Introduction

Ease of Use

As you would expect, the body of the Pentax QS-1 is very small indeed, but the standard kit lens protrudes pretty far from the front making the camera unable to fit in your jeans pocket - if you’ve got a reasonably large jacket pocket you might be able to just about squeeze it in though.

Despite its small size, the Pentax QS-1 is equipped with a fair buttons and dials. On the top of the camera, you’ll find a mode dial for choosing between the different exposure modes the camera offers, such as aperture priority, shutter priority and fully automatic. You’ll also find movie mode here.

Front of the Pentax QS-1

Along with this dial there’s the shutter release button, which is fairly raised up from the camera body itself. There’s also the on/off switch and a second dial which performs various tasks depending on the shooting mode you’re in, or what you’re doing with the camera.

On the top left hand side of the Pentax QS-1 is the playback button, along with a switch for making the camera’s flash pop-up. Immediately after you’ve taken a photo, it can sometimes take a little while for the playback button to be responsive - something to bear in mind in case you press it a few times thinking it doesn’t work.

Rear of the Pentax QS-1

Finally on the top of the camera is a hotshoe, to which you can attach external accessories should you wish, such as a flash or a viewfinder.

Moving to the back of the Pentax QS-1, all of the buttons are grouped on the right hand side of the camera. The first button you’ll see is the +/- exposure compensation button, which is of course used to alter exposure compensation when shooting in automatic and semi-automatic modes. It can also be used to switch between shutter speed and aperture priority when in manual mode.

Press this button once, then use the scrolling dial on the top of the camera to make the adjustment to the setting you need. If you’re in aperture priority or shutter priority, simply scrolling the dial on its own will adjust aperture, or shutter speed. Just underneath this button is a green button which has a couple of different functions, and also doubles up as the delete button when in playback.

Top of the Pentax QS-1

There’s also a traditional four-way navigational pad. Each of the directional keys is assigned to a specific function. The up button accesses ISO (sensitivity) control, the left flash functions, the right timer functions and down white balance. With ISO, press the ISO button and then you can either set the automatic range by using the scrolling dial at the top of the camera, or you can pick a specific ISO setting, by pressing down and scrolling to the one you need, such as ISO 800. For white balance, press the down key and scroll along to the particular setting you need - or leave it on automatic if you prefer.

In the middle of the four way navigation pad is an OK button. Press this and then use the directional keys to change the autofocus point. You can change the size of the AF point by using the scrolling dial at the top of the Pentax QS-1, which is useful if you’re photographing something with fine detail. You can also use the green button to quickly return the focus point to the centre of the frame.

You can also choose to use manual focusing by selecting this option in the main menu. Activating focus peaking means that when you twist the focusing ring around the lens, areas of highest contrast - and therefore usually the areas of best focus - will be highlighted on the screen.

The Pentax QS-1 In-hand

In order to reach the settings you’re likely to change most often, you can press an info button at the bottom back of the Pentax QS-1. This gives you access to settings such as metering, aspect ratio, custom image and so on. Simply use the navigational keys to move to the setting you want to alter, the use the scrolling dial at the top of the camera to make the change.

The final button on the back of the Pentax QS-1 is the main menu button, which you use to access all of the camera’s settings, including those which you won’t find in the quick menu. The menu itself is reasonably easy to follow, being separated into different sections. There’s also a section which you can customise if you often find yourself wanting to change a  particular type of setting and want quicker access to it.

On the front of the Pentax QS-1 is a dial which is marked with a dot and the numbers 1-4. By default, this dial controls “Smart Effect”, which means that if you move between the numbers a different digital effect will be applied. You can also customise this dial to other functions, such as aspect ratio, focus method, focus peaking and ND filter.

Front of the Pentax QS-1

On the opposite side from this dial is another fake dial, this is useful for helping to grip onto the camera, but doesn’t turn or provide any other function other than to balance out the appearance of the front of the camera.

When in shooting mode, the screen will display a number of different icons to represent the different settings, for instance across the top of the screen, you’ll see the exposure mode, whether the flash is on or off, white balance setting, file type and so on. A useful display is the digital level - two bars show both horizontal and vertical straightness can be used to help you get level horizons - simply line up the camera until the line inside either one or the bars turns green.

The screen itself is fairly bright and clear, and you get a good view of the scene you’re photographing with a minimal amount of reflection or glare unless you’re in extremely bright sunlight.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 12 megapixel Best JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 3.5Mb.

Directly from the Pentax QS-1, colours are nicely saturated, displaying a good amount of warmth without erring too far towards the unnatural.

One of the advantages of choosing a Pentax camera is that the raw format is the universal DNG, which means you can generally open them with whatever photo editing software you use, such as Photoshop.

