Pentax K-3 formally announced

The next flagship camera in the Pentax DSLR range has been formally announced. It is the K-3, which is no surprise considered the one before it was the K-5 and the one before that was the K-7.

The theory is that this brand new top-end Pentax DSLR will be in the market in time for Christmas.

Going on early reports the K-3 is a significant upgrade from the current flagship model, the K-5.

The awesome autofocus system has been upgraded to 27-point of which 25 are cross-type. This is compared to the 11-point autofocus in the K-5.

Although the sensor is still the half-frame APS-C size it has increased from 16.3 megapixels in the K-5 to 24.4 megapixels in the K-3.

Also, like a lot of the very high-end DSLRs coming out now, the K-3 has no anti-aliasing filter. However, unlike some other DSLRs, on the K-3 you can dial-in an anti-aliasing filter if needed. This is done virtually using sub-pixel vibration of the sensor. If this works it is very clever—if it works.

From the few reports I can find on the Web a lot of attention has been given to the video capabilities of the K-3 which can now shoot 1080 resolution video at 60 frames (interlaced). And to cater for the larger higher-resolution video files you can now put two SD memory cards into the camera.

The video function now has its own dedicated ‘red’ button. So presumably you can pick the camera up and start shooting with minimum time wasted.

There is also going to be a limited edition silver K-3 available. It seems there will only be 2,000 of these made.

So now we wait for the reviews to start to appear and see if this upgraded technology actually brings with it the image quality improvements you would expect.

If you would like to have a look at some of the pre-release ‘previews’ then there is one here at Imaging-Resources and another here at DPReview.