John Riley reviews the new weather sealed Pentax K-50 Digital SLR to see how it performs.

Excellent image quality; Dustproof and weather resistant; Fast operation including upgraded AF; Glass pentaprism viewfinder; In body shake reduction; Backwards compatibility with thousands of lenses; Wide ISO range; Excellent ergonomics; Excellent build quality; AA Battery option; 120 colour options

No QuickShift on DAL Lenses; Loud focus on DAL lens

The Pentax K-30 was our favourite SLR of 2012. Its large optical viewfinder, dual command dials, weather-sealed body and 6fps burst mode are features that Canon and Nikon charge considerably more than £600 for. Our only serious reservation was that its angular, sporty design wasn't easy on the eye.

First "proper" digital camera I have had to replace my 35mm SLR. Can still use all my old filters, lenses etc and the live view means I can see if they are correctly exposed etc. So very pleased

The Pentax K-50 was announced in June 2013 as a replacement for the popular K-30, which we reviewed in August 2012 . It has a similar, weather-sealed, dust-resistant body but improved versions of the 16.3-megapixel APS-C sensor and PRIME M processor, which have been tweaked to reduce noise and...

Pentax has a knack of making its cameras stand out from the crowd, and from the all-white K-30 to the colourful compact Q range, they always catch the eye; the latest K-50 D-SLR - its most advanced entry-level model yet - keeps this tradition going.

After a year or two, my camera started to give me black pictures randomly. And now, it's impossible to get any picture via the viewfinder, they are all black. The only solution is to take them in LV mode. Pentax refuse to recognize the problem and leave the users on themselves.

The Pentax K-50 is a fully weather-sealed D-SLR camera with an big optical viewfinder and fast burst shooting capability. It's available to order in any of 120 color combinations, but its video functionality is behind the times.

Large pentaprism viewfinder; Weather-sealed design; 5.9fps burst shooting; Customizable controls and noise reduction; In-body shake reduction; Very good high ISO performance; Available in 120 different colors

Fixed rear LCD; No mic input; Slow to focus when recording video

Everything that makes the Pentax system great, now at a lower price

I spent around 2 weeks trawling every review that I could find on the internet, comparing the Pentax K50 along with a Canon 700D and the Nikon d5300. It was such a struggle to make the final choice, all get excellent reviews, but the K50 won hands down.

Durable; Great Features; Great Picture Quality; Simple Controls

We are not camera experts by any measure but we decided we wanted to get a DSLR as we weren't happy with the quality of our point-and-shoot cameras. We were considering the Rebel but once we got an idea of how big the Rebel was we decided to shop around... we're very glad we did!