Pentax K7 DSLR Body Only

I have been using scores of film and digital cameras since the 1970s. The ones I loved the most were the Pentax film (MX,ME). More recently last year I bought a couple of canons 5D & 5D MkII plus many professional lenses at a cost of multiple 1000s of pounds. All to large to cart around the town or countryside with. I had a F1.4 50mm pentax lens that I had used a while ago so I purchased a Pentax K7. Beautiful, small and indiscreet with moderately fast lenses on. Does everything that most other digital cameras do. Noise is acceptable at higher ISOs and the built in flash does the job for snapshots and fill in. A quality product with a solid weather proof body. I have 3 lenses, one from samsung that was a bit cheaper than pentax. Works perfectly and produces outstanding results. I sold all my canon gear as apart from being intrusive the shutter made quite a thump when released. THe shutter on the pentax is smooth and silent with the bonus of shake free setting on the camera. Excellent product

I've owned a K10d for quite a while now and absolutely love it. The only thing that I find really irritating about most pentax cameras (my K10d included) is the slow focusing and poor frames per second rate.

I've been having a play around with K7 thanks to a local camera shop and I am very impressed.

The K7 just feels sooo much quicker (than previous pentax dslrs), and surprisingly small - smaller than the K10d or K20d and much smaller than the Nikon D300. The focusing is much quicker and up there with the Nikon/Canon systems. The frame rate, whilst not quite matching the new Nikon D300s (7 fps!), is way better at 5.2 fps vs the 3 fps managed by my K10d. This still is not quite up there with the Canon 50D (6.3 fps) either, suggesting sports shutter bugs might want to look elsewhere, but it is still a big improvement over past cameras.

There are some quite cool features like built in HDR, which kind of works quite well and has different settings. I cannot see it replacing the results you can get from photoshop.

In the hands it feels as well built as the K20d/K10d, which is a good thing. The K7 if anything, feels better, thanks to the magnesium alloy body. Moving around the camera you notice how well thought out some of the additions are. You get a dedicated ISO button on the top, saving the bother of having to go through the menu to adjust it. The exposure compensation button moves up to the top alongside the ISO button, near the shutter release where they feel like they make the most sense. There are some other minor tweaks, but the other most useful one is the white balance button, available at a single press of a button when in shooting mode - much handier than the K10d.

The screen is gorgeous compared to the k20d/k10d and of a much higher res, around 930,000 pixels (versus around 230,000 in previous cameras). Despite being an impressive 3" it does not make the rest if the back of the camera feel cramped. All in all, the K7 retains the best features of the K20d body and improves on it, significantly.

You still get the unique shooting modes (at least I think Pentax are the only ones who do them) where you can have complete control over the aperture and shutter speed but the metering system will vary the ISO to correctly expose the image (called Shutter & Aperture Priority mode). Another mode which I think is unique is the Sensitivity Priority mode, where you choose the ISO you would like, and the camera adjusts the shutter and apertures to expose correctly. They are more useful than you might think, and surprising that more cameras don't have them.

I must admit that I have not used the live view or video so I cannot comment on that, but from what I have heard it is better than the K20d (Live View) and the video is ok but has no aperture control. Personally I'd rather have dedicated video recorders, I use a Creative Vado Pocket Video Cam HD - Camcorder - High Definition - Widescreen Video Capture - black and just carry it around in the camera bag.

Image quality, from what I can gather from the screen, is very good. Noise seems well under control up to about 1600, but noticeable after that. Although I suspect that it would be more evident on a larger screen. I certainly think that the improved metering system makes it much better to get a great shot straight off.

All in all, this is finally a Pentax with the specs, image and build quality to match the higher end Canons and Nikons. If it had a slightly higher frame rate I'd give 5 stars.