Pentax k7 vs Pentax k20d

Pentax K7, the new flagship camera has been announced. It creates plenty of buzz in the internet before and after the announcement. From the specification, it seems like Pentax K7 is doing many things right. But compare to Pentax K20D is upgrading to Pentax K7 suit you and worth your money? Until today, the price differences between the two is quite big. K20d is about $550-650 less expensive. With this extra cash, you can buy one Pentax k-m kit with flash.

First, we want to list about what new in Pentax K7
1. Hi-res lcd screen 920k vs 230k dots
2. Movie mode, HD 720p at 30fps with external audio input
3. Might be one stop cleaner in high ISO (waiting for test)
4. Five fps continuous burst vs 3 fps
5. Improvement of AF speed and accuracy (waiting for test)
6. Digital filters with other post processing / image correction feature
7. 100% viewfinder coverage (.92 magnification) vs 95% (.95 magnification)
8. New 77 metering mode
9. Magnesium alloy casing vs Plastic/ steel casing

Body and Design
Pentax K7 body is a completely redesigned and very different from k20d, or k200d. It is significantly smaller than the bulky Pentax k20d, but closer to the size of Pentax k200d. It is quite remarkable that Pentax can design such a compact body but packed with advanced technology such as movie mode, fast continuous shoot, 100% coverage viewfinder and other features. The smaller size of K7 is also a welcome for most traveling/outdoor photographers.
But, for many people that have above average hands, K7 might be a little bit small. But fortunately, new battery/vertical grip for the K7 will also be available to purchase.

Main Features
Pentax line, especially K20d, is famous for its weather/water sealing, and high image quality, but has major limitation in auto focus speed and continuous shooting speed. K7 is trying to solve the problem by improving it to 5fps and new AF system which is claim to be faster than k20d.

Following the trend of movie mode in recent Digital SLR, Pentax k7 is the first Pentax DSLR that has movie mode. This movie mode is not as good as Canon 5D mark II, but it has an external audio output. This feature is only found in 5D mark II which is a higher-end camera.

I suspect that the movie mode, improvement of the metering, auto focus speed are the reasons why the price of Pentax K7 is significantly higher than Pentax k20d.

In Conclusion
Pentax K7 is definitely a better camera than Pentax k20d, but you will need to decide if you need the extra features especially the continuous shooting speed and movie mode. If you don’t need these features, K20d or even k200d will save you money that you can use to invest on lenses or even another camera.

Comments (imported from old blog platform)

Daniel James
Maybe not a significant enough upgrade for those who recently bought their K20Ds, but perhaps for those of us who’ve had our K10Ds for awhile…

Still, I hate to have to buy a new grip as well as a new body (the larger size of the K10D was, frankly, one of its selling points – I tried the Rebel and it felt like a toy in my hands). Here’s hoping my 540 flash will still be compatible. Perhaps even the remotes (both wired & wireless)…

Enche Tjin
Btw, I just read shocking news from Ricehigh Pentax Blog. He quits Pentax and move to Canon.

here is one of the reason (11 total) about K7’s value

“In fact, “upgrading” Pentax bodies endlessly one by one, say, even waiting for and upgrading from the *ist D->K10D->K20D to K-7, or whatsoever is just and surely money wasting – no doubt. The benefits and improvements that the user would get are all very minimal and insignificant. In fact, the changes in machine performance and picture quality are rather incremental and marginal.”

http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2009/07/really-no-more-hope-with-pentax.html

Tagged as: pentax k20d, pentax k7