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Hello guys! can you help me with this desision?
I was locked on the nikon D90 and than descoverd the pentax K7 and canot find agood revew on it. do you have any experiance? I will be happy to get your opinion on general use and nois in hi ISO. I dont have any prior lenses from other brands. thank you

I can't speak for the pentax, but I found the D90 to be a great camera, be it the ergonomics, the shutter sound, or the viewfinder.

From reading the specs of the K-7, I very much doubt there's an IQ difference between the two, the only advantage the D90 may have is better noise performance, but, if that's the case it will be a small difference.

The K-7 is of course weather sealed, which may or may not be what you need/want.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Hi Jeff,

May I offer you a warm welcome to the CameraLabs forum.

As you can see I've moved your thread as "User Reviews" is for reviews rather than requests for information. Good luck with your search.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Welcome to the CameraLabs Forum.

The D90 has outstanding IQ and is a very good camera indeed - you are paying for the HD video feature, but that may not be an issue for you. Pentax has had some issues with IQ in previous cameras, and much of that has to do with their in-camera jpeg processing. Shooting RAW is how you can get around that, but the downside is that you will need to post process.

If you need weather sealing, then Pentax or some other higher-end sealed camera is what you should be considering.

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From sample images floating around the web, it appears that the K7 does not match the D90 in high ISO shooting. In fact, it would be safe to say that it struggles against the Canon 40D which was released in 2007 when it comes to high ISO shooting. Thus if high ISO is important to you, the K7 is not the camera.

Having said that, high ISO performance is just one tiny aspect of image quality. You'll rarely be able to tell the difference between camera models, unless you're pixel peeping (i.e. viewing at 100%). Thus most discussion about noise tends to become fairly academic.

Go down to the camera shop and have a feel for the cameras. IMHO, the main advantage of the Nikon D90 is that you'll be buying into the Nikon system. That means you'll find all the lenses and gadgets you'll ever need, and most camera shops will stock Nikon gear.

On the other hand, Pentax does make some very nice cameras with a very amazing feature set. The K7 sounds like an amazing camera. The only downside is that you'll have a much harder time finding lenses and other accessories. Up until a few months ago, Pentax looked like a very attractive option, particularly due to the cheap and high quality lenses. In the UK, the 16-50mm DA* was retailing for £450. A similar Canon/Nikon lens would have cost £800. Pentax have since updated the prices and it looks like they're doubled the price of their lenses. So that makes them a lot less attractive in my book

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PhilipGoh.com

I think it comes down whether you need a weatherproof/waterproof body with waterproof lenses.

for noise control, Nikon D90 is better.

Like other have suggested, you will need to check out the lenses that you want.

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RadiantLite - Cameras and Lenses Comparison Reviews, buying guide, photo taking techniques and other tips
My Portfolio - Some photos from my work

Hi I want to thank you for your worm “welcoming me” to the site and for sharing your personal experience and opinions with me.
20 years ago I had a dark room and an SLR Nikon camera (I think I still have a 2X Tele converter somewhere!).
For the last 4 years I’m using a Panasonic FZ20 camera which is a great camera but had hard time with night and dark indoor conditions like on-stage performance photography (my daughter is a dancer). The view finder becomes very dark in manual position and higher ISO than 200 is really poor. I also do a lot of nature photography.
What seems to be nice about the pentax is the in camera VR (Shake Reduction) which should make the lenses much cheaper, the built is from a stainless steel frame on a magnesium steel alloy body, 14.6Mp, Shutter speed: 30sec-1/8000sec, 5.2fps,
ISO: 100-6400, 100% field of view and the Weight is only 670g.
So after reading so many D90 reviews I thought wow pentax got it all together? or is it too good to be actually good?
I understand that going with Nikon is the safe side. Just wanted to make sure I’m not missing something in the 90th minute….

Truly yours

Hi I didnt mean "worm"... I rather WARM!!!
well... english is not my first Language But I lived in the USA for 17 years.

jeff

In paper, K7 is great, but in practice (test) it is not as good as the paper. For example the ISO range. It has the same ISO rnage as D90, but D90 has better noise control around 1 stop.

Also, Pentax camera body is like $400 more expensive right?

Shake Reduction is great for still objects but for moving object like dance, it does not help. But you can use prime lens such as Pentax 50mm f/1.4. or Sigma 30 or 50mm f/1.4 HSM lenses.

The 5 fps continuous burst is a bit better than D90 but according to test it does not track moving object very well. AF speed is one of Pentax weaknesses.

But in other hand, you're right to say that if you go with Pentax, you will save money in a long run (at least in US) because Nikon high quality lenses are expensive and many of them does not have VR.

Overall, Pentax high-end lenses (code: DA*) are cheaper and waterproofed.
Plus every lenses you attach will have benefit of Shake Reduction.

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RadiantLite - Cameras and Lenses Comparison Reviews, buying guide, photo taking techniques and other tips
My Portfolio - Some photos from my work

For out of the camera JPG's at default settings, exposed correctly............and at higher ISO values............probably, maybe, perhaps.

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Nick.
Lumix TZ 5
Canon F-1n, Pentax 6x7, RZ 6x7, Rolleiflex TLR 6x6.

I think we're pretty much talking about eh higher ISO's here (800 and upwards), as noise isn't really an issue on lower ISOs with whatever DSLR you buy

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

I don't think it's an issue at higher setting either on a camera vs camera basis when they are taken out of their default setting and are optimized on a camera by camera basis...............and especially so in RAW.

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Nick.
Lumix TZ 5
Canon F-1n, Pentax 6x7, RZ 6x7, Rolleiflex TLR 6x6.

I think it comes down to how much time you'd rather spend taking photos as opposed to time spent in front of the computer trying to fix up your images due to deficiencies in the camera.

Sure, you can shoot RAW and invest in a decent RAW converter and dedicated noise reduction software. Not only is this more costly in terms of software you buy, it's also more costly in time. If high ISO noise performance is important to you, you'd better served if your camera got things right on capture instead of having you waste time processing each image.

But like I've said before, noise is only one aspect of photography and it's not important at all unless you're a pixel peeper.

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PhilipGoh.com

Agreed............optimize the output from default for any camera and the results will be practically indistinguishable from brand to brand in the same sensor size. Same for RAW same for JPEG.

The noise claims are more about marketing.

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Nick.
Lumix TZ 5
Canon F-1n, Pentax 6x7, RZ 6x7, Rolleiflex TLR 6x6.

To add another viewpoint: I often do not use noise reduction at all, as I prefer ddetails over a clean image.

Except for landscapes of course.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".