Q and X-5 head to head battle!

Last year during the Pentax Q closeouts, my wife decided this was the right camera for her.  Something very small, quite talented and at a decent price would suit her well.  This was a real surprise to me as it missed out on a few features she likes a lot - but OK order placed.  It wasn't quite that simple, as she wanted us to have identical cameras to work with; that way she could see how I shot the same subject and learn what to do, or (equally likely) find that her ways worked best for her.  So two black Qs soon reached us.  I have enjoyed my time using the Q, though in no way can it replace a K-5 in most situations.


And now the loop repeats, this time with the soon-departing X-5.  Now here are the features my wife likes on a camera: both the tipping LCD screen and some variation of a viewfinder, in this case a basic electronic one.  These two features caused us to begin with two Lumix G1 micro-4/3 cameras before the Qs came about.  I found the silver X-5 for under $120 and figured I would show it to her, just in case.  We could try the Q and X-5 out for a while, compare and contrast, and pick the camera that worked best for her.

Round one!
And... it's over.
Well, it was simple really.  The screen and VF won out over the Qte factor of the Q even before they were powered up.  No drama, no exhausting tests, nothing.  I shall now seek a black X-5 and sell off one of the Q pair.  This tells you just how cute the Q is in person, that my sweetie would choose it a year ago despite its lack of a few features she cannot be happy without.  It turns out that she did not want to change lenses either, so the advantages of the Q was really not for her.

So: now that we have a winner, how are the images?  Oh yes, that's probably worth knowing right?  Thankfully the test shots are quite nice, especially after shifting to spot metering.  Close-ups and far-outs are crisp, details are clear, fringing not bad.  I do wish the X-5 allowed for raw images as the 16mpxl backlit sensor could conceivably do a fine job... alas it's jpeg only.

I'm planning to keep one Q for a while at least, as I want to test its usefulness on a telescope; I bought a Q-1¼" telescope adapter but had to pack the gear away for our upcoming move before giving it a tryout.

. . . . . . .

UPDATE: black body acquired, though it was less of a bargain.  As of now only silver bodies are being refurbished it seems, so a brand new black X-5 will have to do!