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09-22-2010, 08:38 PM   #286
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QuoteOriginally posted by ManuH Quote
Talk is cheap. Until there is an official commitment I'd rather put this in the rumors category. Same with other possible firmware improvements (CD-AF in video). I've seen enough products in my life making promises they didn't held.
QuoteOriginally posted by wll Quote
"Mehlsack: I talked to a staff member who confirmed that thethering will be delivered later by firmware (final or later)"

Tethering is a VERY important tool and used all the time in studio work.

This is one of the biggest news items of the show for Pentax as far as I'm concerned ! This is the feature that puts the K-5 more in line with the pro class, and one of the main features I have been waiting for :- )

If this is true, Pentax's marketing department needs to be let go, they need to advertise what the new features are known in firmware upgrades.

Come on Pentax, make it happen !!!!!

wll
QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
Can Mehlsack please detain said staff member and not release him/her until that announcement has become a reality? Sounds too good to be true!

One thinks Pentax would have announced it for a firmware upgrade as they did for SDXC card support.
Like Scully "...I want to believe..." but sans tangible proof and given the total fiasco that this device announcement and has been in terms of official info on the feature set I am not going to believe the rep even knows what-the-heck tethering really is...

This really is the only thing stopping the K5 being the camera I wanted since I entered the DSLR world a while back now...and since I won't be buying one before they are out in the wild for a while I guess waiting is a reasonable option compared to dumping the limiteds and stuff for a 7D and a couple lenses not close the my three amigos plus the fourth amigo (my 35ltd)...those are what is has me hoping for the first time a HoyaTax rep offered accurate information this Photokina....because I don't believe it for a second.

09-22-2010, 08:42 PM   #287
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QuoteOriginally posted by lithos Quote
I really, really, REALLY wish Pentax would release some nice design & philosophy-type documents for stuff like this, the ideas, people and engineering behind aspects of camera design. Not very Japanese, though, as I understand it.
it's almost enough to make a person give up sushi!!!
09-22-2010, 09:33 PM   #288
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First Post (because I had some free time)

Okay, so I read Adam's post about how the K-5 at 6400 is as good as the K-7 at 800. Then I actually take a look at Falk's posted picture (thanks Falk, I appreciate it!) and I think to myself - hmm... that doesn't look right.

When I first saw the dpreview samples from the A55, I thought the noise was blotchy and pretty bad, especially in some of the color channels (which made me wonder why people were saying it was good). Now that I see the Pentax K-5 image at 6400, and while it's definitely better than the K10D or K20D (at 6400), I don't know if it's as good as ISO800. Now granted, I don't have a K-7 anymore, I returned it after testing it for about 2 weeks - I didn't like the fact that it had greater amounts of shadow noise at lower ISO compared to the K20D. I didn't play around too much with the high ISO, but I continually hear people go on and on, defending the high ISO performance of the K-7 as a major improvement over the K20D.

So for those who are interested, I did a comparison of the K20D and Falk's K-5 image. I tried to follow Falk's processing settings (opened in CS3 with default color noise reduction (25%) and sharpening (25%, radius 1, detail 25 sharpening), saved as quality 10 jpgs, and then took samples from the JPGs at a light, medium, and dark area of the frame.

I think ISO1600 looks better on the K20D than the K-5. I think ISO3200 are similar, except there's more color noise in the K20D (which probably can be easily removed by an expert in noise reduction, which I am not). I think ISO6400, an extended setting on the K20D, is pretty ugly. I included ISO800, but I apologize in advance, I didn't think to use a clean sheet of paper instead of my wall - any texture you see in the light or medium blocks are from the texture on my wall. Clearly, much lower noise than the K-5 (at least in my opinion). So if high ISO performance is so much better on the K-7, then how is ISO6400 on the K-5 as good as ISO800 on the K-7?

Two options:
1) It isn't, and Adam should update the post on the front page of this website...
2) High ISO on the K-7 is worse than the K20D

Thanks again to Falk for his posting of images and answering of questions (even if we disagree, which I'm not sure we do, I appreciate him taking the time to post images).

