Originally posted by harleynitelite Thanks to everyone and Raffwal for the links, very informative.
I have had a K-5 since shortly after they came out, and bout a K-30 for my daughter when they cameout (before the price went down)
but I played with it before I gave it to her.
Main things I noticed:
a) the controls are a little different,---charcteristic of those used on mid level pentax cameras are found on the K-30
b) the shutter sounds different
c) the K-30 has no 'top window' to view the settings.
While there can be little things one might prefer one over another, I considered the two cameras mostly the same. My Daughter needed one to take year book sports pictures for her school where she teaches, and was struggling a bit with the K-7 she ahd due to it's low light limitations, and my judgement was that the K-30 would do as well as as any of the alternatives for that purpose.