Finally got play around with the K-7 for a while...

[magomago]

Absolutely awesome....

The camera feels slightly smaller than my K100D, but it feels WAY more solid (And I never felt my K100D was a slouch either!). Much more dense -probably because of the magnesium body adding to the weight. I could definitely knock someone out with a hit to the head using this cam. The ergonomics were also spot on and did a BETTER job than 100D imo (which I enjoyed as well). Things just fit nicer.

The AF in low light is beyond my K100D. This is not a "Af is slightly better" statement.
AF is CLEARLY better and this is without a doubt. I took it into some low light areas that I know my K100D would hunt for, and this guy just snapped without a problem. I even tried to throw some low contrast scenes on the AF point, and it would hunt for 1/3 of a turn and then lock. I was impressed. I was initially worried b/c the AF system was advertised as a "plus" version of the original system (which wasn't the greatest), but those fears exist no longer. Enough of a plus that things entirely different.

The camera was also much faster and extremely responsive. Take and pic and it instantly appears on the camera (I'm used to around 1/2 second delay). That goes to about 1/2-2 second delay if you turn on everything like autoleveling, distortion correction, etc etc that directly goes into processing.

Movie mode was also very well done. Pick your aperture and run with it. I had a lot of fun controlling where I was focused.

The composition mode is also much nicer than it seems. You could micro adjust and shift things about 20%*length of the frame.

Other things were very nice - the electronic level didn't just work horizontally, if you switch to portrait mode it adjusts to be a vertical electronic level. The digital filters were fun (A 'Holga\Lomo' mode) and suprisingly detailed. You could apply all the filters you want to the image. Then, later, if you want to see how you altered the photos you could go back and the camera willa ctually tell you what filters, and in what order you applied them. That attention to detail is pretttttty damned nice and really helps to make the package look good.

I like how almost everything is button driven. ISO has a button, aperture and shutter have their own wheels, WB, etc. etc. Teven the metering selection was dial controlled. This may exist on the K20D, but I only have a K100D for reference. Even the The only thing that was in the menu (although its not 'dug deep' in there, its just 1 level in) is the IS on/off function. I'm totally fine with that though because I rarely turn it off. I honestly would have rather had my IS button do something more useful.

The weather sealing was nice. I found out that the reason "Cold Resistance" got added was that they used a new material for the weather seals that didn't contract/expand and they found that they could use it in more extreme conditions without a problem. The K-7 has a greater number of seals, but that isn't because they did a "better job sealing"....its because the camera itself has more buttons, and thus it will have more seals to cover up those buttons.

I didn't focus on pixel peeping at all. Sorry about that

Again it was built like a tank. If you wanted it larger, the grip really expanded the size. I actually felt that, "dayum...the grip is nice!" and molded onto the camera very well. The buttons were also placed in very useful positions.

Oh and all the DA* lenses and the pancakes made me almost jizz in my pants. I need realllllly need to think about that DA35 Macro...that lens has some special magic in there.

Ned Bunnell, Pentax's president, was there casually talking and relaxing with everyone. John C. was also there (he posts on dpreview). Mark Dimalanta was there to give a nice presentation (And he really pushed how he could take it into any weather...and he had many shots were he just kept shooting even though it was pouring outside). It was nice to see the grass roots level outreach - and it was especially nice to freely access all the glass and play around with it.

I used to struggle about K-7 vs K-20...but now its a done deal. K-7 for sure. The attention to detail is just great. I'm probably not going to bite till the end of the year (unless I just really need my flash working and go crazy over it...then I'll bite lol)

Finally, they brought in a K-7 cut in half. That was awesome as well xD its amazing how densely packed everything is aside from the mounting area. Oh, and that pentaprism is fucking tight Nice and big (Oh, pentamirror FTL now. I can't believe I'm shooting with such a dim viewfinder. 100% .92x is awesome, but of course is defeated by FF, but that is something APS will never get past )

 

[Gooberlx2]

Awesome. Looks like you got more out of the show than I did...and a bit more in-depth presentation. John C did the whole thing (he did quite a good job actually) at ours. Mark didn't present, though he was there. I was pressed for time, so after the presentation and raffle, I got to play around a bit and snap a few shots, and then had to bolt.

I really wanted to try out the levelmeter, micro-sensor adjustment, video mode and a couple more lenses.

 

[murban135]

Thanks for the write-up OP. Sounds like a good replacement for my K10D.

 

[randomlinh]

sounds very promising. I still would like to see one in person myself. I may have to resort to renting because I don't think any local places carry it. the more I hear about it, the more I want to try it out. I really wish pentax could get a bigger push in the market.

 

[extra]

Pentax stuff is great. If I didn't shoot canon I probably would have went with Pentax because they both have one big similarity: Tons of great old glass you can use.

