[Manel Brand]

Wrong. That is the least important thing.

Not the most, but surely not the least. Upgrading from 10 Mp to 16 is a good thing, quite important if you are going to crop your images.

[Digitalis]

let's get the record straight, the K10D is a good camera, it has a good CCD sensor. But the AF isn't all that reliable under difficult conditions, and the sensor doesn't handle High ISO'S very well. And along comes the K5 which provides the extra 6 megapixels of resolution, significantly improved dynamic range and enhanced UI and ergonomics. Most people who skipped the K20 and K7 will enjoy the K5 however for many of them the sensor improvements will be a primary concern of theirs.

I have only seen a handful of lenses that couldn't provide the resolution that the sensor was capable of capturing I.E Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1.0 on a Leica M9 - the Noctilux at f/1.0 can only provide about 6Mp worth of resolution which isn't bad, but falls short of the maximum output the 18Mp sensor can achieve.

[ogl]

Ok i dont have a K-5 yet but im reading in threads that some owners of the K-5 are noting that certain lenses are now not so good and not sharp anymore on the K-5 because the k-5 has amazing abiltity to resolve detail.
Could the owners start posting what lenses they are now considering "retiring" since having the K-5.

Im curious to know what lenses they believe are "not up to standard" on the K-5...

Any good lens could resolve even 52 MP at aperture f/4 with APS-C sensor.


All this talks are from Canon and Nikon trolls IMO.

[johnmflores]

In order to address this issue I am starting an Obsolete Lens Testing Program. Send your lens in and we will run it through a gauntlet of real world tests over a period of several years on a variety of cameras to determine if the lens is in fact obsolete. At the end of the test you will know with complete confidence whether or not your lens is usable or just a piece of crap.

The Obsolete Lens Testing Program is open to all Pentax Lenses in question, including but not limited to Takumars, M, A, FA, DA, and especially all Limited and * series lenses. Simply send your lenses to me and in a couple of years I will return the lenses with a complete report.

This offer not valid in Rhode Island. Oh, and Wyoming and Guam as well.

[jogiba]

OMG, I guess I will check off the K-5 from my Christmas list if it won't work well with my lenses.

[Abstract]

The same that are not up to your K200. Any lens that is good with your actual camera will be even better with the K-5. Those older lens (K to FA) were made to work with 35mm cameras; if you do the math, it takes about 25 mega-pixels to simulate 35mm film, which is still far more than any digital camera available this days. However, some may argue that a lens made for film doesn't perform very well with digital sensors, but I did not find evidence of this to be true in my experience.

This makes sense...Guess K-5 it is then!

[kittykat46]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but people are worries that the K7 is sharper than the k5 (from the recent posts). Now we hear that you can't get a sharp image from an older lens. Perhaps this is good...then we won't see people bastardizing Pentax lenses to cram on their Canons and Nikons.

Joking aside, if you put a crappy older lens on your camera, then perhaps, but isn't that the same as buying a cheap new lens? Some older lenses are expensive and there is a good reason for it. Since they were designed for better quality FF film, do you really think those lenses can't produce sharp shots? Are you saying that a lower resolution camera can produce sharper shots with these lenses than a high resolution camera? Isn't that the fault of the camera and not the lens? Are you saying that things are so razor sharp with the K5 that previous photographic expectations are obsolete?

Let's put to rest the "K-5 is soft" urban legend, shall we ? 'Cause it isn't true.

OK, on the subject of lenses which may not be so good on the K-5.
There's no way anyone can make blanket statements about old lenses, because Pentax made many Excellent lenses even from manual focus days, which would be perfectly OK on the K-5.
However, there were also some pretty pedestrian lenses along the way, and there are also lenses which may have been very good when new, but haven't been well taken care of over the years....

How I qualify a lens as "ripe for retirement" on the K-5 is to compare the same scene taken with the best Pentax glass I have - DA*50-135, FA 43 Ltd, DA 70. On the K100D, for example, the differences are less obvious.

My older version DA 18-55 (from the K100D) would be considered a very good kit lens on the K100D, still OK on the K-7, but on the K-5 it just falls so far short of what the sensor is capable of , I don't think I'll use it....

I have an old A 50mm f/1.4 I bought "cheap" on E-bay, which isn't in pristine condition any more. It was OK on the K100D, even K-7, again, just doesn't quite make it on the K-5. I think the lens has a very good reputation, just not the copy I have. I'll retire this one.

(note : not the FA 50mm f/1.4, which I bought new a few years ago, and its still just as good on the K-5)

[Digitalis]

Any good lens could resolve even 52 MP at aperture f/4 with APS-C sensor.

but take a note of the resolution quoted for f/8 - 13Mp, too bad for someone who is using the new 18-135mm f/4.-5.6 on a K5, they are almost at f/8 and if they want to get past any optical aberrations that lens may posses they are going to have to stop down anyway, and take the loss of resolution.

At any rate I would take the numbers on that chart with a big pinch of salt...

[jeffrey r]

I was on my couch the other night with my new K-5, and I grabbed my F 50/2.8 Macro lens. So that's an older lens, but it is reputed to be one of the sharpest Pentax lenses ever. So, is it supposed to work well with the K-5 or not? Well, in real life, just shooting some shots of the ice cream container I was eating from at the time, the pictures were tack sharp. I can't keep up with all of the conspiracy theories regarding the K-5.

