New DSLRs Announced: Pentax K20D and K200D, Samsung GX-20

GX-20, K200D, K20D, Lenses

Good old PMA. Always full of camera announcements to keep the wheels of commerce rolling along. Go commerce!

First up we have the Pentax K20D. It’s similar to the Pentax K10D, with such upgrades as a 14.6 megapixel sensor manufactured by Samsung, live view, and an expanded dynamic range function. They say that the new sensor, while the same size as their competitors’ 12 megapixel sensors, has less circuitry around the edges, and therefore larger light-sensitive areas that let them get away with a higher resolution without more noise. It’ll be interesting to see what the tests turn up when K20D reviews start to come in. It fits in the midrange of DSLR models, above the also-new Pentax K200D, their entry-level model. The K200D is an update to the K100D, getting a resolution upgrade to 10.2 megapixels. It also features a weather-sealed body, and a CCD-based anti-shake system.

Also recently announced is the Samsung GX-20, which uses the same sensor as the Pentax K20D. And is all-around very similar; the body could easily be confused for a K20D body, and the resolution and main features are all the same. It sounds like Samsung has their own firmware, and they say they have different JPEG processing than the Pentax, but presumably the RAW files would be pretty indistinguishable between the GX-20 and K20D.

Pentax also announced a handful of new lenses: a 200mm f/2.8, 300mm f/4, 35mm f/2.8 macro, 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, and a 55-300 f/4-5.8.

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Rumors: Nikon D60, Canon 450D, Pentax K200D

Canon, K200D, Nikon

A few scattered DSLR rumors for you this New Year’s Eve day.

Nikon D60

First is the Nikon D60. The rumors say it’ll be arriving in spring of 2008. These rumors supposedly come from someone who leaked the news about the Nikon D3 before the official announcement, and so are slightly more believable than what some random person with no credibility posts on the Internet.

These rumors are being paired up with news that the Nikon D40x is being discontinued, and the theory is the D60 (or whatever it’ll wind up being called) would be the replacement for the D40x.

Canon 450D

Canon is scheduled to make some big announcements in their DSLR line in January, and this rumor of a Canon 450D (which would be a successor to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi) fit with that.

According to these rumors, it would have a 10.1 megapixel sensor (not full frame), the Canon DIGIC III processor, offer 14-bit RAW images, have a 2.5″ LCD display with live view, better autofocus, support for sRAW, a dust removal system, and burst mode up to 5 fps.

The rumored date for the rumored camera is January 24th (no big surprise what with PMA at that point.)

Pentax K200D

This one looks like the most trustworthy rumor of the bunch, see all the photos over at Photography Bay. That’s an insane amount of image chopping if it’s fake.

The rumored specs — which didn’t come attached to the photos, so they might be a little more suspect — are that the K200D will have a 10 megapixel Sony image sensor, 3 fps burst mode (a maximum of 10 shots in RAW, no limit with JPEGs), 11-point auto focus, and a larger LCD than the K100D (size unspecified in the rumors I could find.)

Big heaping salt blocks should be used with any of this news, but I’m passing it along because what kind of irresponsible web journalist would I be if I didn’t? Not a very good one, I can promise you that.

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