This is awesome! Pentax unveiled its latest digital SLR, the Pentax *ist DL2 in a compact form-factor. Targeted at beginners, this is affordably priced and offers simpler operations. Designed as a successor to its popular *ist DL model, the body of the *istDL2 is easy to handle thanks to its light weight.

The Pentax *ist DL2 features an increased number of AF sensor points and eight Scene Modes. Packaged in a portable body, it uses a high-rigidity stainless-steel chassis, 10-layer electronic circuit boards, high-density packaging technology, and mirror-box and shutter units designed to match the size of the CCD.

An innovative Auto Picture mode selects the most appropriate picture mode for a given subject - from Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Macro or Action - ensuring just the right amount of aperture, shutter speed, saturation, sharpness and other image details.

Pretty much standard now, the Pentax *ist DL2 features a 2.5" color LCD preview screen offering 210,000 pixels. The menu screen is pretty intelligent enough to choose an optimum color scheme depending on the background which I think is cool. The CCD image sensor, measuring 23.5mm x 15.7mm, offers 6.1 megapixels (effective). Thanks to the Pentax image processing technology, users can look forward to high levels of gradation and saturation.

For more info on the Pentax *ist DL2, head to Pentax's website. Other great features are in the extended entry.