[ogl]

but take a note of the resolution quoted for f/8 - 13Mp, too bad for someone who is using the new 18-135mm f/4.-5.6 on a K5, they are almost at f/8 and if they want to get past any optical aberrations that lens may posses they are going to have to stop down anyway, and take the loss of resolution.

At any rate I would take the numbers on that chart with a big pinch of salt...

The resolution consists of
CAMERA + LENS + SOFTWARE. As for primes - I think that more MP is better. For certain limit, of course.
I think that APS-C could be 20-22 MP. And even 25 MP. In 2-3 years.

The resolution and the size of picture are not the same.
K-7 has 14.6 MP picture's size, K-5 has 16.3 MP pictures's size.
The real resolution could be the same or lower. It also depends on software and lens.

Silky Pix offer worse debayer, C1Pro is one of the best. For example.

We can't say anything about DA18-135, but DA18-55 will be rather soft at K-5.

[Digitalis]

I think that APS-C could be 20-22 MP. And even 25 MP. In 2-3 years.

that would be a very bad thing to have a 25Mp APS-C sensor, because diffraction would mean that using your lenses at f/11~f/16 would rob you of a significant amount of resolution, not everyone can afford to use their lenses at maximum aperture, macro,landscape,architecture and wildlife photography often involves stopping down lenses in order to achieve enough DOF to cover our subjects, and at times that is hard enough on APS-C.

And not everyone has the photographic technique required for such a high resolution,I have taught photographers who couldn't handle it without proper instruction....it brings to mind a student I had who, at the start of his classes bought a sony A900 and a handful of lenses. One day he was using them in the studio and he realised that even with studio strobes a shutter speed of 1/200th with IS on, he was still getting camera shake, my other students with lower resolution cameras couldn't see the motion blur in their shots, but his camera could. So I put his camera on the camera tree and it helped, but subject motion would continue to be a problem.

[nanok]

yes, terrible and scary. just send me your obsolete glass, i'll take good care of it. i have a special version of the k-5 which doesn't mind the glass so much (that shutter lock when the lens is too soft is disabled in my version).

i wonder where this bs is coming from. people have been shooting lenses older than they are just a month ago, all of a sudden two megapixels (out of 14, so irrelevant) will make them obsolete. amazing. i won't even go into "how many prints have you made that make use of all your megapixels". you do realize that, in reality, you can print at any size from 6mp and be fine for normal usage? but most people don't print, they pixel peep and draw conclusions about sensors and lenses. also, do you realize how many of your lenses are likely to outresolve your current sensor (start with: "is there one?"), and how often that actually happens in practice, assuming you do have one?

[Marc Langille]

In order to address this issue I am starting an Obsolete Lens Testing Program. Send your lens in and we will run it through a gauntlet of real world tests over a period of several years on a variety of cameras to determine if the lens is in fact obsolete. At the end of the test you will know with complete confidence whether or not your lens is usable or just a piece of crap.

The Obsolete Lens Testing Program is open to all Pentax Lenses in question, including but not limited to Takumars, M, A, FA, DA, and especially all Limited and * series lenses. Simply send your lenses to me and in a couple of years I will return the lenses with a complete report.

This offer not valid in Rhode Island. Oh, and Wyoming and Guam as well.

yes, terrible and scary. just send me your obsolete glass, i'll take good care of it. i have a special version of the k-5 which doesn't mind the glass so much (that shutter lock when the lens is too soft is disabled in my version).

i wonder where this bs is coming from. people have been shooting lenses older than they are just a month ago, all of a sudden two megapixels (out of 14, so irrelevant) will make them obsolete. amazing. i won't even go into "how many prints have you made that make use of all your megapixels". you do realize that, in reality, you can print at any size from 6mp and be fine for normal usage? but most people don't print, they pixel peep and draw conclusions about sensors and lenses. also, do you realize how many of your lenses are likely to outresolve your current sensor (start with: "is there one?"), and how often that actually happens in practice, assuming you do have one?

I'm just glad that my FA* lenses are not obsolete <whew>... sorry John and Joni...

As stated by Digitalis: better glass and sensors will normally demand better skills of the photographer. You cannot hide... mediocre skills/understanding are revealed very quickly when using top shelf equipment.

Cheers,
Marc

[opiet70]

Perhaps there is something to this, but glass is glass. The quality of the light reaching the sensor is what makes the picture. Each piece of glass has it's sweet spot and the most effective way in which to use it.

That being said, different glass does have different quality as easily seen in the lens reviews on this site. I have a hard time believing, however, that a good quality lens will suddenly be crap on this new camera. I do think that people have noticed differences (perhaps flaws that they did not notice before) due to the increased sensitivity of the sensor but that's to be expected. Every lens one owns will need to be evaluated with their new K-5 because it's a new system. The K-5 is one component. The lens is another. Then there's the normal stuff - light, aperture, ISO, shutter speed, subject matter, etc.

Pentax has a fine set of lenses that can generate incredible quality. I doubt a ~2 MP increase is going to suddenly kill off a previously strong line of lenses.

That being said, I guess I gotta buy me a K-5 and see for myself!

[kenyee]

FWIW, I noticed a big difference going from the K10D to K20D with the Sigma 17-70, so I'm sure you'd probably notice that as well. Only if you pixel peep though.
Primes (77Ltd, Kiron105) except for the 50/1.4 have held up well as has the 60-250.