Originally posted by Smeggypants The K-5's sensor gave an almost 3 stop improvent on the K-7 in terms of ISO performance and also had much better dynamic range. Huge difference in performance in fact,. I wonder why you didn't note that instead of just saying it was an extra 2MP?
THAT was discovered later on, when the K5 has hit the shelves and some reviews came out. At first there were lots of suspicious notes, people didn't quite get it. Some could not believe it. And guess what, K7 body and philosophy was all of a sudden "very cool" with the new sensor.
One single thing changed the perception of the whole camera and the imaging philosophy of Pentax. But before that, people found too many bizarre excuses, including the body design of K7, to denigrate it. Now thanks to K5, that design is instant classic. And thanks to DXO marks, K5 is best Pentax-designed DSLR, if not best DSLR by any brand, ever.
Well, all of a sudden?!
What I wanted to say so far, people are not quite rational beings; they don't really know how to recognise truly valuable and unique merits. They find excuses in wholly irrelevant matters in order to describe why they dislike something. They don't know what's really going inside their heads. As a designer myself for over 25 years, I know the frustration.
To put it bluntly, majority of people have no clue what a good design really is and how it works. Say, use same today's iPad design people love, but put in it an iPhone 3 powered processor, and people will say that iPad design sucks and that Apple should better become a fruit grower. It doesn't matter to them than old iPhone 3 and today's iPad share same design principles.