K-7 Unboxing (from Amazon) (w/ plenty of pics)

[arpaagent]

Just thought I'd show my unboxing of the K-7, even though several others have already done so. I figure I'd document it since it's a significant investment .

Just as a note, I am upgrading from K200D (although I plan on keeping it as well).

This is a UPS 1-day shipping package...it's somewhat beat up...which I normally wouldn't mind, but...


when I opened it up further, I noticed that Amazon has apparently run out of packing supplies!


Well, I had to go on, despite the lack of packaging.






Bubbles!


Now if only I could figure out how to open the...


...There we go.


Unfortunately this is what you have to deal with before getting to play much...




Waiting for the juice...


Ready to Rock and Roll!



Hope you enjoyed my photo story. K-7 works, been messing around with lots of stuff, the video, metering with pre-KA mount and M42 lenses, etc. Messing with the autofocus, AF assist lamp, all kinds of stuff.

If you have any specific questions, I'll try to help. I have a lens from just about any lens line (M42 preset, M42 auto aperture, K, M, A, F, FA, DA* series...).

There are a few things that I'm still investigating that I might find worthy of comment (read: annoyances), but for the most part I am having fun with the new toy. It really is a well-built machine and feels solid and precise.

-Jim

[RonMexico]

pretty funny

with a brand new camera like that, surely you wouldn't need an old manual focus lens like that 85mm 1.8....so i'll just take that off your hands for ya.

hahaha

[dopeytree]

Nice! I'm eagerly awaiting some samples from you next. I'm still waiting for my supplier to get stock here in the UK

[kent]

what about af speed?

[Daveinozbikes]

This is one of those conspiciuos events in life. Like your first child, a Christening or other other religious event, a wedding or any occasion that is happy and stays in your memory forever.....brings tears to your eyes and makes your heart swell with happiness........all in all an awesome moment....... a moment that makes life worth living.....

[mickey]

Nice set up of a K200 and K-7.
But, fancy putting that old lens on a brand new K-7


Really don't know what to say about Amazon's packaging, or lack of it...

[arpaagent]

Originally Posted by RonMexico

pretty funny

with a brand new camera like that, surely you wouldn't need an old manual focus lens like that 85mm 1.8....so i'll just take that off your hands for ya.

hahaha

Good luck with that! I'd probably get rid of my K and M series lenses before my SMC Taks. They are just so...nice, and look really good on the camera in my opinion. Hopefully I can beef up my video skills and make some nice videos with this lens...I am waiting on some ND filters to arrive so that I can prevent the stop-motion effect from fast shutter speeds when outdoors in the bright sunlight.

Originally Posted by kent

what about af speed?

Well, I can only compare to my K200D, so here goes. The AF system feels much more...how shall I put it...confident. The screwdrive lenses now zip along even faster than before, which makes a lot of lenses very quick. I have an F135/2.8 lens, which is known to be a quick focuser thanks to its light internal focus mechanism, and now that thing is pretty blazing fast. I also have a Tokina AT-X Pro 28-70 f/2.6-2.8 lens that focused pretty quickly on my K200D...and now that thing is like lightning.

It doesn't appear that SDM focusing speed (on 16-50 and 50-135) has increased much (hard to tell, really...) but the K-7 decides more quickly where to focus to and definitely hunts less than my K200D. I consider this to be a great benefit for SDM and screwdrive lenses, and I will feel more confident in the K-7's ability to lock autofocus accurately. I will need to use these lenses more to assess the accuracy of the AF, but so far it seems dead on without having to make any AF adjustments.

Also, as some other people have mentioned, the AF-C seems a lot more sure of itself. It will no longer hunt on a stationary object, which is a big improvement in my opinion. It's now possible for me to use AF-C at all times if I want to, since it still achieves a solid focus lock (unlike K200D sometimes). I haven't given the AF-C much testing on a moving subject yet, and not sure when I'll get around to messing with that.

Originally Posted by Daveinozbikes

This is one of those conspiciuos events in life. Like your first child, a Christening or other other religious event, a wedding or any occasion that is happy and stays in your memory forever.....brings tears to your eyes and makes your heart swell with happiness........all in all an awesome moment....... a moment that makes life worth living.....

LOL , yes it was pretty exciting. Although, my wife wasn't there to bring the new light into the world! She is on a trip to Isreal for another week, so she'll have to wait to see my new "baby" when she gets back. Not that she's really into photography, but she at least supports me in my hobbies...to an extent. She often has to remind me that I need to sell off some of my lenses though, to be fair.

Originally Posted by mickey

Nice set up of a K200 and K-7.
But, fancy putting that old lens on a brand new K-7


Really don't know what to say about Amazon's packaging, or lack of it...

Yea, I'll go ahead and agree that K200D and K-7 make a good duo. They are almost identical in size and pretty close in weight, so they feel very similar in hand. The interface is of course very different on the K-7, but as long as I don't have to change too many parameters when switching cameras, it shouldn't be a big deal. The grips are similar, but the K-7 has a deeper cut-out (or indention) where the middle finger grips the camera. I'm not sure yet if I like this better, or the more shallow cut-out on the K200D. I'll have to get used to the K-7 before I make that call. But both feel very nice in hand.

I'm not sure what to think of the packaging either...it kind of freightened me when the UPS guy handed me the box, and I could feel the K-7 sliding around in there. I just don't want to think about how it was handled on it's short trip from the Amazon warehouse to my house and how much it must have bumped up against the sides of the box... Just have to keep telling myself to keep those thoughts out of my head!

[arpaagent]

Originally Posted by dopeytree

Nice! I'm eagerly awaiting some samples from you next. I'm still waiting for my supplier to get stock here in the UK

I'll see if I can get a few samples up in the next couple days. They won't look much different than what other cameras are capable of producing ...and not sure I want to do much of a pixel peeping match against my K200D, just cause it's tedious and pretty boring. I'll let the official reviewers do that kind of thing. But I'll certainly post a few shots that I take with it over the next few days.

[wll]

Originally Posted by Daveinozbikes

This is one of those conspiciuos events in life. Like your first child,

This just may be a bigger event than the arrival of your first child :-)


wll

[Edvinas]

Originally Posted by arpaagent

when I opened it up further, I noticed that Amazon has apparently run out of packing supplies!

Chinese eBay sellers pack their $5 valued items much better than this. In fact you can't even call it "packing". Definitely I will never buy anything fragile from Amazon.

[opiedog]

amazon's packaging simply doesn't exist. they pack books with better padding than eletronic items. obviously, someone somehow at amazon isn't thinking properly

[kent]

Thank you for quick response! Well my K200d dissapointed me just few times. I am talking about moving objects (motorcycles, cars etc.). Kit lens is great in terms of speed and sigma is damn slow. Did you try your K7 on moving subjects ? Just to see how it reacts to moving skater or car