Image Quality

Pentax Q10 review – Image Quality

The Pentax Q10’s image quality is mixed. The main headache comes with the camera’s wayward metering system, which often either under or overexposes. Although it only typically does this by between ½-1EV – and so well within the capabilities of the exposure compensation function – it can be difficult to predict which way it’ll sway. Its Auto White Balance option also shows some variation between producing marginally warmer and colder images. When it gets it right, however, colours are beautifully vibrant, and suitable for printing or online publication without any further adjustment.

Up until around ISO 400 the camera handles noise well, with just a faint coloured patterning scattered over darker areas. JPEGs show a good balance between noise reduction and sharpness to offset this processing, although images in general fail to compete with those from other Compact System Cameras due to the general lack of critical detail present in images and the frequent loss of highlight detail in brighter areas. Barrel distortion is also pronounced at the 5mm end of the lens, although the in-camera Distortion Correction option does well to rectify this.