[FckShoes]

I'm itching to upgrade from my k100d soon and have been eyeballing the K7, I've read the opinions, pros and cons, but I was wondering if I could expect the K7 to drop even more in price once the K5 hits streets? Is this typical of Pentax in past releases? I'd love to upgrade to the K5, but at the moment, I can't justify the extra $600+.

[Edvinas]

I really doubt that K-7 will drop it's price to K-x level. Currently K-5 is almost twice as expensive as K-7, there's no real reason for K-7 price to drop, it's very low already.

[TiminyCricket]

I sort of think the K-7 could drop as low as $600 in the coming year, or two. When I bought my K10D the body was only about $550 brand-new, with warranty The original selling price of the K10 wasn't all that different from the original selling price of the K7, was it?

[Kirivon]

You won't see the K-7 for 550 new. The K20D didn't fall that far and the K-7 certainly won't. There are two things to consider: 1. The K-7 is a higher specced camera than the K10D was and 2. The yen is significantly stronger vs the US dollar than it was two years ago.

Once the K-5 hits and the K-7 stock starts to dwindle, expect the prices on remaining K-7 units to start going up.

[brecklundin]

yeah, the K-7 bottomed out about 2-months ago, give or take. I think it was around $760 or so...maybe a bit lower. But because NOBODY seems to be holding large inventory levels on Pentax gear anymore, places like Amazon, B&H, etc don't need to dump old stock for the next models. So, there are not going to be big drops even like happened with the K20D before the K-7 release...btw, seems to me the K20D bottomed out about 3-months before the K-7's actual release date so this seems consistent. After that it is now right up price wise with the K-7...and they will sell because of people who simply want to replace a favored piece of gear for whatever reason they want the exact same model.

[bymy141]

This shows the lowest price trend (green) and average (blue) in the Netherlands for the K-7, for Internet offerings.


Reference: Tweakers.net

- Bert

[pxpaulx]

I sort of think the K-7 could drop as low as $600 in the coming year, or two. When I bought my K10D the body was only about $550 brand-new, with warranty The original selling price of the K10 wasn't all that different from the original selling price of the K7, was it?

The k10 msrp was $999 and k7 was $1399. Even if you go by straigt percentages then $775 would have been the k10 $550 equivalent. Seeing this question a dozen times in the last 2 months shores up to me that the k7 has seen it's bottom and will likely only go up from here.

[interested_observer]

You won't see the K-7 for 550 new. The K20D didn't fall that far and the K-7 certainly won't. There are two things to consider: 1. The K-7 is a higher specced camera than the K10D was and 2. The yen is significantly stronger vs the US dollar than it was two years ago.

Once the K-5 hits and the K-7 stock starts to dwindle, expect the prices on remaining K-7 units to start going up.

The K20's low new was around $650, and then rose shapely as the stock ran out. With all the currency fluctuations and the dollar being so soft, I think that its difficult to compare the K7's and K20's prices as they go end of life - as new retail.

• Pentax K-7 14.6 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera With 18MM - 55MM F/3.5-5.6 Lens: View Price History at NexTag

You can still find new K20 for higher prices...

• Pentax K20D Digital SLR Camera - 19381 - Compare Prices and Buy at PriceGrabber

[YossarianKL]

Just a side note you can keep track of prices from Amazon and be notified when a product reaches your ideal price through an email or twitter alert by using www.camelcamelcamel.com.
It is pretty slick and gives you a graph of how a product has gone up or down over time. Could help when around what time period to buy your K7 in the year.

[brecklundin]

For those looking only at the exchange rate on the USD to explain US prices or prices in general might not be aware that we are seeing something odd right now. The USD is slowly gaining strength which usually corresponds to a drop in the world gold price. But even though the dollar had been gaining recently, the price of gold is skyrocketing, same for silver and to a slightly lesser degree platinum which are all metals used in the making of electronic gear. So even though these metals are not used in huge amounts the prices are also affecting retail priced.

But you can watch these things here

Exchange Rates

Gold Price

Gold in particular has been averaging about a 20% increase year-over-year or about 340% over the past 10-years. Right now it's hovering around $1350/oz and as far as I know that is close, if not, the all time high. But the dollar, while gaining is not gaining at near the rate....and these two things have always been linked even though as far as I know, no countries are on a gold-standard anymore.

And even weirder is the drop vs. the Japanese Yen during this year...and the past few months especially. I look at this as a way for Hoya to permanently increase prices by never adjusting them down when things change...even on stock currently on the shelf in the US.

No matter I say it is NOT the time to buy a new body. A nice used lense might be a good time to buy or new old stock lenses in come countries but in general it a new body is maybe at it's historical worst point ever. Fact it today's bodies are designed to fail, unlike their 20-30 yr old ancestors which are still working just fine in a lot of cases. But I don't see, even as a hobby a camera body that if you are lucky will have a reliable life span of around 4-5 years...part of these bodies really are designed to fail, like weather sealing and lord knows how long SR will last given it needs to work for every lense vs. in lense SR that only needs to work when that lense is being used. BTW, that is something nobody ever mentions when discussing the merits of either version of shake reduction/compensation.

So, nope, I have decided I am not going to even consider a K5 for at least a year to see what happens or sell it all now and live with a POS PnS because, well the pricing is to the point that it's usury when every other tech area DECREASES in price...right now you are spending more on a camera body than for a full state of the art computer that will easily have the same useful lifespan but has the advantage of being upgradeable as time goes on...what happens when your camera needs work after the warranty is over? You get told it's not worth the repair cost...tell me something is not wrong here.

I guess I do not understand the camera industry or how hobby shooters have become conditioned to these sort of pricing models when they don't exist in any other markets. POS cell phones are another thing I simply do not understand if you do a tear down on the production costs.

[pxpaulx]

So, nope, I have decided I am not going to even consider a K5 for at least a year to see what happens or sell it all now and live with a POS PnS because, well the pricing is to the point that it's usury when every other tech area DECREASES in price...right now you are spending more on a camera body than for a full state of the art computer that will easily have the same useful lifespan but has the advantage of being upgradeable as time goes on...what happens when your camera needs work after the warranty is over?

Is it Moore's law you are referring to there? I don't think that cameras, though they are technically electronics, really fall under the same technological advances of say, computer RAM or hard drive capacity increases or other computer components in general. Heck, even the cost of RAM or storage (memory cards) has increased to almost double what it was 2-3 years ago. If you applied the same moore's law to cameras, we should have expected 100mp cameras with 100K+ usable ISO by now.

There are quite a few people who are still taking great pictures with a K10D or *istDS, which are getting to 5 years old now. I would ask the same thing about computers as your last comment...what happens when your computer needs work after the warranty is over? It is likely a steaming pile of junk that can be replaced with something twice as good for half its' original cost. In both cases technology does improve, it just happens that computers are a significantly more consumed good, which can drive manufacturing costs, and therefore the price down more than on a camera.

[sicyon]

Moore's law refers to the cost of the CMOS part of your computer, which is largely due to the scaling of transistor sizes and the drop in price per transistor. The CMOS sensor in your camera would follow exactly the same trend. RAM and hard drive capacity are not generally described with Moore's law.

[pxpaulx]

I checked out the wikipedia on moore's law. I had heard of it before, but didn't realize it specifically related to that part of the computer! I suppose I have read the term applied to other areas of tech as reference and thought it was a general tech term as a result.