Colour range

Opening flower
Originally uploaded by Mike_Foster

This pic in particular shows the subtle palette of the K-7. There are so many different rich hues in the emergent petals. Also the detail is incredible. !00% viewfinder again comes into its own.

So how do I feel about the camera after a good few weeks?

I'm still massively impressed with it. The image quality is superb and stands up to serious cropping/enlargement. The camera's build quality and usability is right up there with the best and I'm struggling to think of how they could have improved the ergonomics. They've used the larger screen to great effect to give a much broader and more sensible menu tree and a very usable short cut menu for frequently used functions that haven't got a hard button. The battery life is already impressive. Stick a battery grip on it and you're going to be taking an awful lot of pics before you need to change anything.

In true real world terms: I've yet to find a situation where I'm not happy with how this camera performs. In the hands of someone with a good knowledge of how to get the best out of a digital camera and of basic photographic techniques there's no reason at all why your results shouldn't stand up against anything generated by any other APS-sized sensor DSLR on the market at the moment at the point of it being printed and exhibited.

Back to macro

Ashy Mining Bee
Originally uploaded by Mike_Foster

I'm really enjoying using this camera for macro. Again the live view screen comes in handy. Shutter lag is annoying with it for active subjects, though.

Shooting RAW really comes into its own here.

In the window seat

In the window seat
Originally uploaded by Mike_Foster

Triumph of manual mode and old manual focus glass. I'm quite pleased with this one as it was remarkably easy to set up with the green button as a starting point and using the digital preview as a quick-fire Polaroid back.

The lens was the Vivitar 55mm f/2.8 Macro again which is rapidly becoming my all time favourite prime lens, though I'm itching to try the same kind of shot with my f/1.7 50mm. I still love using older glass with these cameras; it's saved me a fortune over the years.

Monochrome conversion is courtesy of Adobe Camera RAW rather than in camera.

ISO woes!

House Spider
Originally uploaded by Mike_Foster

I could have done with ISO100 here.

I'm really not sure why Pentax have chosen to start the ball rolling at 200, but I hope they'll do a firmware revision so I don't have to post process salvage.

That said, the RAW saved this shot as it dialled out all the spare light bouncing around from the background whiteness due to the flash but more control in camera would have been nice.

Also it's a bit annoying that my *istDS communicates with my ring flash's auto mode perfectly with manual focus macro lenses but my K-7 does not - or at least if it does I am still to find the custom tweak. It seems that they're assuming that everyone will want to upgrade to fully automatic glass.

So a bit of a niggle at last!