[ogl]

Adam, you pay too much attention at shaprness of K-5IIs - it's not the eyeopener.
Everybody knows that no AA filter = high shaprpness. A priori. Nothing to discuss. to say honest.
Pentax already produced a lot of cameras with weak or without AA filter before.

The main question - AF. As I understand it's old SAFOX IX with EV-3 without any difference in accurancy and speed in everyday use. Am I right?

[Adam]

Adam, you pay too much attention at shaprness of K-5IIs - it's not the eyeopener. Everybody knows that no AA filter = high shaprpness. A priori. Nothing to discuss. to say honest. Pentax already produced a lot of cameras with weak or without AA filter before. The main question - AF. As I understand it's old SAFOX IX with EV-3 without any difference in accurancy and speed in everyday use. Am I right?

For everyday use- pretty much, yeah. Which is why I'm personally considering supplementing my K-5 with something a bit faster, if you catch my drift.

But the sharpness really is something. Of course removing the AA filter is somewhat of a hack, any anyone can do it, but this is the first APS-C DSLR regardless. And if you look at how much the extra $100 buys you, and how little you have to lose, then maybe it is an eye-opener after all.

[Qwntm]

The only thing that is defective is the comparison.
It starts with completely different lighting conditions and doesn't end with different lenses being used.

Jump to the next comparison and it already is a much closer call. This despite the K-5 shot not having received more capture sharpening. Please, everyone, if you compare an image from a camera with an AA-filter with one from a camera without AA-filter, you always need to apply capture sharpening to the former. The Bayer-AA-filter serves a specific purpose and it's effect must be undone with capture sharpening. Everything else is comparing apples with oranges.


What did you do to compare AF accuracy?
It doesn't appear that you had the time to give this comparison the consideration it needs.

Your criticism is that Adam didn't do an in depth review. He never said he did.

The generalizations hold though. You can believe the K-5 iis is not sharper than the k-5, but from what I've seen today with my own limited testing, I have the impression that the K-5 iis is going to be sharper than my 5D mark II, FORGET ABOUT THE K-5, there is no comparison. Of that I am already sure. (PP sharpening or not.)

The Canon 7D is a generation or two ahead of the K-5 in terms of AF. The K-5 ii and s are better than the K-5, but they're still behind Canon. It doesn't take any testing to know that. I own 7D/K-5 and K-5 iis, so I have the personal experience to back that up. Having said that, the K-5 and K-5ii and s are "good enough." You are just going to get a little bit better keeper rate with the 7D and a Canon 70-200 L compared to a K-5/ii with a Tamron Screw Drive 70-200. I know that as well, as two weeks agot I shot the Canon L and a T3i, and tonight I shot the K-5/iis and the Tamron. Both experiences were equal, I got the mission accomplished and didn't wish I had any better gear. The 7D might have saved 2-5 shots out of 300 per night, but really, who cares at that point. More practice shooting that kind of stuff would have a MUCH bigger impact. I say it again, the key is the gear was up to the job regardless if it was a $2200 USM L series Canon or a $770 Screw Drive Tamron.

[Adam]

The Canon 7D is a generation or two ahead of the K-5 in terms of AF. The K-5 ii and s are better than the K-5, but they're still behind Canon. It doesn't take any testing to know that.

You are right in assuming that I never did an in-depth review, because I didn't Everything in this post is based on my initial impressions of the camera, which I did spend a lot of time with, but that doesn't mean that conclusions can be drawn yet without further research and investigation.

You can doubt it all you want, but the bottom line is that the K-5 IIs, as Pentax bragged, will deliver significantly higher resolution. And based on what I've seen so far, the risk of moire actually ruining your photos is negligible.

Today, my friend let me borrow his 7D, and I had three people shooting the same RC helicopter with the 7D (70-200mm F4 L), K-5 II, and K-5 IIs (FA* 85mm F1.4). And for the heck of it, I had each person spend an equal amount of time using the three cameras. For most of the 4-minute flight, the Pentaxes had full buffers and were struggling to keep up, while the Canon was firing away at 6-7 FPS and still re-adjusting the focus between every shot. The IIs hunted a little bit less than the K-5, but the difference is negligible as far as I could see (though I haven't looked at how sharp the photos turned out yet). The K-'shad a UHS-1 card while the Canon had a class 10.

One thing is certain, though: the K-5 II requires much less light to AF properly. Its low-light accuracy/decisiveness is really quite impressive; whether or not it will be useful to anyone in practice is another story.

