Pentax aims to cash in on white's cachet

When Apple wanted to set its products outside the pack, it made them white. When the Beatles wanted to tell the world they had produced an exceptional album, they made its jacket white. When George Lucas wanted to give his Imperial Stormtroopers some futuristic panache, he made their body armor white.

White can be a very evocative color, especially when it comes to things digital. And that seems to be something the marketers at Pentax are counting on when the company releases a special edition version of its K2000 entry-level digital SLR in February.

The special edition package promises to be an attractive one. Not only does it include the body of a K2000 in gleaming white, but two Pentax lenses--one an F/3.5-5.6 18-55mm zoom, the other an F/4-5.6 50-200mm zoom--both en blanc.

Aside from its color, the special edition K2000's features mirror its black brother's.

It's a 10.2 megapixel DSLR with a 2.7-inch LCD with a resolution of 230,000 dots. It has a shake reduction system and dust removal technology. In addition, it includes a number of auto picture modes--portrait, landscape, macro, action and night portrait--to enable novice shutterbugs to snap good pictures without fussing with a lot of camera settings.

No pricing as been revealed yet for the package, but industry watchers predict the package will sell for around $800.