Thankfully, my title above is wrong and the new DSLR from HOYA CORPORATION PENTAX Imaging Systems Division still bears the Pentax badge!
You can however see the HOYA culture encroaching: the camera is called a “lens-interchangeable” DSLR. The English in the press release is pretty good, but it’s obviously a translation and it just reads a bit funny.
The new Pentax K-7 catches up with the semi-pro offerings from Nikon and Canon, but is it too little, too late? The body design is a bit more sophisticated, more professionally elegant and staying with the “K” series is a good marketing move. Thankfully gone for good is the unpronounceable “ist” era!
Here are the basics:
- 14.6MP resolution on a 23 x 15.6mm CMOS image sensor
- Continuous Shooting at 5.2fps (max. 40 JPEG images)
- Dustproof, weather- and cold-resistant body
- Dust Reduction System
- Live View with Contrast AF mode
- HD Movie 1280 x 720 pixels 16:9 @ 30fps
- 3.0-in. (920K dots) LCD
- HDR (High Dynamic Range) function creates one composite image from 3 images shot at different exposure settings
- Digital Level function
- Attachment of copyright credits on recorded images
- RAW file format at the press of a button
- 16 Digital Filters (such as: Toy Camera, Slim, Watercolor,…)
- External microphone socket
- SD/SDHC memory card
- Optional Battery Grip D-BG4
The Pentax K-7 is compact, much smaller than its Canon and Nikon competitors. Live View, according to reports from early reviews, is still painfully slow as on most other DSLRs.
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