[RobG]

On the weekend I had the opportunity to use a friend's Nikon D7000. I have to say I was impressed. The AF system in particular impressed me; in portraiture, it seemed to be able to figure out where the subject's face was and focussed on it. Interestingly, my friend preferred the brighter images from the D7000 compared to my K7 - in particular the skin tones. I just checked the K7 and the colour balance was set to "bright" rather than "natural or "portrait". I'll have to try the other two settings and see how they affect the result in portraiture. The viewfinder of the Nikon was bright and big, and despite taking photos in open shade, the stabilisation seemed effective, and the exposure compensated well for backlighting. Maybe I need to get to know the K7 better, but equally I didn't know the D7000 at all, and was able to take reasonably good photos without trying too hard.

Perhaps it would be more fair to compare a K5 with the K7000, but I don't have a K5. The other thing I was reminded of was that a really sharp lens isn't necessarily an advantage in portraiture. Sharpness can be unflattering!

Has anyone else had the opportunity of comparing the D7000 with a Pentax? I can't say I'm keen to change brands after all these years, but it was interesting to see a competitor's product.

[Rondec]

On the weekend I had the opportunity to use a friend's Nikon D7000. I have to say I was impressed. The AF system in particular impressed me; in portraiture, it seemed to be able to figure out where the subject's face was and focussed on it. Interestingly, my friend preferred the brighter images from the D7000 compared to my K7 - in particular the skin tones. I just checked the K7 and the colour balance was set to "bright" rather than "natural or "portrait". I'll have to try the other two settings and see how they affect the result in portraiture. The viewfinder of the Nikon was bright and big, and despite taking photos in open shade, the stabilisation seemed effective, and the exposure compensated well for backlighting. Maybe I need to get to know the K7 better, but equally I didn't know the D7000 at all, and was able to take reasonably good photos without trying too hard.

Perhaps it would be more fair to compare a K5 with the K7000, but I don't have a K5. The other thing I was reminded of was that a really sharp lens isn't necessarily an advantage in portraiture. Sharpness can be unflattering!

Has anyone else had the opportunity of comparing the D7000 with a Pentax? I can't say I'm keen to change brands after all these years, but it was interesting to see a competitor's product.

The D7000 is very close to the K5 in terms of specs -- K5 has a bigger buffer, a little tighter build, a few other differences, but in terms of sensor performance in particular, they are equal. On the other hand, both the K5 and D7000 are considerably in front of the K7 in terms of sensor performance.

I would shoot RAW with K7 or use natural in jpegs, but I didn't find the out of camera jpegs pleased me as much as the developed RAW files did.

[nirVaan]

my friend have a D7000 great camera. but i love my k5.but D7000 have 3 things in favor for it.
1. slightly better AF
2 auto focus while shooting movies
3 and very clear focus points ( i cant even see the tiny red dot of k5 in a busy background so have no idea where it is focusing )

P.S a workaround for point 3 would be using center focus always but not practical all the time

[Coeurdechene]

Perhaps it would be more fair to compare a K5 with the K7000, but I don't have a K5. The other thing I was reminded of was that a really sharp lens isn't necessarily an advantage in portraiture. Sharpness can be unflattering!

Yep...when you get to see all those pores, scars, wrinkles, black points, etc that's why portraiture oriented photogs sometimes had/have "focus control" lenses (DC in nikon, or minolta's STF) or used things like Zeiss Softar filters...and that's why they pay 2000$ for a 50 f1,2.

The d7000 is a nice camera but i prefer the k5...that's a wonderfull piece of gear and i'm sure you'll find it great if you test it, it might keep away that switching idea (and all the hassle involved with it). Now it's a great moment to buy one, at least here, i've seen some great prices (if i wasn't going to buy a FF i would have bought it...in fact at one point i considered buying it with some limiteds and the Tamron 70-200 since it would cost a fraction of the price of the kit i'm gonna buy). The d7000 and the k5 got the same sensor but the pentax has in body Image stabilization, better weather sealing, it's a bit more compact, and there are other minor differences...the only things in wich the d7000 is clearly superior is the autofocus and metering system, it's got more points, it's faster and it's got a 2k rgb meter and as a system Nikon has more lenses and it has a better flash system BUT it's more expensive. That said, the k5 has a better autofocus system than the k7 and i'm sure you will notice it.
Having tried the d7000 you should try the k5 and decide wich system suits you best.
Cheers

[redrockcoulee]

A friend of mine claims his D7000 is in many ways better than his D3 mostly due to the newer technology. You are right in it is best to compare same generation cameras. I have the K-r so cannot compare the Pentax to his D7000.

[RobG]

my friend have a D7000 great camera. but i love my k5.but D7000 have 3 things in favor for it.
1. slightly better AF
2 auto focus while shooting movies
3 and very clear focus points ( i cant even see the tiny red dot of k5 in a busy background so have no idea where it is focusing )
P.S a workaround for point 3 would be using center focus always but not practical all the time

I generally do use centre focus then reframe. Multipoint AF is fine but won't alway focus on what I want. Point 2 is a big one- that's a major failing in the Pentax movie mode.

