A Modest Mouse
Veteran Member
Hello Pentaxians
I wanted to give a follow up for those still holding their K20D's and considering pulling the trigger on the K-7 as it plummets in price. For the record, I owned the K20D for 1.5 years [20,000 shots] and enjoyed it thoroughly, despite some compromises in performance. I have owned the K-7 for two days - I bought it along with the Pentax grip. In this 'summary', I will give my opinion on, what I feel are, relevant differences or observations between the two models - I am a street/low-light/ambient-light shooter, who has a passion for no-flash portraiture and candids. I own 5 prime lenses: the FA*24, FA31 Limited, FA43 Limited, DA70 Limited, and the FA135.
Build: Both cameras are very solid - the K20D being 'noticeably' larger in the hand. The K20D could probably let out an occasional plastic 'flex' sound if gripped by a strong hand - that doesn't feel possible with the K-7. The K-7 has the size of an entry-level Canon and the build of a pro-level Nikon; it takes a few minutes to get used to the camera in this regard after holding the K20D - which was both built and sized like a semi-pro APS-C DSLR. With the battery grip, the K-7 is heavier and larger than the K20D, but provides nearly a perfect balance of weight/size/grip; so far I prefer the K-7 with the grip - and enjoyed the K20D very much without the grip. If the K20D is a 9/10 in build - the K-7 is a 9.5; and it is docked from perfection by the small body (without the grip) which won't work for some.
OVF: Knowing that I'm seeing 100% of the frame is nice, but the quality/size/clarity of the OVF feels identical to the K20D for me.
LCD: A nice LCD, no doubt, but again - it isn't the huge upgrade that it sounds like, at least in practice, for me. I do find it more useable for Live View MF, but any other advantage is minimal IMO. I do suppose if one had a small memory card and needed to start making some in-camera deletions prior to getting back home - it would be helpful to check critical focus in playback.
Control Layout: I'm still kind of neutral on this point - I'm not sure which I like better yet, as I need more time to use the K-7. I do hit the EV and ISO buttons sometimes in my search for the green button, but I think I'll get used to it. The direct access to LV is also nice - while the loss of the bracketing button isn't an issue for me as I never used it. I do like that they brought the 4 buttons stacked vertically on the left of the K20D's LCD back to the main control bank - it requires less searching.
Sound Pollution: I was going to title this section "Noise" - but we all know that wouldn't do. The K20D is a loud camera - the shutter is loud, the dust removal at startup is loud, stop-down metering with an M lens is loud, and AF is loud as it hunts in low-light. The K-7 has a very quiet shutter, the dust removal is pretty much inaudible - as is stop-down metering, and the AF is much more decisive and therefore quieter. These factors seem much more evident to me than the OVF and LCD and really add to the 'quality' factor of the K-7.
AF: I find the autofocus on the K-7 to be quick, decisive, and accurate. The K20D would operate in this fashion in very good lighting, and it's performance would drop considerably as the quality/amount of light decreased. For my needs, the K-7 is a major improvement; to give you an idea of how I shoot, I take many of my shots around ISO1000, f2.8, 1/30s (that would be sort of an average region for my shooting havits). In the sort of light where the above 'formula' would equate to a good centralized exposure - the K20D would hunt for 1-3s before locking focus. The K-7 will lock focus consistently at under a second in this sort of light - it feels considerably more decisive and is difficult to fool into hunting. The K-7 is also considerably more accurate than the K20D is in warm artificial lighting; giving the user less worry that shots in these situations will be lost do to misfocus. The AF isn't perfect on the K-7, but if you could be effective with the AF of the K20D - you will excel with the K-7.
Noise/High-ISO: I want to be concise here, so I'll say that I see no meaningful difference in noise/detail in K20D and K-7 RAW files from ISO 100-800. From ISO 800-2000, the K20D is producing 'cleaner' RAW files, however, it appears this is at the expense of some fine detail. The K-7 is slightly (less than half a stop - I'd say) noisier at ISO 800-2000, but appears to retain more fine detail; I suspect this is partly do to the 'grain' of the K-7 noise which is considerably smaller and therefore resembles grain moreso than blotches; IMO. I also believe Pentax (and others) are using varying amounts of NR in the RAW pipeline to give more pleasing results. For me, and others that do their own NR on their RAW files, the K-7 output can be pretty much molded to the K20D output with a bit of NR. Despite fuzzy claims otherwise, after all is said and done - these are nearly identical sensors with different surrounding parts. I feel like the K-7 is viable up to about that ISO 2000 mark - right around where I would stop shooting the K20D.
Focus Accuracy: Aside from my FA135, which seems to backfocus with every camera I've have it on, the rest of my lenses are very very spot on with the K-7. I even suspect there were times when my FA43 wasn't focusing accurately with the K20D as it has a previously un-noticed look of detail when used with the K-7.
I'm sure I've left out several things, but that is a brief overview. Here are a couple of casual portraits I took with the camera the first night I had it. One with the FA*24 and the second with the FA31.