I mean there's so many old affordable pentax primes that you can mount on these things. I think I have a 200mm F/4 sitting in a bag at home, it's my mothers--always wanted to get an adapter and throw it on my canon. On that K7 though it'd be stabilized even..how awesome is that?

 

[Gooberlx2]

Perusing through the Compare-o-meter at imaging-resource, I really do like how Pentax approaches image detail and noise. It think it's more pleasing to look like film grain and retain detail than everything be perfectly smooth. It's also something that works great for B&W.

Some simple observances with the ISO 100 still life image:
Compared to Canon 50D: Pentax simply has better detail. Especially noticeable in the blue-flowers and red-leaves fabrics.
Compared to Nikon D300: They're about equal in the blue-flowers, I think Nikon has an edge in red-leaves, but Pentax has an edge with the lower contrast vanilla fabrics.


Looking at the text on the Fiddler's Elbow bottle, Pentax has an aliasing thing going on. But I wonder if it's a pre-production issue, jpeg compression, or it's simply pulling out more detail from the text on the bottle, revealing imperfections in the print the other cameras don't (possibly due to NR?).

 

[Deadtrees]

Many of K7 suffers from banding problem even in low ISO settings. Check for banding problems.

 

[magomago]

I dunno about htat. I've seen quite a few complaints, and even discussion (from roland on dpreview, who says he won't say where his source is as its confidential, but he could be blowing shit for all we know) that its a sensor issue. There was a huge debate on whether its pentax's fault or samsung's fault the the yield is lower (ie: pentax should be double checking the sensors <-- one argument; samsung should be checking what they ship out <-- other argument), and that bad sensors are pushed out the door. I'm going to opt till around christmas because I bite the K-7 bullet just to let these works work out.
There were some users with a vertical green line in the frame and they sent it in and got a new one. There was a single user who claimed to go through SIX K- 7s (which is absolutely astonishing and I'm not sure if I can believe that, especially since it was from different retailers...unless all the retailers he went to got their cams from the same bad batch) but I honestly want to say its either not real, or its a lucky situation. If the problem was as bad as he claimed, I find it hard for it to be isolated and issues like these not appearing EVERYWHERE constantly with the absolute majority of users.

edit:

I must say though that these QA issues are annoying as hell. Its like every fucking manufacturer has been dropping the ball on this...and we are paying good money for these products

 

[bludragon]

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Some simple observances with the ISO 100 still life image:
Compared to Canon 50D: Pentax simply has better detail. Especially noticeable in the blue-flowers and red-leaves fabrics.
Compared to Nikon D300: They're about equal in the blue-flowers, I think Nikon has an edge in red-leaves, but Pentax has an edge with the lower contrast vanilla fabrics.


(possibly due to NR?).

I'm looking at the iso 800 images and I prefer the smoother, more solid looking canon image at the pixel level. Also the canon seems to retain slightly more detail on the bottles. The fabrics do look sharper on the pentax, but is that just due to higher default color saturation and sharpening?

 

[GoSharks]

Originally posted by: bludragon

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Some simple observances with the ISO 100 still life image:
Compared to Canon 50D: Pentax simply has better detail. Especially noticeable in the blue-flowers and red-leaves fabrics.
Compared to Nikon D300: They're about equal in the blue-flowers, I think Nikon has an edge in red-leaves, but Pentax has an edge with the lower contrast vanilla fabrics.


(possibly due to NR?).

I'm looking at the iso 800 images and I prefer the smoother, more solid looking canon image at the pixel level. Also the canon seems to retain slightly more detail on the bottles. The fabrics do look sharper on the pentax, but is that just due to higher default color saturation and sharpening?

I'm looking at the 50D and comparing to the K7, both at ISO800, the K7 has way more detail on the bottle (new indoor shot).

In the still life shot, you can actually see lines in the shirt of the guy on the Fiddler's Elbow bottle with the K7.

Of course, all these differences could just be lens/focus issues.

 

[randomlinh]

I finally was able to hand hold a K7 at BH yesterday (finally went to NY, heh). Holy crap it's an awesome camera physically. great size/weight/build. AF seemed pretty good, but couldn't really test much in the store. A little dimmer than store lighting and it seemed to be spot on. The shutter sound just had a smooth feeling to it.

IQ still have to rely on online samples, but if I were starting out now, I'd get the K7 and a set of pancakes. Unfortunately I will not likely switch to it from canon, it would just cost too much. The pancakes aren't worth the cost of selling everything to swap, I'd rather take the easy way out with a 7D and dedicate more to the m43's system I'm getting into.

But a very nice camera physically. I like it much much more than anything else in that price range.