New, Pentax K7 (updated 2)

[Update: article. If I did not already have a million Canon and Nikon lenses, the K-7 would be very tempting indeed for me. In a nutshell, it's a professional camera for an amateur price and size.]
"Pentax has it right when they call the K-7 a camera with pro features at a semi-pro price. I'm tempted to warn pure amateurs away from the Pentax K7, as I did with the Nikon D300, so that they don't get lost in its wonderful tangle of fine-tuning options. But the good news is that if you lock the Pentax K7 into Green zone mode it turns off most of the options that can befuddle and just starts using Pentax's years of experience to take well-balanced photographs."

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I haven't even read this very well yet (my fusillini pollo is ready), but this looks like a highly interesting camera release. Especially if Pentax really has broken the insane rule camera manufacturers seem to have followed in the digital age: that you only get the best camera by getting the biggest and heaviest camera.

I also warmly applaud Pentax for being one of the very few modern camera makers willing to invest in making prime lenses (non-zooms). True, I love the versatility of zooms, and with today's production methods they can be compromise-free in image quality. But in theory you should still be able to get a sharper, smaller, and cheaper lens if you let go of the need for zoom. I wonder if this theory is really true in practice?

So for instance I might be very interested in the super-compact super-wide Pentax 15mm lens. Sadly, while it's beautiful mechanically, it is very expensive, and the image quality does not seem to live up to the expectations I have for twice the price of some of the very good zoom lenses you get these days. An F:4.0 prime lens at over $600 better be really f***ing sharp, and this seems to be "very good" only stopped down two stops, and not very good at full opening. That's a bit disappointing.

But I hope Pentax and others will make more primes, particular wide ones, because while we now have some very sharp professional zooms, they tend to be very big, very heavy, and very, very expensive.

We know it can be done. For example the Konica Hexar camera in the nineties had a 35mm 2.0 lens (fixed) which was top of the line. It was as good in all respects as the famous 35mm lens from Leica, and it cost less, including the camera! With today's technology and a willing camera maker, we should be able to get a camera which is even better than the Konica Hexar in all respects, size, price, speed, and quality. In short, a street photographer's camera par excellence.