Complementing the quiet shutter is the motordrive that zips along at just over 5fps in its Continuous High mode. In the best JPEG mode, we got 23 images at this rate using a SanDisk Extreme III SD card before the camera slowed to about one shot per second. In RAW only (DNG setting) we got 14 frames at top speed before the camera slowed to one shot every two seconds.

Shooting RAW and JPEG, the camera gave ten shots at top shooting speed. We shot RAW and JPEG simultaneously for most of our test shots. Pentax has its own RAW format but the processing software wasn't available at the time of testing, so we used the DNG format that can be processed in Adobe Photoshop.

Image quality is great. Comparing the JPEG with the converted RAW of the same image the JPEG is noticeably noisier. The difference between JPEG and RAW files is more marked as you ascend the ISO scale, until you hit ISO 6400, where the JPEG looks smoother than the RAW.

At more usual ISO settings, such as ISO 100 and 200, images are very clean and colour reproduction is accurate and nicely saturated. All in all, The K-7 showed itself to be a highly capable DSLR performer.

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