During my brief period of ownership of a Pentax K20D there was a feature which I really liked: there's a custom setting to define the function of the two control dials. For example in program mode the front dial does program shift and rear does ISO; front for aperture and rear for ISO in aperture priority, front for shutter and rear for ISO in shutter priority, etc. I like this because it's really easy to adjust the ISO on the fly with your eye up to the finder, no separate ISO button or diving into a menu needed.

I'm trying to figure out what other cameras this can be done on. The same control scheme carries over on the Pentax K-7. It takes having 2 control dials, which eliminates most companies entry- and mid-level cameras. I'm thinking this might be a Pentax-specific feature because from what I can tell all the other brands' cameras with 2 control dials also have a dedicated ISO button. Do any of you guys have one of these cameras and can shed some light on this? Thanks!

 

i believe this is only on the pentax. every camera i have used or owned has had dedicated ISO button.

 

I think my D90 does it but i don't have it here to confirm this

 

if i remember correctly, the d90 has a auto iso setting. which changes the iso as you change your speed. what fatbooty is talking about is changing the iso on the fly through the view finder, to what ever he wants if i read it correctly.

 

Yeah exactly. You have the option to set either dial to adjust ISO. Scroll down to #22 on this page: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk7/page12.asp

Seems pretty intuitive to me, but yeah maybe is Pentax exclusive. That being said, for cameras with a dedicated ISO button the second control dial seems less necessary to me.

 

On the d40 there is a function button that you can assign different things to. I currently have mine set to change white balance, but I can select ISO also.

 

yup im about 95% sure this is a pentax exclusive function.

speaking of which and this is kind of lame...but i like the color options on the k2000

sorry bri its the same as the d90

 

I think it's the K-x with the color options. The K-x actually doesn't have 2 control dials so you have to do a few button presses to change ISO like any other camera brand. That aside though I really like the K-x except for one dealbreaker. It has the same sensor as the D90 & D5000, plus built-in image stabilization. BUT the focus points in the viewfinder don't light up. The only way to see the selected focus point is to look at the LCD onthe back of the camera which sounds really annoying to me.

 

oh wtf! that would be a auto deal breaker for me. i need to be able to change my focus points on the fly in the view finder, and be able to see what focus point is selected through the view finder.

 

Yeah it's really disappointing since the initial reviews on image quality are really good. It has the D90 sensor but the Pentax processing handles low light and high ISO even a little better than the D90, and has pretty solid AF and continuous-shooting performance.

But the control scheme seems very biased towards just leaving it in auto and not messing with the settings too much; making most changes requires diving into a couple layers of menus. Me no likey. It's really disappointing because the K10D, K20D and K-7 have some of the best (IMHO) control layouts of any camera, but the K-x has nicer image quality.