The K5 holds its ground!

Certainly the 700D has all the usual buttons (had one on a workshop today), but the touchscreen means that when viewing images you can just swipe through them, or just tap the screen in live view to tell it where to focus, or on the info screen, rather than navigating around with the 4-way buttons, you just tap to select a feature. It seems to work well. Pretty sure there's a sensor to detect when the camera's up to your eye to disable the screen.

Well implemented, it's a bonus - another way to do things if you choose to do it that way.

Dan

Can you turn it completely off?

I'd better ask why you couldn't use your Pentax?

John K

Touch screens aren't new movie cameras had them years ago
also Pocket PC's.

The Sony DC ? video cam bought around 1999 has an articulated touch screen and still working OK

Sorry John, just seen your questions (presumably directed at me). Not sure if you can switch the 700D's touchscreen features off, I would suspect not, but haven't looked into it in any detail.

Rest assured, I could use my K-5; I was running the workshop, and the Canon was a participant's camera.

Dan

Proximity sensors work well, everyone has one on their touchscreen phone for instance. The now intuitive touchscreen gestures work well, such as drag to reposition and pinch to zoom/shrink etc. That said, I've set the default zoom level quite high for 'pixel peaking' and it works fine on the Pentax K-30.

I think articulated screens and touchscreens and gps and wifi are all nice to have, but are not actually orientated around image quality, so personally I think Pentax are handling their choice of included options quite nicely actually.

Thanks Daniel for the belated reply.

John K

I have a can*n s110 compact with touch screen. It does not have a viewfinder and I find it very convenient to use the touch screen for focussing, changing settings and playing back.


Gajan

My mum has the short lived Pentax Optio T30 touch screen compact. It works well on a compact.

I have no problem with a Touch screen being present on a DSLR as long as it is in addition to physical controls, but I wouldn't consider it a feature I would pay extra for.

For me a touch screen on a DSLR would be OK if it could be programmed to only be enabled when in live viewing or when viewing/editing pics

This is an interesting statement. So it's an entry level camera but it's not!
"The Pentax K-30 is a 16 megapixels APS-C DSLR which produces images of exceptional quality. While being the size and price of an entry-level model, the K-30 provides more professional features than its peers. This includes a 100% coverage viewfinder, a weather-sealed body which is freezeproof to -10C (14F), dual control-dials, built-in Shake Reduction and Automatic Horizon Correction."

SO is it price and size that defines "entry level" or is it features?
My perfect camera is entry level size and price with K3 features, sod the snobbery of not being able to call it a pro camera

I think the phrase "entry level" has an idea attached to it that it's something more basic, although in reality it will not hold anyone back from producing great images.

The "entry level" Pentax is of course the K-500, simply being the lowest cost way into the Pentax system. It's still a superb camera though.

I know I'm repeating this from somewhere else, but to me the best definition now relates not necessarily to IQ & performance features, as there is a certain merging of these among cameras of very different price points. So I don't find these more traditional definitions hold up so well, as the high IQ of the K30 demonstrates.

So for me, it comes down to the level of 'hand-holding' and 'one-shot'setting type features, aimed towards the beginning user. The classic example of this is 'scene modes' on the main dial , alongside Av Tv M - these include items like 'Landscape, Macro, Night shot, Sports'. These change the bias in the program algorithm to favour apertures and speeds that would likely suit each particular 'scene'. The idea is that the beginning user would not have to think about this stuff, but still be able to get the results they were looking for.

Other examples might be menu items that describe or detail shooting techniques and guide you through the settings. I don't think Pentax have this sort of thing but I have heard it is on some cameras by other makers.

Anyway, all this sort of thing shows what the target user is for the camera. So by my definition neither the K7 / K5 / K30 / K3 would be entry level, but some of the others probably would be.

Nice to see Pentax getting a good review when compared with a Canon. But the write up makes some odd comparisons. In addition to the ones already mentioned in this thread it claims the K5 is [i]'slightly cheaper' than the EOS70D - £459 vs £955. That's more than a 'slight' difference.
The review also lists comparisons for both the K5 and 70d with other cameras in roughly the same range, including the K30. Allegedly the K5 has superior IQ to the K30. That's news to me I have both a Mark1 K5 and a K30 and to me the image quality is identical.
PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

That'll be 14bit RAW vs 12bit RAW in K-30 and slightly different JPG sharpening/algorithms

The RAW bit depth may only be noticeable in certain situations.. such as night/astro.. but it'll allow more tweaking in PP potentially

From what I've seen if the image is exposed well on the k-30 it'll be indistinguishable from the k-5.. I don't own either though (yet)