Originally posted by JohnBee Having said that, the RAW files are where you will most notably get a better view of what each sensor is capable of. At which point, I think the K-5 quite clearly shows it's stuff in contrast to the Kx or Kx sensors.
I posted the below in another thread - but thought it was relevant here.
I wanted to see how the current leading edge dSLRs - Pentax K-5, Nikon D7000 and Canon 60D compared and the dpReview of the Canon 60D comparison was most useful -
the main shortcoming is the lack of skin tone - other than the picture of a face in the right of the target.
I included the Pentax K-x for 2 main reasons -
1) acknowledged currently as one of the best High ISO performers.
2) new K-r seems to be similar in performance - so this may give an indication of how the K-r may compare.
I do realize the K-x cannot be a 1:1 comparison since the K-x (K-r) are 12Mp vs the 16+Mp of the other leading edge dSLRs - but it was interesting/educational comparing them.
Looking at the High ISO -
ISO 6400 -
For grins I also compared at
ISO 12800 -
These new 16+Mp dSLRs are amazing with relative image quality that are visually matching the "best" 12Mp at High ISOs - the Nikon D7000 JPG engine appears to do well especially when comparing the Martini label - with the K-x a kind of second - and I agree with JohnBee that the K-5 noise reduction seems a bit heavier and blurs away details (esp in the ISO 12800 comparisons) -
but at ISO 12800 one really ought to be working in RAW and reduce the noise using a more specialized program.
I have said this earlier for those who wished for a K-7 with a K-x sensor -
the K-5 has more than exceeded that.