[PhilipK5]

Sharpness on the eye of your image above looks great to me.
As noted above by er1kkesn I think micro-contrast is an issue often overlooked when comparing images for sharpness.
Much of the apparent sharpness or sometimes lack thereof relates to both the lens and the lighting, level of contrast in the image and post processing.
If there is not enough contrast it can look fussy and out of focus even when it is not - too much contrast and other problems start to appear.
I find that when I compare the photos taken with my K5 with those of my K3 there is obviously more resolution at the detail level in the K3. Having said that the K5 is still a very fine camera and many of my best shorts have been taken with it.

[pschlute]

Lost as to what this thread is all about

[mikesbike]

Lost as to what this thread is all about

The OP expressed a feeling that his portrait photography could be sharper.

[stevebrot]

It's just like if there was a constant blurryness of a single pixel that, while allows me to take completely fine pictures, the finest of the finest details can't be catched.

Ummmm...while some bloggers go on about sub-pixel resolution, there are only pixels and they are ALWAYS fully discrete and whether they might be used to render a portion of an edge (the essence of what we deem detail) is partially a matter of probability In short, if you can see the pixels, you are not seeing the image.

As far as your K-5 is concerned, if what you are seeing with your best efforts with a particular lens has lower quality than what you expect withing the frame, there is little you can do other than trade up to more pixels with that frame and/or opt for the K-5IIs without the anti-alias filter. Notice that I did not suggest buying a better lens. Unless you have been cheap in that regard, most quality glass available to fit your K-5 should be capable of meeting the challenge at 16Mpx as well as that of a higher resolution sensor.


Steve

[stevebrot]

Lost as to what this thread is all about

Hint: It is not a troubleshooting or help request.


Steve

[stevebrot]

I currently have an SMC Pentax-A f/2 50mm prime, and while it feels sharp and nice, there's still this little tiny bit of fuzzyness i can appreciate.

I just reviewed the thread a bit and found this comment. Sadly, the Pentax-A 50/2.0 along with its cousin, the Pentax-M 50/2.0 both stand-out for average or below average performance among Pentax fast 50s. Both were bundled as normal lenses with the K1000 and to the best of my memory, neither were offered with other than lowest entry-level cameras at any point.

The choice of lens might be part of your frustration. Another might be the expectation of nailing focus when neither you nor the camera's AF system (focus confirm) can "see" the intended point of focus clearly enough to do the task quickly, easily, and accurately with a hand-held camera and a living/moving subject.


Steve

[Sandy Hancock]

Moved to K-5 sub-forum.

[CapitanXeon]

...most quality glass available to fit your K-5 should be capable of meeting the challenge at 16Mpx as well as that of a higher resolution sensor.

In fact, as far as i know, the 18-135 actually came bundled with the K-5, so that should be a nice match. I'm currently editing some pics taken yesterday night with that particular lens, and i actually had to manual focus because of how dark it was to see either through the OVF or for the AF system to work at all. I think i did a pretty good job focusing, but i'll see later.

---------- Post added 11-10-19 at 08:15 AM ----------

Hint: It is not a troubleshooting or help request.


Steve

At the beggining i did post this in troubleshooting because i thought there was something wrong somewhere. In fact, there was something wrong, just it was just behind the camera

[er1kksen]

From comparing the photo in your first post to the second photo of your own you posted, I'd say the biggest differences are lighting (first photo looks to have a diffuse light plus a directional light to bring out texture, your photo seems to have a single semi-diffuse light source) and that the first photo looks like it's had a high-pass filter applied. Look into high-pass filter processing and see if that helps pull a little more of what you're looking for out of your photos.

Acutance and focus look similarly good in both photos.

[CapitanXeon]

From comparing the photo in your first post to the second photo of your own you posted, I'd say the biggest differences are lighting (first photo looks to have a diffuse light plus a directional light to bring out texture, your photo seems to have a single semi-diffuse light source) and that the first photo looks like it's had a high-pass filter applied. Look into high-pass filter processing and see if that helps pull a little more of what you're looking for out of your photos.

Acutance and focus look similarly good in both photos.

I will look into the high pass filter, to see what is and how it works. it might solve some of the problems i'm having, as the pictures i did at night turned out fine, but with the same pickyness i was having before. Nontheless, i can see the tyre details on a car (like brand, size or even small details like the week of manufacturing) which is amazing bearing in mind how dark it was, so it looks it boils down to editing. I'll look on that filter and will see, but i did some drafts and might have potential.

Cheers!

[Sholom]

Sorry to revive an older thread but I have been testing the new Topaz AI sharpening and denoising software (and the older Topaz AI Clear built into Topaz Studio) on my often cropped K-5 images. They don't always work their magic but when they do, it feels like the very slight blurring effect of the anti-moire filter is eliminated. Good post-processing can make a huge difference with K-5 images, even with great glass like my 43 and 70mm lenses. As noted above, local contrast and microcontrast are important factors in acutance (i.e. perception of sharpness). The Topaz AI software are fairly demanding of computer processing, but a lot can be done on the local and microcontrast level with RawTherapee, which runs fine on even pretty old computers as long as there is a enough memory (8GB minimum for Win 10 64 bit, 16 GB better).