Pentax K200D Viewfinder

The Pentax K200D's viewfinder is an optical through-the-lens type, with the LCD monitor being used for image playback and menu access only. (That is, there's no live image preview available.)

Pentax says that the K200D's viewfinder provides a magnification of 0.85x and a coverage of about 96% (coverage is slightly better than that, according to our tests). The K200D's dioptric correction adjustment (for eyeglass wearers) has a range from -2.5 to +1.5 diopter. The eyepoint is unspecified, but seemed on the low side to us: We had to get our eye pretty close to the eyecup to be able to see the entire viewfinder frame clearly. As is common in entry-level DSLRs, the K200D's viewfinder is a pentamirror design, rather than the more costly, but brighter pentaprism.

The Pentax K200D's viewfinder readouts do a good job of communicating camera status and exposure settings, showing most of the usual info such as AF points, flash status, focus mode, shutter speed, aperture, focus confirmation, ISO sensitivity, EV compensation, anti-shake status, etc., plus additional settings not normally seen in a viewfinder display, such as scene and RAW modes. See the diagram below for the complete list.

Viewfinder Test Results

Accuracy
Very good accuracy from the optical viewfinder.

18mm, Optical	55mm, Optical

The Pentax K200D's optical viewfinder proved quite accurate, showing about 98% coverage at wide-angle, and about 97% coverage at telephoto zoom settings. This is above average coverage for a consumer digital SLR, especially an entry-level model.