[kittykat46]

Those were without NR ? ! Looks very promising....

Hmmm...now I have to think a bit about which one to get, K-5 vs K-R....

[thibs]

This is a tricky situation with "to be owners" of the K5, including myself: is this going to be another round of the lesser camera giving more ISO punch than its big brother? (remember the K7 vs. Kx ISO thing?).
I know .... I have seen many sample shots taken with the K5 and they are really promising.

JP

Mmm nobody moans because D3X is less impressive than D3.
It offers higher Mpix but has lower DR/more noise.

End if there's a difference between K-r and K-5, it will be nothing comparable to K-x vs K-7. A non issue really. Or maybe Pentax should cripple their cameras artifically like SonCanikon? Users are never happy ...

[Fogel70]

End if there's a difference between K-r and K-5, it will be nothing comparable to K-x vs K-7. A non issue really. Or maybe Pentax should cripple their cameras artifically like SonCanikon? Users are never happy ...

I agree, but one thing that might be a disadvantage of K-r is the lack of 1080p support, something I believe quite a few newbies looking for in a new camera. Unfortunately those thing K-r excels at might not be as easy to find out by a new user comparing cameras to buy.

But for users looking for the best photography tool in the price range, K-r will be hard to beat.

The big difference in high ISO between K-7 and K-x is because Sony sensors is better at high ISO than Samsung sensors. Had K-7 used a 14MP CMOS sensor from Sony very few would have complained about high ISO noise. The difference in noise between K-r and K-5 will not be big, but I would not be surprised if K-5 is the better one.

[falconeye]

Wow, I didn't realize it was NR OFF. It has to have NR.. no way it has zero chroma noise.

The samples have heavy NR as visible when looking at contrast edges. NR setting off only means the weakest of several settings. That's why RAW comparisons are important. Preferrably at ISO1600 because today, cameras apply NR even to RAW files w/o telling you.

Eventually, don't ignore the K-5 having a higher resolution. Noise should be compared after dpwnsampling both cameras to a common size, like 8MP.

[Eruditass]

That's what I figured, it's just sad to see that NR off no longer means off on Pentax.

[jpzk]

I don't think they're going to mess that up again.

Hopefully not.
Would be a real disappointment to a lot of to-be-owners of the K5!

JP

[rawr]

That's what I figured, it's just sad to see that NR off no longer means off on Pentax.

NR off never meant off on Pentax. Or Nikon. Or Canon. etc

All DSLR's have NR going on all over the place deep within the hardware. What you see as user-selectable camera NR options is just last stage NR.

Pic related (courtesy of a Sony brochure online)

[jpzk]

NR off never meant off on Pentax. Or Nikon. Or Canon. etc

All DSLR's have NR going on all over the place deep within the hardware. What you see as user-selectable camera NR options is just last stage NR.

Pic related (courtesy of a Sony brochure online)

Man! This looks as if there were 3 steps of NR ongoing through the entire process.

JP

[rawr]

At least 3. That's a very simplified overview of the process. More like 5 or 10 or more NR steps. When you think about how complex all the hardware and firmware is, and the multiple processing points, it's hardly surprising. NR is a fundamental part of the whole process from capture to output.

[Fl_Gulfer]

If you were all quiter when takeing pictures you wouldn't need all that noise reduction....

[Raybo]

Noise reduction my..................!

I'm waiting for the so called "experts" to chime in after the official results!

[RolloR]

If you were all quiter when takeing pictures you wouldn't need all that noise reduction....

I was looking for a "Like" button like that on Facebook

[Eruditass]

NR off never meant off on Pentax. Or Nikon. Or Canon. etc

All DSLR's have NR going on all over the place deep within the hardware. What you see as user-selectable camera NR options is just last stage NR.

Pic related (courtesy of a Sony brochure online)

I meant equivalent to RAW. If RAW has that level of NR, that's ridiculous.

[rawr]

RAW is part of the last stage output from the image processor, I think.

If the RAW output was just a dump of the CMOS output - and by-passed the image processor - RAW would probably look like garbage. The image processor shapes the RAW output into whatever is required for a PEF or DNG file to be formed.

So by then RAW output is likely to already have been subject to several inevitable layers of NR. You can't avoid some NR, I guess, even in RAW. The issue then becomes the degree and type of NR that is applied to the final stage RAW.

[Eruditass]

RAW is part of the last stage output from the image processor, I think.

If the RAW output was just a dump of the CMOS output - and by-passed the image processor - RAW would probably look like garbage. The image processor shapes the RAW output into whatever is required for a PEF or DNG file to be formed.

So by then RAW output is likely to already have been subject to several inevitable layers of NR. You can't avoid some NR, I guess, even in RAW. The issue then becomes the degree and type of NR that is applied to the final stage RAW.

As stated, I understand that. It's even after the software exposure push on the K-x above 1600 ISO. But typically, RAW does not have anywhere near this level of NR on any camera.