If you compare colours in the DNG files with the JPEG files, generally there’s a little more saturation, but you can also see in JPEG files where the camera has applied lens correction to fix problems with distortion - either way, it’s good to have the DNG if you prefer to do your own processing and control every aspect here.

Detail is reasonably well resolved, especially for something with the same size sensor as a compact camera. If you examine images at 100% it becomes clear that there is some image smoothing going on, even at reasonably low sensitivities such as ISO 200, but it’s not something that is too apparent at normal printing and web sizes.

At small printing or viewing sizes, images taken at the higher end of the sensitivity scale are acceptable, but if you zoom into them, you can see the introduction of noise and some image smoothing and loss of detail. Comparing the equivalent RAW image with the JPEG image you can see that there is quite a lot of  noise reduction applied, with lots of chrome noise visible at higher sensitivities such as ISO 3200. This is good news if you want to apply your own noise reduction and control the amount of detail retained in a shot.

Generally speaking, the Pentax QS-1’s all-purpose metering system is good at producing accurate exposures, while similarly, the automatic white balance system is good at determining the lighting situation to produce accurate colours, even under artificial lights.

There’s a couple of different options available if you want to get a little more creative. First of all there’s “Smart Effects” - which are four effects which can be reached by the front dial on the camera. There’s also “Custom Image”, the majority of which are a little more subtle and tend to reflect the qualities of traditional analogue film. Finally, there’s also a set of digital filters, which includes options such as Fish-eye and Posterization.

Noise

There are 8 ISO settings available on the Pentax QS-1. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with JPEG on the left and the RAW equivalent on the right:

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are slightly soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can also change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your tastes.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash modes include Auto, Auto + Red-eye Reduction, Flash On, Flash On + Red-eye Reduction, Slow-speed Sync, Slow-speed Sync + Red-eye Reduction, Trailing Curtain Sync, and Flash Off. These shots of a white wall were taken at a distance of 1.5 metres.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (27mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (27mm)
Flash Off - Wide Angle (84mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (84mm)

And here are some portrait shots with the flash off and on.

Flash Off	Flash Off (100% Crop)
Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)

Night

The Pentax QS-1 lets you dial in shutter speeds of up to 30 seconds and has a Bulb mode as well, which is very good news if you are seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 30 seconds at ISO 100.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Pentax QS-1 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Best JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Pentax QS-1 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files in the DNG format. We've provided some Pentax RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.

Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.

Product Images

Front of the Pentax QS-1

Front of the Pentax QS-1

Front of the Pentax QS-1 / Pop-up Flash

Front of the Pentax QS-1

Front of the Pentax QS-1

Rear of the Pentax QS-1 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Pentax QS-1 / Turned On

Rear of the Pentax QS-1 / Main Menu

Rear of the Pentax QS-1 / Info Screen

Top of the Pentax QS-1

Bottom of the Pentax QS-1

Side of the Pentax QS-1

Side of the Pentax QS-1

Front of the Pentax QS-1

Front of the Pentax QS-1

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The compact system camera market is very crowded at the moment, and the area which has a lot of competition in particular is the very small, pocket friendly cameras with lots of companies vying for attention as “world’s smallest”.

Although Pentax has created a very small camera here in the shape of the QS-1, as a trade off, the sensor is very small - the same size as the majority of compact cameras.

By comparison, other very small compact cameras, such as the Samsung NX Mini and the Nikon 1 range have one-inch sensors, while the Panasonic GM5, which isn’t a great deal bigger, has a Four Thirds sensor.

That said, image quality from the Pentax QS-1 is decent, if not amazing, and there’s a good amount of control you can take with fully automatic modes available. Creativity is catered for with the different digital effects, and while they’re worth experimenting with, sadly there’s nothing extraordinary here. You’ll get the best image quality in good light, so if you’re looking for a holiday or travel camera, it’s not a bad option - but if you’ll often be photographing parties or late night events, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.

It’s very easy to use the Pentax QS-1 , and for something so small, it’s nice to see such a wide array of dials and buttons to make the majority of settings changes at your fingertips. It would be nice to see a little more customisation options, but that said, Pentax has mostly made sensible choices when it comes to button placement so it’s not too much of a loss.

At the moment, Pentax is offering a range of eight different lenses for the Q mount, which covers most bases but is nowhere near as extensive as those offered from the Micro Four Thirds range - although it’s a larger selection than available for the Samsung NX Mini mount.

For those looking for an ultra small compact system camera, the Pentax QS-1 is a reasonable option, especially if you've got some kind of affinity to the Pentax brand. If you have concerns about low light shooting, take a look at the excellent Panasonic GM5 for a better, if more expensive, option.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	3.5
Features	3
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	3.5
Value for money	3.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Pentax QS-1.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Pentax QS-1 from around the web.

Specifications

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