K7 on Luminous Landscape

[wtlwdwgn]

<p>For better or worse, Michael Reichman's hands on review of the <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/k7-hands.shtml">K7</a> .</p>

[michael_elenko]

<p>Yes, see the thread 4 topics below. Quite a lot to talk about.</p>

<p>ME</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>Humm not really much of a review. Seemed more of a "I turned this on for 5 minutes and here's what I found". Disappointing from a site that I usually really like.</p>

<p>He missed many features and frankly after reading the conclusion, I wonder how much shooting he really did with the camera? Seems llike he was looking for other brands features in a Pentax that he couldn't find. Instead of looking at the Pentax method of designing a camera. He says,that he never used the 2 lenses they sent him enough to draw any conclusions about them. So did he actually shoot anything with the camera? How many shots do you need to assess a lens? 100?</p>

<p>Not a word about HDR or SR, Barely a mention of the WS body. No comparison of the VF against other cropped sensor bodies (it was compared to FF which is completely irrelevant)</p>

<p>So as for salient comments: Bingo!! We have a winner!!:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I could not agree more (with a slight edit):</em> Let's not mention Pentax's first DSLR, the 2003 <strong>*ist D</strong> . Regardless of the camera's merits, this has to have been the stupidest product name in the history of the photographic industry. It probably cost Pentax a place in the DSLR marketplace for years, that maybe only now the K7 will regain.</p>

</blockquote>

[jim_mcdermott]

<p>Much as admire LL usually, and being by no means a Pentax fanboy (having already decided the K-7 was not nearly a sufficient improvement for me to part with my K20D), I have to say that this skated perilously close to being a Rockwellian review - that's to say, effectively not worth the key-strokes it took to get in onto e-paper.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Most posts here recognize that there's little to recommend K7 over K20D, and many think K10D is close. LL reported precisely what Pentax intended with K7. It's the concensus.</p>

<p>Pentax has never been worked very hard to be accepted a "professional" camera (with the exception of the abandoned 645). It's always been an exceptional amateur camera, optically plenty good (like Minolta, Konica, Nikon, Canon, Olympus...), a great value, a lot easier to tote around casually than Canon F1 or Nikon F series. With bottom quality Canon (A1 et al) and Nikon (which vastly outsold Pentax) one could always graduate upstream to the pro versions... the top Pentax simply wasn't accepted by many pros (save for the wedding guys who didn't go with Mamiya). Pentax touted small size, but pros didn't seem to want that as much as Canon/Nikon's well-justified confidence factors.</p>

<p>Obviously, there was no reason for LL to do a lens test...the story was about the body.</p>

<p>K7 is 80% as great a value as K20D was on introduction: since the price is so much higher it's presumably a lot more profitable (if it can sell the same number of units). That's a good thing for Pentax...don't "Pentaxians" want Pentax to survive?</p>

[les_lammers]

<p>Here is a post from DP Review about living with the K7.<br>

<a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=33307589">http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=33307589</a><br>

This is the first post/review I have read that got me considering a K7...after the price really drops. :-)</p>

[jtk]

<p>The dollar's strengthened recently and the GBP has slipped . When GB changes politics it may slip further or may go the other way..currency traders love volatility but GB businesses will raise prices on Japanese goods, just to be on the safe side. If/when US long bond rates (eg 20 & 30year) rise (which would happen if somehow we went from recession to inflation...highly unlikely soon) the dollar will get even stronger (virtually automatic). When the US completes substantial withdraw from Iraq and Pakistan gets tough with Taliban, driving them into US troops in Afghanistan, the dollar will get even stronger. You read it here.</p>

<p>You can guess what that will mean to Pentax prices in the US vs GB :-)</p>

[les_lammers]

<p>Yeah, the lens prices should go down...they will 'cause I just ordered the DA 15.</p>