K-7 on Sale at B&H...with Specs

<p>Howard, the preview on dpreview is up and there is AF adjustment.</p>

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<p>Javier,<br /> I must have missed something. What's wrong with the viewfinder?</p>

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<p>It's not 1.5x magnification. Javier loves the view through his full-frame Nikon D700.</p>

<p>The price is VERY VERY VERY VERY reasonable.</p>

<p>Hmm, now if I can only get to B&H when I'm in Brooklyn for fathers day.</p>

<p>Pretty sure they are closed saturday and open sunday, pretty sure the baseball game we are going to is Saturday. Had plans to go to manhattan anyway on Sunday. Definitely this is a camera I need to touch before buying since the layout is so different.</p>

<p>This has similar features to the D90, but is WAY better built (metal and sealed). As I've always noted, I don't see Pentax stealing to many Canikon shooters, but they will pick up a few disgruntled people, with this offering, and a nice lens lineup.</p>

<p>The K-7 looks like a nice camera. Makes me kinda glad I passed on the porky old K20D, TBH... But OK, if the K20D price gets attractive enough (500€ or less...?) it may be hard to resist its cheap, plastic, chubby charms... :)</p>

<p>As for the new metal-bodied minx, I'm happy to let the early adopters shove their cash into Pentax's pockets... :) I'd rather wait for the inevitable price drop, myself. As always... :)</p>

<p><em>"Expected release date: July."</em><br>

Umm.. this year?</p>

<p>Oh, there's no AF adjustment on the k7????<br>

why the heck not? I'd gladly give up my "precious" raw button for that=)</p>

<p>howard, I don't see why we'd want to give up magnification for 100% coverage... Magnification helps with manual focus and welll, seeing better. Also, I haven't seen the vf obviously, but I doubt many could tell the differnce between 95 and 100% coverage.... just doesn't seem worth anything, hope i'm wrong.</p>

<p>Miserere,<br>

Thank you.<br>

The K10D (which I have) has .95x magnification, 95% field of view, the K7 has .92x magnification, 100% field of view. Is this a wash, better? worse?<br>

Howard</p>

<p>Russel, there <em>is</em> AF adjustment. You can adjust for one lens (up to 20 different lenses) or apply the adjustment to all lenses. See the "Custom Function menu" section on page 11 of the dpreview preview.</p>

<p>Russell,<br>

How'd you do that? I hadn't asked the question yet!<br>

Howard</p>

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<p>If it is firware, why can't I have that for the K20D</p>

 

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<p>I feel for you....remember, I was asking the same thing for the K10D. Almost all the upgrades minus the sensor for the K20D over the K10D were firmware, including auto bracketing, and DR expansion, interval timer, focus adjust, etc.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, while firmware was promised to eliminate premature obselesence of products, manufacturers forgot that they still needed to sell new products to stay in business, and thus firmware updates are not effectively implemented. I would have paid $100 for a K10D firmware upgrade that gave me all the possible features of the K20D in the K10D. They could have even included an extra year of basic warranty for the price to boost sales of firmware. Firmware has a minimal production cost to the company, so of that $100, I'm sure most of it is pure profit.</p>

<p>BTW, I'm not advocating selling minor firmware upgrades but going from K10D 1.3 to 2.0 they could charge a fee and not feel bad about it.</p>

<p>Howard, haha, actually, I'm asking the same question as you are, but making it sound like I know what I'm talking about... that's what I think about the new viewfinder, but I'm not sure.<br>

James, sorry, didn't get that far in the dpr and didn't see your other post. good to know!</p>

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<p>The K10D (which I have) has .95x magnification, 95% field of view, the K7 has .92x magnification, 100% field of view. Is this a wash, better? worse?<br /> Howard</p>

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<p>Howard, this is worse for me because it means the picture you are seeing through the view finder will be eve smaller than what you have in the K10D.</p>

<p>I am keen for one single thing on K-7. It is not the video, not the fps, and not many of the wonderful new features but the improvement on AF responsiveness especially for AF.C and improvement on response time to get to first focus lock. K20D fell short on AF improvements and I sure hope that k-7 can deliver. I can say that I love everything in K10D or K20D except the AF not responsive to tracking fast moving objects and slow to respond to first focus lock.</p>

<p>One surprising feature that homes in for me is the <strong>electronic level indicator</strong> . Whatever that is, I sure it can help me to have perfectly aligned pictures out of camera. It is a shame to adjust every single pictures that I have tilted from 2 to 3 degrees, more on the portrait orientation. I have tilting problems that I am convinced coming mostly from user errors. This is a good feature to me to say the least.</p>

<p>Subconsciously I am realizing I use my film cameras more than my K20D because of the view finder.<br /> Looking at what I have in my truck at the moment...<br /> 1)spotmatic SP2, 2 ME SUPERS and 1 canon point and shoot. No DSLR...TISK, TISK TISK...</p>

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<p>The K10D (which I have) has .95x magnification, 95% field of view, the K7 has .92x magnification, 100% field of view. Is this a wash, better? worse?<br /> Howard</p>

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<p>Howard, this is worse for me because it means the picture you are seeing through the view finder will be eve smaller than what you have in the K10D.</p>

