Personally, I stay well away from superzooms, not just because of the lower IQ, but also because of the slow max apertures. Unless you're changing lenses in blowing dust, changing lesnes quickly and covered should not often result in sensor dust. If you do it well, the camera should only have no lens on for a second.
Originally posted by LeeRunge: I have everything in my cart from BH Photo but I am torn between getting the two WR "kit" lenses and saving that money for the excellent primes that Pentax offers. (I won't abuse those in the dust) I think the Regular WR lenses will hold up fine as long as the image quality is 90% of the DA*'s I will be happy with them. I really do like the primes. If I absolutely destroy those WR lenses I won't care.
How decent are the two WR lenses? (18-55 and 55-200)
Are the DA* lenses worth 2000 dollars more?
The kit lenses are good - for kit lenses. You won't get f/2.8 or super high sharpness. Bokeh won't be that great. But they are sealed (to a point), cheap and deliver good bang for buck IQ. If you're shooting in the middle of the zoom range at f/8, difference to DA* will be minimal.
I think the K-7 is a mighty fine body for kit lenses. If you're going to bash it around, you could try a K20D. There's no real IQ difference, but the K-7 is certainly smaller and more responsive.
Originally posted by LeeRunge: Buying a camera is way more difficult a decision than I thought it would be. I'm a research fanatic with big purchases and Canon and Nikon are very good cameras as well. The 7d in particular.
It's currently raining heavily here in Afghanistan, go figure.
And for those of you who have used a 7D and a K-7 please tell me what you think. It appears the K-7 is more rugged because it has more sealed lens options that don't cost well over a thousand a piece. But the Canon has some super nice large zooms that i'll likely never buy anyway.
If you had to buy a Nikon 300s a Canon 7d or a K-7 what would YOU buy? The choice is going to make switching in the future much more difficult.
7D is a fine camera. Like the D300s it's also large. I prefer the D300s based on the ergonomics, the Canon controls feel very strange to me, the Nikon perhaps has a more 'classic' feel. Canon is considered a leader in autofocus speed with their top zooms. Both Canon and Nikon top zoom IQ is probably better than the Pentax ones, with associated more cost. Pentax has some unique prime lens options. And their zooms are based on the APS-C which I like, aka the 16-50mm range zoom.