K20D Noise Comparison against A700, 40D, D300, D3

[Tobogi]

Comparision Chart Link

Original samples are from Japanese Camera Site ascii.jp. Be cautious, though. ascii.jp didn't conduct the comparison review. One user just made 100% crop chart using the samples from the individual reviews. All original photos can be seen at the following links.

Cheers!


K20D
第34回ペンタックス「K20D�

D300
第27回 ニコン「D300�

α700
第25回 ソニー「α700�

40D
第18回 ã‚*ヤノン「EOS-40Dã€�

D3
第32回ニコン「D3�

[d.bradley]

Wow. I've never looked at the output from the other cameras as I have little interest in buying one, but these seem to tell a story. There is a slight problem of differing image crops, makeing it a little hard to do 'perfect' comparisons....but nonetheless my thoughts follow:

A700: Strong anti-alias (AA) filtering and/or noise reduction resulting in loss of detail.
40D: Complete obliteration of detail in image processing at all ISO levels
D300: Weak AA filter and low NR preserves detail at the cost of some noise (mostly Luminance, present uniformly across the luma spectrum...shadows, midtones and highlights)
D3: Some anti-aliasing, but otherwise great.

K20D: Weak AA filtering and noise reduction preserves details. Higher ISO shows luminance noise mostly in the darker areas, with very little noise in the midtones and highlights.

It looks to me like the K20D is second only to the D3. I'm impressed.

[davemdsn]

Originally Posted by d.bradley

It looks to me like the K20D is second only to the D3. I'm impressed.

My thoughts exactly. The D3 is the clear winner in the high ISO category, but the K20 is a close second and the rest fall away rather quickly. I am really disappointed in the 40D. It is the lowest resolution so I thought it would have low noise, but that's not the case. Good job Petnax!

[travis_cooper]

Sweet a Korean Pentax forum, I need to check that place out.

[d.bradley]

Originally Posted by davemdsn

I am really disappointed in the 40D. It is the lowest resolution so I thought it would have low noise, but that's not the case. Good job Petnax!

I don't know...it might have the lowest noise. It's hard to see what is 'noise' and what is 'signal' in the blurry mess that these photos demonstrate.

I'm actually wondering if there is some problem with the test...missed focus or something. Those images are softer than my alpaca wool scarf....

[svenphoto]

that is truly amazing at 1600 iso. ok d3 is the uber machine, but at what price...

k20d absolutly much better then the somewhat unsharp 40d and noisy d300. mostly noticable at the doll.

nice nice nice

[Frank Fletcher]

Thank you for posting this.

I've been looking to replace my stolen K10d and have been scouring the net for more comparisons like this. Though I know it's early days yet, early firmware, not-scientific, etc... it's quite exciting to me that the K20d might live up to it's hype in terms of IQ.

On a similar vein - I like the idea of a "(mostly) raw RAW", giving some of the PP control back to the photographer/image specialist. It might save some battery juice too. Given that I feel Pentax thinks more about the photographer than most other companies, I wonder if they will ever offer the option. Although, having a button for RAW++ (+++) might be a little wierd...

Frank.

[Jonson PL]

Originally Posted by Frank Fletcher

Thank you for posting this.

I've been looking to replace my stolen K10d and have been scouring the net for more comparisons like this. Though I know it's early days yet, early firmware, not-scientific, etc... it's quite exciting to me that the K20d might live up to it's hype in terms of IQ.

On a similar vein - I like the idea of a "(mostly) raw RAW", giving some of the PP control back to the photographer/image specialist. It might save some battery juice too. Given that I feel Pentax thinks more about the photographer than most other companies, I wonder if they will ever offer the option. Although, having a button for RAW++ (+++) might be a little wierd...

Frank.

There is a setting in the K20, where you state the amount of NR that you wanna use.

Pentax is definitely a photographer’s company, even if some people feel that they are too old school at times

[d.bradley]

Originally Posted by Jonson PL

There is a setting in the K20, where you state the amount of NR that you wanna use.

Do we know if this is applied to RAW or just jpeg? That's the kicker...

[nosnoop]

Originally Posted by d.bradley

Do we know if this is applied to RAW or just jpeg? That's the kicker...

Jpeg only, RAW is RAW. If NR is applied as in A700 ("cooked RAW"), it is hardware based and you cannot turn it off.

[philmorley]

Originally Posted by svenphoto

that is truly amazing at 1600 iso. ok d3 is the uber machine, but at what price...

k20d absolutly much better then the somewhat unsharp 40d and noisy d300. mostly noticable at the doll.

nice nice nice

I agree, k20 was impressive and d3 was very impressive and put them all in context of price and the k20d becomes very impressive.

the 40d seemed pretty bad to me?

[flyer]

Did anybody notice under the picture of Tokyo skyscrapers, it is marked ISO 80. I was under the impression the lowest ISO for the K20D was 100. What gives?

[jeffkrol]

ÀÚÀ¯°Ô½ÃÆÇ :: ÆæŹ½ºÆ÷·³
Couldn't hot link the image... soooooooooo..... (Let's see if I get a nasty letter from Korea.....

[clawhammer]

I wonder what the settings on the D300 were- it really looks worse than than what I've seen from my friends d300.

[jeffkrol]

Originally Posted by clawhamemr

I wonder what the settings on the D300 were- it really looks worse than than what I've seen from my friends d300.

The d300 is about 1/4 to 1/2 stop underexposed compared the the K20.. That's probably some of the difference....