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<p>It does feature a new "Natural-Bright-Matte III". Maybe this can compensate for the lower magnification. But yeah, like you said, it really boils down to our own personal tastes and needs.<br>

I wonder how long it'll be till the <em>"Should I get a K20 or K-7" </em> threads start appearing.</p>

<p>So I just had a thought....</p>

<p>Electronic Level Indicator + Rotational SR motors == Self Leveling sensor?</p>

<p>How great would it be if you could just get close to level and let the camera fine-tune the leveling for you? <br>

I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the reviews, but if they have that option I'm leaving it on all the time.</p>

<p>Believe me, you will not notice any difference between the magnification of 92% vs 95%. You do notice some difference between the 85% of the mirror prism K200D (rated very good) and the 95% of the pentaprism K20D (rated excellent).</p>

<p>I read a very good article in Pop Photo some years back by Herbert Keppler on VF design. The question then was- why are even the better AF SLR VFs not as high in magnification as many of the old MF SLR designs. BTW, the Pentax ME Super at 95% has one of the highest. The later PZ-1p was tested as 86% for an excellent rating. Keppler explained that with more technology having come into play, there is much more info to be displayed along with the image in the VF. Too much magnification cuts into the available border space for displaying this info, and requiring moving the eye side-to-side for the user to see all of it. Especially true for those wearing glasses. The ME Super's VF could not accommodate all the info of later SLRs without this problem. Now we have the necessarily smaller VFs that fit the APS sensor, so it would take about 145% to equal the FF ME Super's 95% VF, or more than 130% to equal that of the also FF PZ-1p SLR. This could pose more problems than is solved, being the space to work with is very limited. You just cannot fully compensate for a FF VF on an APS design. I believe the slight reduction in the K7's VF was to work in some additional info for display in the new VF, and/or make it more visible.</p>

<p>Many pro photographers have for a long time sought a 100% coverage VF. This is for exact framing, so that doing a lot of cropping later is unnecessary. But in the days of using frame mounts for prints, or slide mounts, that 5%-10% short of accurate coverage left some extraneous border material that fit under the mount anyway. So 100% was of less importance for most people. But now, frequent cropping-out of extraneous material to compensate for inaccurate VF coverage means more processing time, and more throwing away of pixels. That said, 95% coverage is considered very high grade. The better Pentax film models were an exceptably high 92% coverage.</p>

<p>Gonna steal this now, since we're on the topic of viewfinders,<em> any ideas on the coverage and mag an original SP had? </em></p>

<p>I am glad for 100% viewfinder coverage, but do not want to give up magnification. That will really screw with manual focusing. And because I am not afraid to MF when things get tough, improvements to AF are not as big a deal for me. I do realise others have different priorities. I was hoping this would be the killer camera for old-timers and new-timers like myself who prefer the manual way. But it isn't and I guess we won't ever get one now.</p>

<p>The new screen might help focus at wider apertures. That would be good. Unfortunately I will never get a hands-on of the camera so will wait 6 months and debate everyone's opinions and save up and wait for the price to drop.... same as usual. I was rather hoping for something more compelling. Something that screamed "BUY ME NOW!"</p>

<p>One thing I am good at is holding the k20D level, so the electronic indicator is not a compelling sell. I hate tripods so won't use the sensor tilt thing, but I do commend Pentax on that piece of innovation -- very cool!</p>

<p>So basically I'm with Javier on this one -- you might even see me on other forums looking at the FF offerings. There. I've said it. If only Nikon had these cool FA Limited lenses. But even Pentax doesn't design anything that nice any more.</p>

<p>But back to the positive. I do like the focal plane marker. And a quieter shutter is great news for some of the art events I frequent.</p>

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<p>Many pro photographers have for a long time sought a 100% coverage VF. This is for exact framing, so that doing a lot of cropping later is unnecessary. But in the days of using frame mounts for prints, or slide mounts, that 5%-10% short of accurate coverage left some extraneous border material that fit under the mount anyway. So 100% was of less importance for most people. But now, frequent cropping-out of extraneous material to compensate for inaccurate VF coverage means more processing time, and more throwing away of pixels. That said, 95% coverage is considered very high grade. The better Pentax film models were an exceptably high 92% coverage.</p>

 

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<p>On film 100% was sort of over rated since the film scan is less than 100%, so was the area of the frame after slide mounting. On digital you will be more likely to use the whole frame....HOWEVER, on digital you can instantly review your edges on the LCD.</p>

<p>So 100% is a push to me if I have it tripod mounted, I can simply check the edges on the LCD. If it's action, I'd probably be fine cropping a little off in post.</p>

<p>So this is a feature that can be looked at either way. You could just add a magnifying eye piece to make up for this as well.</p>

<p>Tried a magnifying eyepiece but it cuts off field of view, esp. as I wear glasses.<br>

P.S. Pentax cameras still rock. And are great value for money.</p>

<p>Gotta admit I like what I see. This is pretty much the camera I want Canon to make. Unofrtunately I am too heavily invested in Canon glass to switch, but I might pick up one of these when they drop to run-out prices.</p>

<p>C'mon Geoff, join the Dark Side :-)</p>

<p>Dark side? Trust me, being with Canon makes me feel like I've sold myself to an evil empire.<br>

From where I stand, Pentax looks positively like a small and courageous bunch of rebels.</p>