"The *ist DS is one of those cameras which grows on you, it's certainly compact and well put together but when you first pick it up you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a bit basic. In actual fact it packs more features and controls than most other budget SLR's and has some impressive performance to back that up. In use we found the *ist DS a very nice 'photographic tool', it always does the job, auto focus is reliable, that big viewfinder is a welcome change from some of the 'tunnel like' viewfinders found on other digital SLR's. Put it this way you're never left thinking you bought the second-best Pentax digital SLR.
With the *ist DS Pentax is clearly targeting the first time SLR user, this becomes clear when you see the 'AUTO PICT' exposure mode, the way the camera describes each exposure mode and the fact that the 'normal' image tone is fairly contrasty and highly saturated. In my opinion they could have done better by making the 'Natural' setting (with a little bit of sharpening) the default and provided 'Bright' as an option, either that or tone down the color saturation of that mode. Users upgrading from a consumer digital camera however will find the *ist DS less of a leap in what they expect an 'out of the camera JPEG' to look like."
from DP review do the research, its up to you
