Excellent speed for a consumer-oriented digital SLR.

The Pentax K10D's performance was quite fast overall, beginning with a quick start-up time of only 0.4 second. Shutter lag is good on average, and "prefocus" time (half-pressing and holding down the Shutter button before the final exposure) is also about average at 0.107 second. Shot-to-shot cycle times are very good, at about 0.39 second for large/fine JPEGs, and the camera can capture over 20 frames at this rate. Continuous-mode speed is slightly above average at about 3.1 frames/second, for over 20 shots in succession, regardless of resolution. The flash is quick to recycle at 3.75 seconds after a full-power shot. Connected to a computer, download speeds are exceptionally fast, so you won't feel a need for a separate card reader. Bottom line, Pentax K10D performance is above average for a consumer-oriented digital SLR. The K10D is responsive enough for action shots, and its quick flash recycling time is a nice bonus as well.

Battery
Good battery life with the custom LiIon battery pack.

The Pentax K10D uses a custom rechargeable LiIon battery for power, and comes with a charger. Even though runtime is quite good, I strongly recommend picking up a spare battery pack and keeping it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings. (Digital camera batteries are firm believers in Murphy's Law, always running out of juice just as the best photo ops of the day are available!)

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The Pentax K10D accepts SD/SDH cards, though no card is included.

The chart above shows how many images can be stored on a 512MB card at each size/quality setting. We strongly recommend buying a large capacity SD/SDHC memory card, at least a 1GB card, preferably a 2GB or 4GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings and more liberal use of RAW (PEF or DNG) mode.