Pixiq

There were rumours – of course there were rumours – but Pentax has revealed its, tiny, shiny (well, metaphorically speaking, seeing as actually it’s matt), mirror-less secret. It’s called Q, and it’s Pentax’s EVIL wonder. (And yes, I think of James Bond every time I read its name.)

Q is supposed to be Pentax’s answer to the clamours from its users for a smaller, lighter, go-anywhere interchangeable lens camera that can up the game on a compact. It’s either that, or it wants to compete with Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, and Samsung in their EVIL backyards. Me? I think it might be the latter.

It took Panasonic a matter of days to wrest the ‘smallest, lightest interchangeable lens camera’ crown from Sony, and now Pentax has usurped them both with Q. Of course losing the mirror and optical viewfinder makes a difference to its size, but the brand, spanking new Q-mount lenses are quite a bit smaller than the more familiar K-mounts. (More on those lenses later.)

The sensor has 12.4 effective megapixels and the imaging engine is part of a new generation developed by Pentax, which it reckons can minimise noise, especially in conjunction with the new lenses. As for sensitivity, that ranges from ISO 125 to 6,400. Top shutter-speed is 1/2000 second, and it comes with all the modes you’d expect: P, TV, AV, and M. (And auto, of course.) I rather like the pop-up flash, which should help to eliminate the evil of red eye. We hope.

In-camera effects are de rigueur now, and Q does not let us down on our quest for a toy camera look, or high saturation images, or high contrast images with the focus on one colour. (Pentax is calling this ‘Funicular bold’. I’ve not figured out why yet.) But, not to be outdone, Q also comes with the ability for users to programme their own effects, too.

Yes, it makes videos, too. You know, I think I might start mentioning when a camera doesn’t have video as it is rather an industry standard now. Continuous shooting, meanwhile, only happens in JPEG, and that’s up to five images at a maximum speed of five frames per second.

For anyone new to the whole being-able-control-background-and-foreground-focus business, there’s a specific bokeh control function so that subjects can be suitably sharp and anything else suitably defocused. It’s all about judging distances and relative distances between the subject and anything else in the frame from the camera.

It does HDR; it has 21 pre-programmed scene modes; and if you hanker for an optical viewfinder, you can buy one as an optional extra.

So, what do we think? Are we going to be counting down the days until Q is available (in white or black) in mid-September, for an as yet undecided price, or are we not that bothered? I can’t say that I’m desperate to own one, but I’d love to give one a go. And I reserve the right to change my mind.