After a quick check, the zoom function in Live View doesn't seem to actually be available while recording on the K-7... Would be worth checking whether they have this on the K-5 though, or perhaps if it's a menu function I haven't enabled.

What would be really good would be a small magnified portion at the centre of the screen, so you can check focus and composition at the same time...

You can also change the size/quality of the jpeg to be saved in RAW+jpeg mode, just like the 7D. The customisable picture modes (which apply to video as well as stills) are there too. The K-7 and K-5 definitely have a lot of little touches which show that Pentax have really thought hard about making life easier for us, and giving us as much control as possible.

On the K-7 (and consequently the K-5) you just press the 'info' button to zoom in to the image. You have to keep pressing it to zoom in another increment, but there may well be a setting where you can leap to a 5x view, or whatever you want.

The view gets very pixellated as you zoom in but you can distinctly tell when focus is achieved. Very useful indeed.

That's fabulous! Love the tiered look to the mountains. The Canaries are such good value!

Is it really that hard to ignore these posts and just click onto page 2 of the recent messages? A small price to pay for this sort of well-meant amiability in my view

Well, the holiday was fabulous - not one drop of rain or overcast day, save for one day when we went to the capital 'city', Santa Cruz. It was drizzly in the north of the island, but we left our base in the south in bright sunshine and returned to it after our visit!

El Medano was close by, and yes it was the nicest seaside place we visited, laid back and very Spanish. There are some interesting rock formations, especially around the 'Montana Roja' volcano on the headland.

El Teide was just utterly staggering, I went up about three times (on my own, in the mornings). The landscape is vast enough to swallow up endless coach parties (which stick to the designated vista points) preserving a sense of solitude.







(That's La Gomera in the distance in the first pic).

I agree that the north of the island seems more interesting. The coast is wilder, and the towns are more compact and 'historic'. A bit of a trek to get there though, and there was enough interest in the south to keep us going.

Next time I'll try and base myself in the north, for a different experience, I think. Or perhaps La Gomera

The K-r may also be worth considering. The K-7 is also a more advanced body but you'll see no improvement in IQ over the K-20

The price you pay for more bits in the RAW files than previous Pentaxes. I thought I heard that a firmware update was on its way to improve the situation though?

If you're not into post processing on the computer, you can develop RAW shots in camera, remember. That way you can experiment with the picture modes and WB settings and see the results straight away

I totally get what Doug is saying.. if the camera performs OK under sub-optimal conditions, it proves its capabilities.

Anyway here's a recent one I took at ISO 400/f4:




Noise just isn't an issue. And at 100% for pixel peeping purposes (was saved at jpeg medium quality for the web) click here: link

Maximise data just means get the best exposure for the image you have in mind, after you've post processed. I'm sure Mr. Adam Ansells himself (sic) would have understood the concept.