Pentax K-7 First Impressions

This camera is a HUGE upgrade from their current line.

I'm just going to list; bullet point style, some ya's and na's that I've observed in the past 2 weeks.
The screen is awesome - years better than the current k models (but just a catch up step to where nikon and canon have been for a while).
The 100% viewfinder is a nice addition.
The new shutter is nice (haven't needed 1/8000 yet though), the sound is really quiet in my opinion, makes the k10d seem really loud.
The new info display on the back is a nice feature, though might eat battery life.
The battery has been fine. I shoot through an entire 16gb card in raw format without even loosing one bar on the battery. Which is supposed to be more accurate than the older models. But I haven't seen it dip below full since I always recharge it after each wedding.
I did wish it kept the same battery as the k10 and 20, but no luck there of course.
The build and handling is superb. It feels really solid. Except for the now plastic doors on the side. The k10 wins there.
The pc sync port is a nice addition for me but instead of covering it with an attached piece of plastic (like the mic port for example), it's a tiny little screw of piece that is easily lost. So why not leave it off, because that part isn't dust or weather sealed without it - booo.
The white balance doesn't seem to be as good as my k10, but I haven't done any in depth tests here. Not that the k10 was that good anyway, but the k7 sometimes has an odd hue in certain lights.
The noise at higher iso's is much better. I'd say the k7 at 3200 = k10 at 1600.
The video feature is nice, but not used much by me at this point. Quality is superb.
The green focus assist light is a very welcome addition!!! And focus in general is much improved.
The new button layout (due to larger screen) is something to get used to but not awkward.
The sd card does sit in a little further than the old models, but I haven't found it to be an issue yet.

Overall, I'm very impressed. I might need 2.

Coming soon...

My review of the new Pentax K7 DSLR.

Palm Pre - the laymen's review

OK, if you found this little blog you've probably done a lot of searching and reading on the palm pre. This tiny little review is basically for the laymen, like myself. If you're looking for a technical review with clock speeds and numbers you've probably already left.
First off - I have NO cell phone, technical background. I'm upgrading from a 2 year old LG flip phone (which was great, but featureless). I'm not a power user with corporate emails, and tethering to my laptop, or presenting slide shows. I got this phone to keep a bunch of information in the same place (contacts, calendar, etc) and stay connected with the Internet (email, searching, video, sharing, weather, stocks, movie trailers, whatever). So that's were I'm coming from.
It was a three way tie between the Pre, the iphone and a blackberry (most likely the storm). I liked the touch screen feature, so that got rid of most blackberries, and the storm just didn't do it for me (along with the extra money to Verizon). So then it's down to the Pre vs iphone, we've all see this before. For me, the iphone is just way to common place now, it seems like everyone has one. The pre is smaller and has a keyboard and the Sprint plan compared to the at&t plan saves WAY more money. The pre it is!
If you are in the market for a smartphone, there is one thing you should know - the battery life on these phones, SUCK. They have to do a lot, and are constantly updating, and usually have big, brite, screens. So just be aware of that, if you want battery life, DON'T by a smartphone. If you want great gas mileage, don't by a Ford F250 truck. It's a no brainer. If someone who drove an f250 was complaining about their gas mileage, you'd probably say "well, duh. What do you expect, it's a truck". So if you have a Pre or an iphone, don't complain about bad battery life, it's expected!
That said, they still should meet certain standards. A phone that drains its battery in one hour has a problem. There are many posts regarding bad battery life and it's relation to hotmail, this needs to be fixed. But on average, for me, my phone will last the day with calls, messages, pictures, web surfing, emails, etc.
"My battery gets hot" - that's called physics. When a battery is working, it gets hot, it has to. Should it burn you? No. When I'm using my phone, the battery heats up a little, so did my old phone. Maybe in the winter I can use it as a hand warmer.
EDIT - after using the phone now for a couple weeks, my phone; with 3 email accounts running and websurfing, along with calls, texts, pictures, etc lasts for about a day. My wifes phone; mostly calls, texts, some pictures (no email, no surfing... yet), lasts about 2 plus days.
Sprints reception - so far, so good. Here in Savage, MN I have more bars than I did with Verizon. My big test is if I get any reception in Target, since my old phone had NONE.
Quality control - There seems to be a problem here, and I've seen it first hand. My first phone had a dead pixel, and I'm the type of person who can't get past that. It stares me in the face, so I had to swap it out. Plus if you pay this much for a phone, you'd expect perfection. My wifes phone shut off every 4th time she closed it (with and without the "paper trick", which was highly annoying, so that one got swapped out. As a side note, the folks at the Sprint store (in Burnsville Mall) were fantastic, no issues, very nice. Now that we each have error free models (they way they should be in the first place), we're happy. I am a little curious how many phones had to (and will have to) go back to Palm, and I wonder if we will ever see those numbers.
The "oreo effect" - since this seems very subjective, the amount of wobble reported varies wildly. Both of our phones (and the 2 replaced models) have some wobble. Which in my opinion is very normal on a slider style phone with a touch screen. If there isn't a little play in the hinges something might crack. But I've seen some youtube video where it looks a little out of hand so this might be a real issue. The screen cracks - haven't seen it yet (and hope not to), but this is a little worrisome. - Bottom line here, Palm has some quality control issues to address.
Overall the build quality of the phone is superb. The screen is amazing, the touch responsiveness is great. My only issue is with the tiny little mini usb/charger cover. Seems like that little guy is going to bust off in no time.
Ease of use - In my opinion, very easy to use and learn.
Camera - a good cell phone camera. Not a great Camera, camera, but a good cell phone camera. There does seem to be a bit of a lag from taking a picture to looking at it afterwards.
I would have liked to see a video feature for the camera, but a hack might pop up for that sooner or later.
Sprint GPS - I've only done a quick test with this, but it works perfectly!
The ringer is nice and loud, call quality is good. Internet and data speed is very quick. WiFi works very well. The webOS interface is wonderful.
If I could add something to the phone (aside from video recording) it would be removable storage. I'm not saying I've filled up the 8 gigs of space yet (maybe 0.6 gigs worth). But it's nice being able to save pictures to a card and pop it out. Instead I just hook up the usb cable and it acts as a usb drive, easy enough.
So after one week, the bottom line is: This phone kicks @ss! Of course if it starts randomly shutting off or cracking, I'll have to change my opinion.

Sigma 530 Super Flash

I think this is a great, versatile, powerful flash. It has a ton of features, lcd display (both good and bad feature in my opinion), AF assist lamp, bounce and swivel head plus it's very powerful. I do wish it had a sync port and axillary battery power, but overall a decent feature set for $230. For those of you who want to use it with Skyports, you can't... at least not reliably.