(p.s. In the interests of disclosure, this is my first post here, and I have a thread on dpreview expressing my disappointed opinion on the K-5, which some people took offense to. So yes, I'm not too impressed with the K-5 so far, mostly due to the marginal improvements and the substantial price hike)

(p.p.s full sized JPGs here: Dropbox - Photos - Online backup, file sync and sharing made easy.)
Attached Images
       

Last edited by artificialillum; 09-22-2010 at 09:41 PM.
09-22-2010, 10:07 PM   #289
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I agree (and have agreed for a while) about the K-7 having a worse SNR than the K20D. It'll be interesting to see comparisons of samples shot under identical conditions to compare K-5 and K20D.

I do have to ask: are these crops 100% crops, or are they equal-area crops? That makes a large difference in their relevance.

09-22-2010, 10:08 PM   #290
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QuoteOriginally posted by artificialillum Quote
I think ISO1600 looks better on the K20D than the K-5. I think ISO3200 are similar, except there's more color noise in the K20D (which probably can be easily removed by an expert in noise reduction, which I am not). I think ISO6400, an extended setting on the K20D, is pretty ugly. I included ISO800, but I apologize in advance, I didn't think to use a clean sheet of paper instead of my wall - any texture you see in the light or medium blocks are from the texture on my wall. Clearly, much lower noise than the K-5 (at least in my opinion). So if high ISO performance is so much better on the K-7, then how is ISO6400 on the K-5 as good as ISO800 on the K-7?
The question that looms for me is whether or not the K-5 system actually applies less low level NR than contrasting systems. The reason I bring this up is mainly where the K-5 ISO6400 seems to share several attributes with the K-x at first glance with respect to grain and noise patterns. However, the K-5 seems to demonstrates far more detail than the K-x at the same ISO levels.

And so, I'm wondering if the newer sensor requires less sensor NR than previous camera's did. Might make an interesting test

PS. If I had to guess, I'd say the K-5 ISO6400 files sit somewhere between ISO1600 and 2500. However the noise attributes(patterns) seem different between both systems also. ie. K-7 ISO1600 seems close in shadow noise to the K-5 ISO6400 file but not quite as severe.
09-22-2010, 10:17 PM   #291
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Falk, can you comment on the ease of SD card removal on the K-5 compared to the K-7 (which was not the greatest according to many).
09-22-2010, 10:52 PM   #292
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QuoteOriginally posted by artificialillum Quote
I continually hear people go on and on, defending the high ISO performance of the K-7 as a major improvement over the K20D.
I don't know that I've seen anybody claim it to be a major improvement. I've seen some claim it to be a slight improvement, and some claim it to be slightly worse. For my own tastes, there's almost nothing in it.

09-23-2010, 12:09 AM   #293
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K5 buyers will be getting more for their money

It's not merely a simple, "it's only a k7, updated"... there's a lot more to it than meets the spec sheet.


QuoteOriginally posted by falconeye Quote
The main mirror is semitransparent (Sony's marketing is using the wrong term: translucent means something else) for the AF secondary mirror to see anything. It's not a Sony invention So, the AF get's less light to start with (and additionally uses only a fraction of light in its lght path), adding to my argument that contrast AF will eventually outperform phase AF.

Here is the 100% crop out of the K-5 AF module, for easier reference:
09-23-2010, 12:18 AM   #294
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QuoteOriginally posted by JohnBee Quote
The question that looms for me is whether or not the K-5 system actually applies less low level NR than contrasting systems. The reason I bring this up is mainly where the K-5 ISO6400 seems to share several attributes with the K-x at first glance with respect to grain and noise patterns. However, the K-5 seems to demonstrates far more detail than the K-x at the same ISO levels.
And so, I'm wondering if the newer sensor requires less sensor NR than previous camera's did...
Agree: the small samples I posted show something. RPP is a "raw" RAW converter, it doesn't apply any kind of noise reduction and makes a clean VCDMF conversion. 1600 and 3200 samples from the K-7 have a somewhat "softer" noise, where the 6400 image from the K-5 has a crisper one; this could mean there hasn't been low level NR in the new camera. Also, the difference between 1600 and 3200 iso in the K-7 (and K20) is huge, opposing a nicely usable 1600iso to an awful 3200. Clean that K-5 6400 iso with a good NR SW, and it will be similar to the 1600iso result from K20/K-7. I am looking at noise "dimensions"; considering the increased pixel count, I think the advantage of the new sensor can reach 2 stops, being 1.5 my wild guess (and it's A LOT).
K20 and K-7 topped more or less at 1600/2000, while the new camera seems to work nicely till 6400, which is far from being unsatisfying...
09-23-2010, 12:21 AM   #295
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don't forget there is an additional new light wave sensor

