[Christine Tham]

Is it just me, or does the shot of the boy look like it's had work done? His skin looks too clean and smooth, almost plasticy.

That looks like perfectly normal Asian/Oriental skin to me.

Sigh, I wish my skin was like that.

[dylansalt]

Quite pointless to showcase low iso noise shots these days - unless you going to showcase DR capability - as a selling point.

[davebris33]

looks like its got some intense processing - ex03 looks sooooo digital. that sharpening and NR look nasty at large magnification - fruit does not look like that IRL.
otherwise, they look nice - i'm sure they'd print great. and at screen size they look fantastic.

I do and sell a lot of food photography (trusty old k10 in studio with iso 100 equals heaven for food shots) and I can tell you tha the plastic look of the fruit is from a solution of water, glucose and arrowroot used to make the fruit super shiny....look at the weave of the cloth to get a true sense of the texture of the image..verrrrrrrrry nice

[davebris33]

Quite pointless to showcase low iso noise shots these days - unless you going to showcase DR capability - as a selling point.

low iso is the first thing i look at on any day, never mind these days, who shoots a landscape, studio portrait or product/food shot at iso 1600?

iso 80 -200 is still the most important range, and contrast, rendition, specularity, diffraction, DR and dimensionality will always be more important than iso 6400 noise

[aragondina]

low iso is the first thing i look at on any day, never mind these days, who shoots a landscape, studio portrait or product/food shot at iso 1600?

iso 80 -200 is still the most important range, and contrast, rendition, specularity, diffraction, DR and dimensionality will always be more important than iso 6400 noise

Not really. if you look at real shooting trends, more and more people are shooting at higher ISO settings. For a studio shooter your statement holds true, but in the real world, flexibility is more important. High ISO is a major selling point to many so it's important to showcase that as well. In the past week I can count my images taken below ISO 400 on 2 hands, while the shots above (way above) that number in the hundreds. Very few people lock their cameras on ISO100 anymore. They don't have to because they are so good these days (K7 excluded)

Even the 645d page has a shot taken at ISO800. Why they only gave low ISO samples and used a poor lens setup on the K-r makes me wonder what the the potential image quality will really be like.

[glanglois]

Those of us who shoot what we find around us have to deal with the light we find around us. Ambient light. Available light. Light that may not support ISO 100. Or even 1,000.

If I were looking for a good creative shot of any sort, I would simply look for circumstances with enough light. If I'm looking for a specific shot, of a specific subject,in a specific setting ..... I deal with the light given me. Hard to imagine that even 6,400 would cover every possible circumstance. I'll settle for what I can get until the diminishing returns set in.

Just my style .... and that of event photographers, PJs, family photographers, wildlife photographers, and certainly a few more.

[kittykat46]

The shots don't look heavily Post-Processed to me, and they are Very Good.

As another poster pointed out, the shiny fruit surface is a common method food presenters use to make it look good.
The skin texture would be normal for an Asian kid of that age.

I do wonder about f/11, but I guess the photographer didn't want shallow DOF effects for such close-ups. There is no "right" rule.

[davebris33]

Not really. if you look at real shooting trends, more and more people are shooting at higher ISO settings. For a studio shooter your statement holds true, but in the real world, flexibility is more important. High ISO is a major selling point to many so it's important to showcase that as well. In the past week I can count my images taken below ISO 400 on 2 hands, while the shots above (way above) that number in the hundreds. Very few people lock their cameras on ISO100 anymore. They don't have to because they are so good these days (K7 excluded)

Even the 645d page has a shot taken at ISO800. Why they only gave low ISO samples and used a poor lens setup on the K-r makes me wonder what the the potential image quality will really be like.

I take your point and respect it, i was just trying to point out that a sweeping comment does not make the comment a truth. another post mentioned the available light and hats true too. But i still feel that the current trend is perceived more than practised, and that low iso (if right for the conditions) is still the quickest way to attain the best IQ. marketing is marketing and physics is physics

[wll]

low iso is the first thing i look at on any day, never mind these days, who shoots a landscape, studio portrait or product/food shot at iso 1600?

iso 80 -200 is still the most important range, and contrast, rendition, specularity, diffraction, DR and dimensionality will always be more important than isO 6400 noise

I understand how you feel and although I use ISO ~200 for studio stuff it is the ONLY time my camera is set that low.

My base ISO is 320 for my K20D and my K-x is higher. Most of the time indoors I'm around ISO 800 and in museums etc, higher than that.

How the camera performs at higher ISO is a very big thing to me.

The reason my K200D's are going to be sold is they don't cut it today for high ISO, that's the reason I ONLY used them for simple outdoor stuff (although I did like the fact that they are weather sealed)


wll

[gazonk]

I do and sell a lot of food photography (trusty old k10 in studio with iso 100 equals heaven for food shots) and I can tell you tha the plastic look of the fruit is from a solution of water, glucose and arrowroot used to make the fruit super shiny....look at the weave of the cloth to get a true sense of the texture of the image..verrrrrrrrry nice

In this case, I'm not even sure if they even did any preparation - this looks like a dish that is glaze-covered anyway.

The rendering looks very, very nice to me. Wonderful colors and I agree, the texture of the cloth is just wonderful. Show me a C*non or S*ny that does that.

[gazonk]

I understand how you feel and although I use ISO ~200 for studio stuff it is the ONLY time my camera is set that low.

Well, that's you. Personally I've been mostly shooting fall cityscapes and landscapes in low morning sun the last few days, and I never used anything else than ISO 100 (which I only regret for one shot where I used f/5.6 when f/8 would have been better, for most shots though I used f/8 and had plenty of room for fast enough shutter times for handheld). But then I'm one of those that used to even resort to ISO 25 for IQ (Kodachrome)

BUT... I also like low light shooting, though, so the K-5 looks like a very tempting upgrade to my K10D. But as useful as good performance at ISO 3200-6400, or even higher, would be for me too, I would never want to make any compromise on low ISO IQ.

[FullertonImages]

Quite pointless to showcase low iso noise shots these days - unless you going to showcase DR capability - as a selling point.

Not really. I would think they're trying to counteract the reputation of the K-x. I'm not going to downplay the importance these days of clean high ISO, and the K-x was pretty great at that. But it had terrible low ISO. When I used one, I felt like there was no gain in IQ from stopping the ISO any lower from iso1600. Not as in the 1600 looked as good as the 100, but as in the 100 looked as bad as the 1600. If Pentax can deliver high ISO results from the K-r that are even just slightly better, but have the low ISO have the same contrast, sharpness and color rendition as we have all come to expect from them, then they will have a really strong camera. Same goes for the K-5. The K-x wasn't a Pentax to me, it was a Nikon.

[farfisa]

Don't want to make the kid self conscious, but in that first shot I can't figure out what's going on with the front teeth. New kind of braces or something? There's no gap...



But IQ overall looks stellar!

[Blue]

I agree with you, whoever has the Kx, the Kr is not much of an upgrade for the extra $. Very fine detail there for ISO 1250. How much detail you think you loose using in-camera J peg? I haven't switched to RAW yet but I will eventually.

It really depends on how good the new AF system is on the K-r.

[everfree]

It seems no significant improvement comparing to my k-x.