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Photo-John 
I picked up the Pentax *ist D digital SLR at this year's PMA tradeshow, in Las Vegas. Pentax marketing manager, Michelle Martin, was kind enough to lend me her personal camera. I was excited to finally get a chance to use it, especially since I was driving home to Nor Cal, through LA. The road trip gave a really good opportunity to get a feel for the camera and use it in a variety of situations.
Everyone asks how to say, "*ist D". Maybe it makes more sense in Japan. I asked the Pentax folks and even they seemed a little unsure. I've been calling it the "star ist dee", and they called it the "ist dee". I think that they don't really care what you call it, as long as you buy one :-)
The bottom line is I thoroughly enjoyed using the Pentax *ist D. The size and ergonomics are great, the features and functionality are excellent, and it's nice to see such a solid initial digital SLR offering from Pentax. I got it with the digital-specific kit lens - the SMCP-FA J 18-35mm F4.0-5.6 AL - which is a good match for the 6 megapixel CCD sensor. It makes a very good, all-around, point-and-shoot lens. I'd like to try the camera with a pro lens, like the SMCP-FA 20-35mm f/4 AL, to see how it improves the overall image quality. But I don't have any complaints about the FA J 18-35mm.
The thing I liked most about the *ist D was the size and feel. It's very small - the smallest digital SLR I've handled - so it's easy to take everywhere. That meant it was easy to take mountain biking and keep in the car. It's actually not much bigger than the Canon G2 I usually take riding. But the *ist D is a much more capable camera than any compact digital, with way better image quality due to the larger CCD and better image processor. It's built very well and feels it, which gave me confidence while shooting, handling it in the field, and taking it out on my bike on rough trails. It doesn't feel like a toy. It feels like exactly what it is - a very small, professional camera.
We shot studio test images with the *ist D at all ISO settings (except the expanded ISO 3200 setting). The links below will take you to corresponding gallery pages where you can view the full-sized JPEG files. Metering was done using the camera's histogram to ensure that there was no highlight clipping. All controls (sharpness, contrast, saturation, etc.) were left at their default settings and the images were shot in the camera's TIFF mode then resaved as high-level JPEGs in Photoshop 7.0.
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