there is the additional (to the color sensor) new 'light wave sensor" for faster AF, stated in the Pentax imaging K5 video.
Edit: popphoto says it this way: "a light-source detection sensor that optimizes the camera’s autofocus based on light wavelength".

where would that be in the cut-out K5?

Falk, what would it take to ask Pentax about the new Light Wave Sensor for faster AF?

thank you,

Nic

Last edited by solar1; 09-25-2010 at 06:37 AM. Reason: clarity
09-23-2010, 12:28 AM   #296
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@ er1kksen

I think I did a 100% crop... (you can tell me what I did from my description) - I cropped a similar sized (pixel) area from each image and pasted it directly into the comparisons.

The image size of a K20D is 4672 x 3104, the K-5 sample is 4928 x 3264. I'm guessing if I resized the K-5 image to the same dimensions of the K20D image, then that would be a "equal area crop."

I think the latter method would make the "blotch/grain" a little smaller in the K-5, but still bigger and more blotchy than the K20D noise, which seems more artificially patterned and finer. I tried resizing the K-5, and it makes a small difference, but doesn't really change the conclusions (K-5 ISO6400 still looks pretty close to K20D ISO1600-3200).

@ solar1 - care to share your knowledge of "more to it than meets the spec sheet?" So far, all I've heard in defense of the K-5 is, "just you wait, the 1) price will be lower than you think 2) the image quality will be better than you think 3) the buffer will be larger than you think 4) the AF will be faster than you think..." well, so far, the price is what I thought, the image quality, pending further review, is about on par with what I thought (based on the A55), the buffer is still unclear (at least to me, but it seems on par with the K20D/K7 which are similar), and the AF is the only thing remaining to be tested... but seriously... it does seem like a "only a K7, updated." Unless you care to share your info that isn't listed on a spec sheet...
09-23-2010, 12:57 AM   #297
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QuoteOriginally posted by alessandro63 Quote
K20 and K-7 topped more or less at 1600/2000, while the new camera seems to work nicely till 6400, which is far from being unsatisfying...
I wonder how it compares to the K10D? From what I've seen from the K-7 and the K20D, ISO 1600 is more noisy than ISO 800 on the K10D, but that noise is visually more acceptable ("film like"), so I've considered the high ISO advantage of upgrading from my K10D to the K-7 to be about 1 stop. If the K-5 gives me another 1.5 or even 2 stops, I just need to know if ISO 100 is as good as on the K10D, and the K-5 will be hard to resist.
09-23-2010, 12:59 AM   #298
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QuoteOriginally posted by artificialillum Quote
but seriously... it does seem like a "only a K7, updated."
And pretty significant updates - a brand new sensor and AF updates can completely transform the camera output and performance.

Seriously, we are getting new models EVERY year. Do you expect each model to be quantum leap year after year? To me, a one stop gain after one year is pretty good; and hard to imagine where this would end up after a few years.

This type of updates has already gone way beyond what we used to have with XX to XX Super updates.
09-23-2010, 01:14 AM   #299
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mmm that 645D sure looks sweet....any mention of the rumoured wide-angle lens for it Falk? I was under the impression they were developing something wider than the 645 35mm f/3.5
09-23-2010, 01:20 AM   #300
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Are anybody interested in photos at ISO100-200? Or everybody use cameras only with ISO1600-6400?

To compare crops from high ISO became the obsessional idea among a lot of users...
The reviews of cameras help marketers to sell MP and noise-reduction technologies.
And a lot users are involved in mass madness...

I've made more than 40 000 pictures from my DSLR and have only ~ 100 pictures at ISO800.
95% of my photos are made at ISO100-200.

Last edited by ogl; 09-23-2010 at 01:38 AM.
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