K-S2

Rear of the Pentax K-S2

Rear of the Pentax K-S2 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Pentax K-S2 / Info Screen

Rear of the Pentax K-S2 / Main Menu

Rear of the Pentax K-S2 / OK Screen

Rear of the Pentax K-S2 / Tilting LCD Screen

Rear of the Pentax K-S2 / Tilting LCD Screen

Top of the Pentax K-S2

Bottom of the Pentax K-S2

Side of the Pentax K-S2

Side of the Pentax K-S2

Front of the Pentax K-S2

Front of the Pentax K-S2

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Pentax KS-2 has a lot of good things on offer here. While most people are generally swayed towards Canon or Nikon when purchasing their first DSLR, unless you already have some lenses and/or accessories, it’s worth knowing about other options on the market, especially when they are capable of producing some good results.

For the money, and the level it is aimed at, the Pentax KS-2 offers some excellent features which you wouldn’t always expect. For a start, the fact that it’s weatherproof means that you can feel confident when using it in a variety of weather conditions, including of course the great British rain shower.

It’s also nicely sized and shaped - if you like your cameras to be on the smaller and lighter side, then you may feel more tempted by this than a Canon or Nikon, especially with the new collapsible kit lens in tow.

Using the Pentax KS-2 is also nice and natural, with a good range of buttons and dials complemented by the ability to make quick changes via the shortcut menu and buttons which are available. The fact that it has an articulating screen is also useful for a number of reasons, not least when you want to shoot from an awkward angle.

The integrated Wi-Fi is simple and no-fuss - it’s easy to set up and use, and the accompanying smartphone app is actually very decent, something which isn’t necessarily true of some other manufacturers - I’m thinking particularly of the Nikon Wireless Utility App which only gives you the possibility to trip the shutter.

Image quality is also, on the whole, very good. Low light performance is great, while the automatic metering and white balance modes cope very well - meaning that you don’t necessarily have to spend time worrying too much about settings if you don’t want to. There’s also a good range of creative options for those that like to get experimental - it’s great to be able to use film type Custom Image modes for example. It’s a shame that the image quality is marred a little by the presence of purple fringing in some situations, though.

Overall, the Pentax KS-2 is a very capable camera which should be enjoyed by enthusiasts, especially those who have no particular affinity to the other more popular brands on the market.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	4.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Pentax K-S2.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Pentax K-S2 from around the web.

Specifications

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