[IsaacReaves]

Hello from France! I am a proud new owner of a low shutter count K-5 and 18-55 WR lens (the one with the white lens band). I've shot on 35mm fairly extensively in the past before going digital with an Olympus E-M10. That was a great little camera and I adore the m43 system, but that body started acting up a couple of years ago so I've not been able to shoot for a long while.

After considering either Pentax or Fujifilm, I decided to go with Pentax to try and build up a larger system this time, especially after reading all the rave reviews on the K3 series. I have shot on a lot of old Minolta glass in the past and had a couple of Pentax classic lenses, so the image quality in the lenses was a known quantity for me. The Fuji lenses look excellent but, like the newer Olympus pro glass, seems to command full frame prices for APS-C product. M43 prices have severely impacted my enthusiasm for the system and I fear it may disappear because of it. Pentax seem to have a lot of runway ahead of them as the sole remaining manufacturer of DSLR. When I win the lottery I will buy a full set of Zeiss Milvus and a metabones for a K1, but for now the prices on new and used Pentax DA lenses looks reasonable, and I will probably end up with manual classic lenses, anyway. I do not really feel like the K5 is limiting in any way in terms of image quality after seeing the galleries here and on Flickr. There are so many jaw dropping images from dedicated K5 shooters, it's just amazing.

To get a feel for my new-to-me K5, I took a little walk around downtown with the goal to test high ISO performance at slow shutter speeds, all hand held. I wasn't expecting the sensor shift to work this well on an APS-C sized body from 2010, but it does. I like to shoot street, travel, and landscape. I'm not very serious about the latter, so hand-held performance is important to me. I've not applied any denoise algorithms, trying to get a feel for the grain. With new DSLR and mirrorless creating rivers of hyperreal images, I like to shoot in a grittier style with less processing in post. Pentax colors remind me of Olympus a bit - quite vivid out of the camera. I will have to re-edit these later when I have more time. Hope you enjoy a bit of of gritty street style in the meantime. cheers

f7.1 1/4s ISO6400


f8.0 1/20s ISO6400


f8.0 1/40s ISO6400


f5.0 1/50s ISO6400


f5.6 1/25s ISO3200


f5.6 1/30s ISO6400


f5.0 1/8s ISO6400

---

Last edited by IsaacReaves; 01-31-2022 at 11:42 AM. Reason: added shot details.

[microlight]

Welcome! You have quite an eye for night shots.

[BigMackCam]

Welcome - and congrats on your new-to-you K-5. Those are great night shots

The K-5 has an excellent sensor... in fact, some preferred (and still prefer) it to the later K-3 & K-3II which are also excellent but lost a little in dynamic range performance. Whilst sensor technology has advanced since 2010, for most purposes the K-5 is hugely capable. I've been using mine to digitise 35mm and 120 6x6 negatives lately, and the results are excellent. Enjoy!

[IsaacReaves]

Thanks, @microlight!

I've been using mine to digitise 35mm and 120 6x6 negatives lately, and the results are excellent.

Thank you, and that's nice to hear, because I've been wanting to to start processing c41 on my own and had to sell my old Epson film scanner quite a while back. I will search around the forum a bit for threads on this topic.

I just converted one of the street shots to B&W. Indeed I think the K5 is going to work out very well for me.

[BigMackCam]

Thanks, @microlight!



Thank you, and that's nice to hear, because I've been wanting to to start processing c41 on my own and had to sell my old Epson film scanner quite a while back. I will search around the forum a bit for threads on this topic.

I just converted one of the street shots to B&W. Indeed I think the K5 is going to work out very well for me.

Those a very attractive and photogenic streets Local to you?

[IsaacReaves]

Those a very attractive and photogenic streets Local to you?

Indeed, it's practically my doorstep! Saint-Brieuc is an old city here on the coast. The site of the Cathedral is said to date back to the 6th century. I think this one was started in the 12th and relatively finished in the 13th. There are some curious Roman features about it.

There is an abundance of castles, cathedrals, old churches, medieval villages, and beaches here in Brittany. It's something of a shutterbug's paradise.

[BigMackCam]

Indeed, it's practically my doorstep! Saint-Brieuc is an old city here on the coast. The site of the Cathedral is said to date back to the 6th century. I think this one was started in the 12th and relatively finished in the 13th. There are some curious Roman features about it.

There is an abundance of castles, cathedrals, old churches, medieval villages, and beaches here in Brittany. It's something of a shutterbug's paradise.

That's wonderful! You're very fortunate to live in a place with such history and historical architecture... I think you might enjoy the region where I live, here in the North East of England. We also have a lot of very old, historical architecture - castles, forts, manor homes, many anicent ruins - with much Norman and Roman heritage (the name of my town is "Chester-le-Street", from the Norman times, and was "Concangis" / "Concangium" during Roman occupation), not to mention a good amount of Viking influence, even in the local dialect

---

Last edited by BigMackCam; 01-31-2022 at 02:16 PM.

[IsaacReaves]

There is a viking camp close to here as well! So much common history on both sides of the channel.

Sadly I've not been outside of London. NE England sounds like a great place to visit, especially after seeing all of these viking tv shows. :P

[TER-OR]

Yes, the K5 has a wonderful sensor. It's very film-like and serene, IMHO. I haven't parted with mine yet, but I don't use it very often anymore.
I keep wanting to go out and do some real night-time photography, thanks for sharing yours.


Here's a shot with a DA300 in the woods, with a reclusive Yellow-billed Cuckoo.

[MarkJerling]

Thanks, @microlight!



Thank you, and that's nice to hear, because I've been wanting to to start processing c41 on my own and had to sell my old Epson film scanner quite a while back. I will search around the forum a bit for threads on this topic.

I just converted one of the street shots to B&W. Indeed I think the K5 is going to work out very well for me.

Lovely shots!
My daughter uses my K5 these days. It's a very capable camera.

Welcome to the forum!
Kind regards,
Mark
(New Zealand)

[IsaacReaves]

Lovely shots!
My daughter uses my K5 these days. It's a very capable camera.

Welcome to the forum!
Kind regards,
Mark
(New Zealand)

Thanks, Mark! I started my daughter down the dark side first, with a Minolta x700. She enjoys the T4i that her mom bought for her much more

cheers

---------- Post added 02-01-22 at 06:26 AM ----------

Yes, the K5 has a wonderful sensor. It's very film-like and serene, IMHO. I haven't parted with mine yet, but I don't use it very often anymore.
I keep wanting to go out and do some real night-time photography, thanks for sharing yours.


Here's a shot with a DA300 in the woods, with a reclusive Yellow-billed Cuckoo.

The color rendering looks so life like. Very nice shot. It's never too late to dust off the K5 and head out for a prowl Cheers

[IsaacReaves]

straggler image. was trying to pull back a lot of detail from the shadows in post and test how well the noise cleans up. not bad for what was mostly black SOOC in the jpeg.

ISO3200

File Date

View Picture EXIF