[twilhelm]

I’ve never understood the desire some have for Pentax to build a mirror less camera. You’re not going to have a camera much smaller than the KP (which people complain about being too small) and if you did, the professional lenses defeat the size advantage. And then if you want smaller, you’re going to need a new mount, which everyone will want a fully functioning K mount adapter for so they can use their existing lenses instead of buying the newly created ones.

There are other areas I’d rather see R&D money spent than on a mirror less market gamble.

And seriously, if you need professional video, buy a camera with that capability at the foremost. A stills camera will always be better at stills than video.

[biz-engineer]

I've tested the A7-III during a press event. It's faster than any Pentax that's for sure.

Yes, for sure. But the question is, what difference does it make for a still photograph to have a fast autofocus or super fast autofocus, saving a quarter of a second in the process of taking the photograph? How useful is that? Does it make a difference on the photographs? Because if it doesn't make a difference on photographs, then who cares if the autofocus is a quarter of a second faster (except the marketing staff who want to entice people to buy the new model)?

---------- Post added 08-02-19 at 12:37 ----------

I've found 70 quotes from famous photographers. 70 Inspirational Quotes for Photographers . There is not a single quote about mirrorless or autofocus speed.

[labidas]

Yes, for sure. But the question is, what difference does it make for a still photograph to have a fast autofocus or super fast autofocus, saving a quarter of a second in the process of taking the photograph? How useful is that? Does it make a difference on the photographs? Because if it doesn't make a difference on photographs, then who cares if the autofocus is a quarter of a second faster (except the marketing staff who want to entice people to buy the new model)?

Depends on your shooting style. For landscapes and such there is no benefit.
For fast situations there is a benefit. Sports, action etc. You wan't the camera to correct the focus as fast as possible and do so continuously.
Same for portraits. It's far easier with the Sony to let the camera lock onto the eye and continuously focus, letting you commit yourself fully to the composition and working with the model. This requires fast and accurate AFC.

Ofc it's marketing. They are trying to make money. But it's not the manufacturers fault people buy off of emotion. In my opinion AF reaction speed hasn't been an issue for a long time. The main bottleneck is always the lens and how quickly/frequently AF.C responds. I use older lenses. SDM and Sigma HSM are both very slow compared to the newest PLM lenses.
I did a quick test a few days back, trying to focus on passing cars on a street coming towards me. My K3 with the 50-135 managed to get about 33% in focus.

*For me, based on the experiences I've had with my Pentax cameras, the next camera I intend buy will be a mirrorless.
*All my f2,8 zooms have needed different AFmicroadjustment values at different focal lengths. You can't fix that without sending in the lens with camera and hoping for the best. No worries on a MILC.

[biz-engineer]

For fast situations there is a benefit. Sports, action etc. You wan't the camera to correct the focus as fast as possible and do so continuously.

I fully agree. However, I don't think average AF tracking is enough, IMO an autofocus tracking must be ultra fast (Sony A9, Canon 1D, Nikon D500/D5) otherwise there is not benefit. For me, an autofocus system is able to fully track for near 100% in focus shots, if not I don't care much if it's fast or slow. Except the A9, other mirrorless AF is not as good as fast AF tracking DSLR.

---------- Post added 08-02-19 at 12:56 ----------

Same for portraits. It's far easier with the Sony to let the camera lock onto the eye and continuously focus, letting you commit yourself fully to the composition and working with the model.

Eye AF is nice to have, although it's a very impressive for promotional marketing, in practice professional model photographer use static setups because their want to control the light on the model. Overall, it hurt when I read comments from hobbyists who never have learn the better way of shooting with a professional. In out city, we have an extremly talents model photographer, but he really doesn't care about eye AF or AF tracking, he uses any camera the results are the same because he is extremely competent in lighting, no camera can replace his skills. The problem in photography is as long as you have to rely on camera gear you won't progress.

(I can also promote mirrorless if I want too, everything in life has pros and cons, I can sell you anything, including a mirrorless camera ("mirrorless is new, it's the future, please buy"), it's easy , just pull out all the positives and forget to mention the negatives).

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Last edited by biz-engineer; 02-08-2019 at 05:04 AM.

[labidas]

I respectfully disagree. I'll take 90% over 30% every day of the week. The difference between 100% and 90% is nothing.
A7-III has almost identical focusing performance to an A9.

In practice, try shooting at f1.4 and nail outdoor portraits.
Everyone isn't photographing in a studio. And I'm willing to bet whoever you brought up as an example isn't using wide open apertures either.

In the end of the day, AF is a tool that lets you concentrate on your job better. Fast and accurate AF is always better to have than not to have. I've shot many shoots with manual focus too, it doesn't stop me from getting the results, but it always comes at a cost = more time and missed moments.

[biz-engineer]

A7-III has almost identical focusing performance to an A9.