Adam
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[yomer]

I believe you answered the question whether you think that the K-5 IIs is sharper than the K-5. However, yomer wanted to know whether the K-5 IIs is sharper than the K-5 II.

I understand that we don't know whether the AA-filter strength may have changed between K-5 and K-5 II.

Correct. I'm coming from the Nikon D40, so it should be a substantial upgrade. I wanted to know if the noted sharpness difference between the IIs and II is the same.

[Class A]

Your criticism is that Adam didn't do an in depth review. He never said he did.

I didn't criticise Adam for not doing an in depth review (and wonder what made you think I did).

I merely wondered how Adam was able to make a statement about AF accuracy. Obviously, I don't believe making statements about AF accuracy without proper testing to back one's claims up doesn't make any sense, but I didn't know what Adam had been able to do or not, hence I asked.

I don't doubt for a second that the 7D's AF beats the K-5 II's AF in almost any aspect, but I'm not sure accuracy is necessarily one of the aspects.

[Class A]

It means that SAFOX X is not revolution in accurancy at all....It's the same SAFOX IX with EV-3....It's sad to hear it...

Come on, Ogl.

On what basis would anyone be able to make a conclusion like that?!

[Adam]

I don't doubt for a second that the 7D's AF beats the K-5 II's AF in almost any aspect, but I'm not sure accuracy is necessarily one of the aspects.

For action photography in particular, we'll see (I won't be doing any general tests). I have about 1,400 photos shot using continuous AF with the 7D, and hopefully either I or someone else will have time to tally them up at some point...

[Class A]

For action photography in particular, we'll see (I won't be doing any general tests). I have about 1,400 photos shot using continuous AF with the 7D, and hopefully either I or someone else will have time to tally them up at some point...

Maybe there is a misunderstanding.

I would categorise AF issues with action photography under "AF speed" (cameras like the K-5 run out of time to obtain precise focus in action situations as opposed to being unable to focus accurately in principle).

When someone talks about "AF accuracy", I'm assuming that the camera has all the time in the world with a stationary subject to achieve as precise a focus setting as possible.

The 7D surely beats the K-5 in the speed of obtaining focus and in tracking moving subjects. Whether it also achieves more accurate focus with stationary subjects (i.e., in AF-S mode, so to speak) is another matter.

[Anvh]

Were these shot in Jpeg or RAW?

[Anvh]

Thanks greatly for the preliminary review, Adam. The differences are astonishing! Unless there is a known problem with the K-5/lens, the K5IIs has clearly more resolution. Was the lens used for making the photos the exact same lens? Now ............what advantage would that give the user? The K-5 already has great, great IQ. I don't have the K-5, but I understand that one can make very crisp and very large prints. So will the K5IIs allow one to make even larger, crisper prints?

Actually it would not make much if any differences with print.
The resolution is the same and inkt tends to bleed a bit so, the KIIs might give you crisper photos as print but if they are better is another story, often the slightly blurred images like the K5 gives a more natural and pleasant view.

[ogl]

For everyday use- pretty much, yeah. Which is why I'm personally considering supplementing my K-5 with something a big faster, if you catch my drift.

But the sharpness really is something. Of course removing the AA filter is somewhat of a hack, any anyone can do it, but this is the first APS-C DSLR regardless. And if you look at how much the extra $100 buys you, and how little you have to lose, then maybe it is an eye-opener after all.

Thank you for your honest answer Thank you very much. I'm ISO100-200's shooter for a long time. Very rare 400-800.
I'm puzzled - I have one camera without AA filter and one with weak AA filter. I could buy K-5IIs if it would be good mix of new much better AF system for everyday use + sharpness...
But....

[Adam]

I could buy K-5IIs if it would be good mix of new much better AF system for everyday use + sharpness...

The K-5 II is still not the big upgrade that the community was waiting for, but there will be some users that will find it to be an excellent upgrade.

[Adam]

When someone talks about "AF accuracy", I'm assuming that the camera has all the time in the world with a stationary subject to achieve as precise a focus setting as possible.

While you've got a valid point about the terminology, I think even the old K-5's AF was precise enough in that respect. Most people are going to be more interested in the type of accuracy I'm referring to, I think.

[yomer]

Adam,
Wouldn't it be possible that the comparison shots from the K5 where front or back focused and that's why the K5IIs seems that much sharper? I could very well consider a change for the K5IIs if this wasn't the case, and the K5II shows the same sharpness as the K5. I'm eagerly waiting for more comparison shots from K5/K5II/K5IIs.

Can anyone with both cameras take shots of a kid/person in motion, trying for a candid shot?

Oh, and will the IIs behave any differently noise-wise in low light?