Performance
It’s not just how well the camera responds but its output quality
Should grain intrude all three here have pop-up flashes
IIf you’ve read this far and are seriously considering buying a digital SLR, image quality is going to be your chief concern: ultimately your desire is to be taking pictures that look closer on screen and in print to what the professionals achieve. Happily, none of the cameras featured are slouches. For general photography we’ve always loved the look of the images straight out of Pentax cameras and the K-70 doesn’t disappoint. If your hobby is nature and landscape photography – or you’re travelling to somewhere with arresting colours like Cuba – it’s well suited to delivering lush greens and deep blues, and that weather resistant body is a bonus for outside shooting. The Nikon delivers a more natural look straight out of the camera, which is perfectly suitable when conditions are favourable. If, by contrast, conditions are dull, there is the in-menu option to select ‘Vivid’ Picture Control mode to give those primary colours an in-camera boost. The Canon’s performance falls somewhere in between the two, with a pleasing ‘warm’ look, but not so wellsaturated that images wind up looking unrealistic: ‘flattering’ is a better term to apply.
All three deliver plenty of detail, though we did find the broader focal range provided by the Pentax’s 18-135mm kit lens more useful for extending our shooting beyond portraits, which is what the standard 18-55mm zooms that come with the Canon and Nikon are arguably most suited to. Of course, most consumers are going to be buying these cameras to take better pictures of family and friends at the telephoto (maximum zoom) end and landscape/travel shots at the widest 18mm setting. Ideally, though, we’d advise picking up a camera body and two or three lenses to get started, if budget – or special retail bundle deals – allow. Should grain intrude when attempting low light images without flash, all three here have pop-up flashes, with the option to add an accessory flash to their hotshoes for more pro, shadow-free results.