[RobG]

Yep...when you get to see all those pores, scars, wrinkles, black points, etc that's why portraiture oriented photogs sometimes had/have "focus control" lenses (DC in nikon, or minolta's STF) or used things like Zeiss Softar filters...and that's why they pay 2000$ for a 50 f1,2.

I don't really do enough portraiture to justify expensive lenses for that purpose. I prefer wildlife and landscape photography where sharpness is an asset. Animals and birds don't get upset about pimples!

The d7000 is a nice camera but i prefer the k5...that's a wonderfull piece of gear and i'm sure you'll find it great if you test it, it might keep away that switching idea (and all the hassle involved with it). Now it's a great moment to buy one, at least here, i've seen some great prices (if i wasn't going to buy a FF i would have bought it...in fact at one point i considered buying it with some limiteds and the Tamron 70-200 since it would cost a fraction of the price of the kit i'm gonna buy). The d7000 and the k5 got the same sensor but the pentax has in body Image stabilization, better weather sealing, it's a bit more compact, and there are other minor differences...the only things in wich the d7000 is clearly superior is the autofocus and metering system, it's got more points, it's faster and it's got a 2k rgb meter and as a system Nikon has more lenses and it has a better flash system BUT it's more expensive. That said, the k5 has a better autofocus system than the k7 and i'm sure you will notice it.
Having tried the d7000 you should try the k5 and decide wich system suits you best.

Thanks for the info! I'm trying to hold off until September before I decide whether to bite the bullet and get a K5, because if there's something new going to be released, it will probably be around then.

[RobG]

A friend of mine claims his D7000 is in many ways better than his D3 mostly due to the newer technology. You are right in it is best to compare same generation cameras. I have the K-r so cannot compare the Pentax to his D7000.

One of the guys I work with has a K5. Maybe I need to ask if I can take a few photos with it.

[Pablom]

The other thing I was reminded of was that a really sharp lens isn't necessarily an advantage in portraiture. Sharpness can be unflattering!

these days you can always "unsharpen" an image, but that's a one way route

[RobG]

The D7000 is very close to the K5 in terms of specs -- K5 has a bigger buffer, a little tighter build, a few other differences, but in terms of sensor performance in particular, they are equal. On the other hand, both the K5 and D7000 are considerably in front of the K7 in terms of sensor performance.

Alas yes. Wish I'd waited with the K200 until the K5 was released. What I don't want to do is get a K5 and have Pentax release a successor a short time after and kick myself again.

I would shoot RAW with K7 or use natural in jpegs, but I didn't find the out of camera jpegs pleased me as much as the developed RAW files did.

I did shoot raw+ in this case - I may need to spend more time working with the raw files, but I'd also like to see the difference with natural and portrait settings.

[french_mike]

Thanks for the info! I'm trying to hold off until September before I decide whether to bite the bullet and get a K5, because if there's something new going to be released, it will probably be around then.

me too, cant wait because my K200d is starting to show is limits

[JinDesu]

One of the guys I work with has a K5. Maybe I need to ask if I can take a few photos with it.

My understanding is that the D7000 and the k-5 are practically the same, especially as they have the same sensor. I also believe that most people think the k-5 has better weather sealing than the D7000.

[pinholecam]

I've shot on a few occasions where my friend used his D7K and I used K5.
1 wedding; 2 dinner events;

K5 has the following over the D7K :
1. Smoother noise pattern/grains. This translates higher resistance to post process at low ISO and slightly less noisy o/o at high ISO (thought both can be cleaned up with NR in PP)
2. Smaller system overall, which translates to less encumbrance
3. SR
4. Handy stuff like pixel mapping
5. AF is as accurate if not more (I can't confirm speed though. But I do have plenty of samples that did not show that D7K was more accurate / in fact most were worse (sorry, can't share them, since its my friends photos, not mine)

As with all statements on the internet, believe what I mentioned as you will.
The best way is to try to get hold of a K5 to try it out yourself.

[Coeurdechene]

D7K was more accurate / in fact most were worse

Maybe it wasn't entirely Af's fault:
-the lack of SR in difficult light might be more troublesome
-the differences in technique
-the usage of center point and recomposing compared to automatic AF
Just some examples...to be sure it must be tested by the same person using the same or very similar settings. The d7000 i tried was very accurate and focused very fast, coupled with the metering system, i found it very efficient. The k5 has decent autofocus though, most of it's AF points are cross type...overall the difference isn't so big, and if you mostly use center point as the OP i would say it ain't important at all.

I think that overall the k5 is a better camera and the pentax system is a very capable one BUT it has it's drawbacks...especially the lack of a clear upgrade path (wich Ricoh might fix in a not so distant future with a decent FF body), a slower flash sync (if you do lighting this can be bothersome even if the differences ain't so high), the lack of a good flash system (a non issue if you shoot in manual and use old flashes, although it would be nice to try those high speed syncs and sometimes just let the system do some of the work), the lack of some focal lenghts (wich is also a non issue if you don't care to own third party lenses), and sometimes availability problems and the smaller second hand market (it ain't no paradise no more since Canon users poach constantly the old lenses to use with adapters and for cheap manual video setups ).