-Mouse
I wanted to give a follow up for those still holding their K20D's and considering pulling the trigger on the K-7 as it plummets in price. For the record, I owned the K20D for 1.5 years [20,000 shots] and enjoyed it thoroughly, despite some compromises in performance. I have owned the K-7 for two days - I bought it along with the Pentax grip. In this 'summary', I will give my opinion on, what I feel are, relevant differences or observations between the two models - I am a street/low-light/ambient-light shooter, who has a passion for no-flash portraiture and candids. I own 5 prime lenses: the FA*24, FA31 Limited, FA43 Limited, DA70 Limited, and the FA135.
Build: Both cameras are very solid - the K20D being 'noticeably' larger in the hand. The K20D could probably let out an occasional plastic 'flex' sound if gripped by a strong hand - that doesn't feel possible with the K-7. The K-7 has the size of an entry-level Canon and the build of a pro-level Nikon; it takes a few minutes to get used to the camera in this regard after holding the K20D - which was both built and sized like a semi-pro APS-C DSLR. With the battery grip, the K-7 is heavier and larger than the K20D, but provides nearly a perfect balance of weight/size/grip; so far I prefer the K-7 with the grip - and enjoyed the K20D very much without the grip. If the K20D is a 9/10 in build - the K-7 is a 9.5; and it is docked from perfection by the small body (without the grip) which won't work for some.
OVF: Knowing that I'm seeing 100% of the frame is nice, but the quality/size/clarity of the OVF feels identical to the K20D for me.
LCD: A nice LCD, no doubt, but again - it isn't the huge upgrade that it sounds like, at least in practice, for me. I do find it more useable for Live View MF, but any other advantage is minimal IMO. I do suppose if one had a small memory card and needed to start making some in-camera deletions prior to getting back home - it would be helpful to check critical focus in playback.
Control Layout: I'm still kind of neutral on this point - I'm not sure which I like better yet, as I need more time to use the K-7. I do hit the EV and ISO buttons sometimes in my search for the green button, but I think I'll get used to it. The direct access to LV is also nice - while the loss of the bracketing button isn't an issue for me as I never used it. I do like that they brought the 4 buttons stacked vertically on the left of the K20D's LCD back to the main control bank - it requires less searching.
Sound Pollution: I was going to title this section "Noise" - but we all know that wouldn't do. The K20D is a loud camera - the shutter is loud, the dust removal at startup is loud, stop-down metering with an M lens is loud, and AF is loud as it hunts in low-light. The K-7 has a very quiet shutter, the dust removal is pretty much inaudible - as is stop-down metering, and the AF is much more decisive and therefore quieter. These factors seem much more evident to me than the OVF and LCD and really add to the 'quality' factor of the K-7.
AF: I find the autofocus on the K-7 to be quick, decisive, and accurate. The K20D would operate in this fashion in very good lighting, and it's performance would drop considerably as the quality/amount of light decreased. For my needs, the K-7 is a major improvement; to give you an idea of how I shoot, I take many of my shots around ISO1000, f2.8, 1/30s (that would be sort of an average region for my shooting havits). In the sort of light where the above 'formula' would equate to a good centralized exposure - the K20D would hunt for 1-3s before locking focus. The K-7 will lock focus consistently at under a second in this sort of light - it feels considerably more decisive and is difficult to fool into hunting. The K-7 is also considerably more accurate than the K20D is in warm artificial lighting; giving the user less worry that shots in these situations will be lost do to misfocus. The AF isn't perfect on the K-7, but if you could be effective with the AF of the K20D - you will excel with the K-7.
Noise/High-ISO: I want to be concise here, so I'll say that I see no meaningful difference in noise/detail in K20D and K-7 RAW files from ISO 100-800. From ISO 800-2000, the K20D is producing 'cleaner' RAW files, however, it appears this is at the expense of some fine detail. The K-7 is slightly (less than half a stop - I'd say) noisier at ISO 800-2000, but appears to retain more fine detail; I suspect this is partly do to the 'grain' of the K-7 noise which is considerably smaller and therefore resembles grain moreso than blotches; IMO. I also believe Pentax (and others) are using varying amounts of NR in the RAW pipeline to give more pleasing results. For me, and others that do their own NR on their RAW files, the K-7 output can be pretty much molded to the K20D output with a bit of NR. Despite fuzzy claims otherwise, after all is said and done - these are nearly identical sensors with different surrounding parts. I feel like the K-7 is viable up to about that ISO 2000 mark - right around where I would stop shooting the K20D.
Focus Accuracy: Aside from my FA135, which seems to backfocus with every camera I've have it on, the rest of my lenses are very very spot on with the K-7. I even suspect there were times when my FA43 wasn't focusing accurately with the K20D as it has a previously un-noticed look of detail when used with the K-7.
I'm sure I've left out several things, but that is a brief overview. Here are a couple of casual portraits I took with the camera the first night I had it. One with the FA*24 and the second with the FA31.
-Mouse