Strange, I've use a A7III beside the Pentax K1. I was not impressed at all with the A7III, the XT2 was a lot faster to focus than the A7III, it's real, I've used both camera side by side.
What I find strange is when there is a discrepancy because real use and what I read on internet forums, there are time where I am not sure if the folks online aren't reps from Sony (sincerely..)
My experience of the A7III in dim light (indoors) is it is more sluggish than the Pentax K1... strange. And the A9 has a completely different sensor that allow capturing of 20 frames per seconds for AE and AF, which the A7III sensor can't do. Sony have said the A6400 is the world best AF, but the guys who tested it even mentioned how lousy it is and how much of a lie it is from Sony to claim the 6400 has the world best AF.

Also, technically, two AF system that give respectively 70% keepers and 90% keepers have tacking capability performance very close to each other, because technically the number of keepers vs AF tracking performance follow an S shaped curve, (cf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function) basically, the difference in tracking capability for 30%, 50%, 60% , 70% , 80% is within plus or minus 20%: the 90% keeper AF tracking is only 20% to 25% better than the AF tracking that gets 30% keepers. In order to have 100% keepers, the AF tracking is significantly better, for sure, but not at 70 to 90% keepers. The AF tracking capability of a Sony A9 or Nikon D500, is multiple times faster (such as 5 to 20 times faster) than that of a A7III or any other general purpose camera.

[CarlJF]

*All my f2,8 zooms have needed different AFmicroadjustment values at different focal lengths. You can't fix that without sending in the lens with camera and hoping for the best. No worries on a MILC.

This is the main reason that would made me buy a mirrorless. BF/FF issues are always a pain, especially with large aperture zoom. EyeAF would also be a nice bonus, although not essential. I don't know if my next camera will be mirrorless or not, but it seriously will be considered, Pentax or not.

[biz-engineer]

This is the main reason that would made me buy a mirrorless. BF/FF issues are always a pain, especially with large aperture zoom. EyeAF would also be a nice bonus, although not essential. I don't know if my next camera will be mirrorless or not, but it seriously will be considered, Pentax or not.

I would buy a mirrorless or dslr camera at my next system upgrade, depending on what cameras and lenses are available at the time I'm looking for an upgrade. The reason why I wouldN'T swap a DSLR for a MILC only to get the MILC is because I've tried a Z6 for a couple of days (rental), and while it feels quick, modern and it's working well (except annoying issues with autofocus on subject darker than background), I don't fine it to create any differences on the images I take. On the Z6, the AF points are scattered over a large part of the sensor but I never found useful to focus on a subject in the corner area of the frame. Also, in low light, AF on mirrorless is no better than DSLR, MILC is slower to focus in low light situation vs DSLR. The lens calibration on DSLR has never been an issue for me, on my Pentaxes I had one f1.4 lens with -2 correction and all other lenses have all been fine with factory defaults. IMO, the fast majority of DSLR users don't have issues with factories defaults, cameras are calibrated to specs on bench out of factory and it is when the camera had some mechanical stress (shock) in transport that the AF tuning might be needed. It's a bad mounting from MILC proponents that all DSLR AF must be fine tuned for all lenses, because factory calibration target is 6 sigma Quality level, meaning only a few camera units per hundreds of thousand are out of spec.

[CarlJF]

The lens calibration on DSLR has never been an issue for me, on my Pentaxes I had one f1.4 lens with -2 correction and all other lenses have all been fine with factory defaults. IMO, the fast majority of DSLR users don't have issues with factories defaults, cameras are calibrated to specs on bench out of factory and it is when the camera had some mechanical stress (shock) in transport that the AF tuning might be needed. It's a bad mounting from MILC proponents that all DSLR AF must be fine tuned for all lenses, because factory calibration target is 6 sigma Quality level, meaning only a few camera units per hundreds of thousand are out of spec.

The issue is not with the body or most prime lenses, which most of the will only need a simple correction. The problem is with zooms, which often require different adjustments depending on focal length. All the zooms I have/had showed this issue to different extents. You're very lucky if none of yours needed any adjustments.


My Tamton 17-50 was particularly bad in thid regards, having a slight back focus on the short end (+2) and a strong front focus on the long end (-9), both varying depending on the focusing distance... Thus practically impossible to correct perfectly using focus microadjustment. My 55-300 also need somewhat different adjustments for the short and long ends. I chose to correct it for the long end since I usually use the lens at greater than 200mm FL. My 17-70 is the best in this regards, also needing different adjustments depending on FL, but close enough that it's possible to find a value good enough for all. All of these would have worked fine out of the box on a ML.

However, it's also not worth it to change my current gear just for the sake of this. But when I will have to change gear, this is something that I will consider and definitely will have some weight in the balance of pros and cons.

