If it’s not love at first sight, it’s close.

The K-7, which arrived last week, has been a clear winner for me, right from the first touch. It feels as good in the hand as, say, a Nikon F100 without being big and heavy.

I’ve been using it every day, especially as I begin to explore the idea of digital black and white photography.

Here’s how it looks so far:

• Autofocus — always Pentax’s weak spot — is much improved over anything previous. I won’t be covering track and field, or shooting birds in flight, but I also won’t be cursing a camera (K20D anyone?) that simply can’t latch on to a face at a social gathering.
• The feel: As I said above, it feels great in the hand — tight, compact and well machined. It sounds good, too, quieter and more refined than the K20D, which tended to thunk.
• Metering seems more accurate than the K20D, which often needed about +2/3 stop of compensation. Not a big deal, though.
• The control layout is just enough different from the K20D to be irritating. It’s better, I think. But my hands don’t know where the buttons are anymore.
• Big negative: The SD card slot is terribly awkward when it comes time to remove the card. People with big hands are going to be tempted by forceps.
• Low light/high ISO: As everyone says, not as clean as you might like above 800. But this is a complicated issue, and I’m not sure it’s a problem that can’t be easily fixed in post. Rumor has it that Lightroom 3, now in beta, does wonders. That would be great; I’ll wait for the actual release.  A head to head comparison with the K20D at 1000, shooting with the Pentax 21 Ltd on both cameras, produced much sharper, if slightly noisier, images on the K-7. This could be a clue that in-camera sharpening is more intense on the new body.

More as I figure things out. The manual is the size of a novel and seems to be written in postmodernist Swahili.

photo: Pear blossoms in the orchard, digital black and white, 2010