[labidas]

Strange, I've use a A7III beside the Pentax K1. I was not impressed at all with the A7III, the XT2 was a lot faster to focus than the A7III, it's real, I've used both camera side by side.
What I find strange is when there is a discrepancy because real use and what I read on internet forums, there are time where I am not sure if the folks online aren't reps from Sony (sincerely..)
My experience of the A7III in dim light (indoors) is it is more sluggish than the Pentax K1... strange. And the A9 has a completely different sensor that allow capturing of 20 frames per seconds for AE and AF, which the A7III sensor can't do. Sony have said the A6400 is the world best AF, but the guys who tested it even mentioned how lousy it is and how much of a lie it is from Sony to claim the 6400 has the world best AF.

Also, technically, two AF system that give respectively 70% keepers and 90% keepers have tacking capability performance very close to each other, because technically the number of keepers vs AF tracking performance follow an S shaped curve, (cf: Sigmoid function - Wikipedia) basically, the difference in tracking capability for 30%, 50%, 60% , 70% , 80% is within plus or minus 20%: the 90% keeper AF tracking is only 20% to 25% better than the AF tracking that gets 30% keepers. In order to have 100% keepers, the AF tracking is significantly better, for sure, but not at 70 to 90% keepers. The AF tracking capability of a Sony A9 or Nikon D500, is multiple times faster (such as 5 to 20 times faster) than that of a A7III or any other general purpose camera.

AF performance is tied to the lenses you use. Use fast glass and it won't be sluggish.
A7III has the same AF system as the A9 chip. It runs slower. In practice it behaves very similarly to the A9.
If you never had problems with AF microadjustments, you are lucky.

Where did you hear that about the A6400? I've only read the playback in the EVF looks laggy while shooting, yet the images are all in focus.
But what do I know, I'm just a Sony rep. like most reviewers :D

[biz-engineer]

A7III has the same AF system as the A9 chip.

I know, Pentax use the same chip on the Pentax K1 II, the AF chip is what we call a PDAF chip. The K1 mk II AF is a bit slower than the A9 AF , but in practice it's almost the same.

If you never had problems with AF microadjustments, you are lucky.

I've been lucky for 20 years and 6 cameras :-)

I've rented a Nikon Z6 with the 24-70 f4 for a couple of day: yes it works nicely, I didn't like looking through the viewfinder when moving the camera, it's not nice for the eye, even causing some eye strain if I keep looking thru the evf. On the Z6, the AF single point works well, it is even possible to have AF continuously working but it drains the battery faster, I can do the same with my Pentax K1 by pressing the back AF button in AFC single point mode, doing so the K1 AF will be pre-focused any time before I even press the shutter release button. I have the Pentax K1 mk II now, and I wouldn't buy a Nikon Z6 because it cost also 2K Euros, and the resolution of Z6 images aren't as refined as images from the Pentax K1 mk II. Unfortunately, I don't find the Z6 would give me better images, no matter what is being sold to me, the reality of mirrorless isn't as great as it sounds when reading promotional reviews. IF, I did not already have a Pentax K1 and nor K lenses, then maybe I would buy a Z7 or S1R, but it's not even sure that I would do that, I may simply get a D850 instead because the choice of lenses is a LOT better for DSLR / F mount than it is for any mirrorless model.

[KoolKool]

i still wish for K01 mark II with spec maybe similar to A6300
still the the sturdy brick like, still the K-mount, and should have weather sealing!
and of course, the EVF!

[Fcsnt54]

Nope. A7III is miles ahead.

And the benefits are pretty obvious.
1)You have less surfaces/obstructions that interfere with the focus.
2)Focusing is done on the sensor which means AF microadjustments are unnecessary.
3)You can spread out your focus points all across the sensor.
4)You can use a combination of contrast + phase detect AF.
5)You can use the actual live feed from the sensor and combine it with AI. = eyeAF!!!

D750 is a dinosaur.

I would definitely want a MILC Pentax. Just keep the good old body design of the K3/K1.

Also add if designed with a shorter flange distance, you can design the rear lens everything to be closer to the sensor.

[reh321]

Also add if designed with a shorter flange distance, you can design the rear lens everything to be closer to the sensor.

As much as people have complained about Pentax's slowness at rolling out new lenses, I cannot believe anyone would expect them to create yet another mount.

[monochrome]

As much as people have complained about Pentax's slowness at rolling out new lenses, I cannot believe anyone would expect them to create yet another mount.

You are correct. MILC costs less to manufacture because the innards are more electronic and simpler (no mirror assembly) so more of it is done by machines. But To develop a MILC you must design the manufacturing process, design and buy the machines, do the electrical engineering, if you use a new mount then design all the new lenses (and again the new machines and manufacturing processes). All of that takes either a large capital injection or a lot of free cash flow from outside, invested yearly. SONY has capital and cash flow. Fuji has cash flow (Instax). Canon and Nikon have capital and cash flow. Panasonic and Olympus have (some) capital and cash flow.

Does Ricoh have extra capital and/or extra cash flow right now?