[goldenarrow]

100 gigapixels in a smartphone, that's what we need!

[sholtzma]

Now that it is close to two months since the last post, do we have any more info (or reasoned guesswork) about when the next Pentax APSC body will be announced? That being the supposed topic of this thread....

I'm not asking for its anticipated features. I assume that that will depend at least some on what the new FF reveals.

[Fontan]

What a tricky time for Ricoh Pentax.

They cannot possibly be stupid enough to release a "flagship" level APS-C camera when FF is about to come out in the spring of 2016. But at the same time I imagine they have surely invested in developing the replacement for K-3ii. What are they gonna do with that??

One way to do this would be to have a game changer and to sell it for $499 before or after FF comes out. I am not sure which is better.

And then, to push FF at $1,999.

Interesting times.

[dansamy]

They could still release a $750ish APS-C body while the FF body retails for $2k.

[sholtzma]

Do they even have sufficient production capability to have a (hopefully successful) FF line and another APSC line? Or is that a stupid question? I ask only because of the rumors that the FF was held up at least in part by the need to handle the K-3 problems.

[JPT]

I agree that Ricoh has put a lot of Pentaxians in wait and see mode by pre-announcing the FF camera. But I don't see why FF should harm APS-C in the long run.

I think there must be a lot of like me who bought into Pentax specifically because they focused on APS-C, not in spite of it. I also think that high end crop sensor DSLRs can sell very close entry FF DSLRs, provided they have good enough features. Canon's 7D mark 2 is a good example of this.

In this case, since I haven't seen any sign of a mess Sony sensor, I wouldn't expect a K-3 II successor to be imminent.

[Nicolas06]

What a tricky time for Ricoh Pentax.

They cannot possibly be stupid enough to release a "flagship" level APS-C camera when FF is about to come out in the spring of 2016. But at the same time I imagine they have surely invested in developing the replacement for K-3ii. What are they gonna do with that??

Last flagship just been released. It is called K3-II. There no reason to release another one so soon. The next one is not before next summer so the K3-II has 1 year to sell. But the K50 (= same body as K30) is really basic now and K-S2 has been released for quite some time... So they could release an update to one of 2.

They could be based on K-S2, put an improved 24MP sensor inside and a few other features. The most interresting would be a better AF at K3 level, but honestly that would remove the interrest to buy a K3 or K3-II. Outside of special features that really the improved AF that make the most difference with the flagship.

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Last edited by Nicolas06; 11-13-2015 at 12:22 AM.

[Rondec]

I wouldn't be surprised to see a new APS-C flagship camera end of summer to fall of next year. Ricoh still has one of the fullest line ups of APS-C specific lenses and it wouldn't make any sense to give up on APS-C. That said, I think the days of a 1500 dollar APS-C camera are mostly behind us and I would expect the K3 II sequel to come in closer to 850 at launch and dropping after that.

The biggest question is what Sony can come up with next. Feels like sensor tech has stagnated a little bit. Other than dividing up already small pixels to make more of them, we haven't seen a whole lot of improvement in dynamic range of high iso scores since the release of the K5.

[falconeye]

Feels like sensor tech has stagnated a little bit.

Sensor tech doesn't stagnate. However, it cannot but detect the photons which are there ...

As for the original thread topic ...

There still is no Sony A7000, so, the K-3II successor sporting the same sensor (according to this rumor) is even further down the road. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ricoh announce two top models Spring next year, the K-1 and a new APSC pro body.

[D1N0]

The K-3 II still has the IMX193 which can do 8.7 fps. There is also an IMX271 which has double the readout, it can do 19fps. In electronic shutter mode that could be very usefull.

[Nicolas06]

Sensors can still evolve, they are not gathering 100% of the incoming light to begin with and their dynamic range is not yet infinite with long exposures. And this is even before counting the color filters.

For the short term, the FF BSI sensor inside A7-R-II give 0.3-0.5EV more depending to what camera you compare it with. It we take a D7200 and add 0.3EV we get low light performance similar to 5D mark II and only 0.6 EV difference with a D600/D800 and 0.3 EV difference with A7 and A7-II. 0EV gain if you use an adaptor with a translucent mirror.

We can likely get even more over time until we get 100% of the light for each color instead of getting 50% of green and 25% of blue and 25% of red. Meaning with a perfect technology we could likely get 2-3EV more.

There are prototypes of sensor that don't overexpose but instead count the number of time they were full. If we master it, combined with BSI you could have an iso 10 sensor with say 17EV of dynamic range or why not? iso 1 and 20EV of dynamic range. That would be perfect for that long exposure shoot.

[goubejp]

As for today, Sony has released a FF BSI sensor but not an APS-C BSI sensor; we can expect the Sony FF BSI sensor in the Pentax K1, but the APS-C flagship ?
With this new sensor, I think that the photon efficiency - ie the number of photons that produces an electron in the photocell - largely exceed 50 % - which was the performance of the K5ii - and reach 80 %, which gives very little room for improvement - apart fom removing the color filters as Nicolas said

[Rondec]

Sensor tech doesn't stagnate. However, it cannot but detect the photons which are there ...

As for the original thread topic ...

There still is no Sony A7000, so, the K-3II successor sporting the same sensor (according to this rumor) is even further down the road. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ricoh announce two top models Spring next year, the K-1 and a new APSC pro body.

I don't know what is possible. I would just like to see improved dynamic range at base iso and lower base isos. I don't really care much about high iso from a personal standpoint.

[falconeye]

We can likely get even more over time until we get 100% of the light for each color instead of getting 50% of green and 25% of blue and 25% of red. Meaning with a perfect technology we could likely get 2-3EV more.

That's not that simple.

You could improve luminance noise by 1-2 stops, that's true. By having more than 50% of pixels detect green, and over a wider gammut. That's improved B&W images.

However, you can't improve color noise by more than maybe 1 stop. Because the human eye throws away much of the spectrum (tristimulus) and you have to do the same in the sensor (or apply low weights if you capture more than three colors in the first place).

Including progress in quantum efficiency, I do not expect low light performance to grow by more than 1-2 stops, 2-3 stops for B&W.

I don't know what is possible.

There is no physical limit for base iso or dynamic range. There is a physical limit for dynamic rangeat a given iso though.

For really low values of base iso (below iso 50), one probably needs digital integration and continuous readout on the chip. Something the new Sony Exmor RS stacked architecture looks promising for (not yet used for this though).

[gorme]

As for today, Sony has released a FF BSI sensor but not an APS-C BSI sensor; we can expect the Sony FF BSI sensor in the Pentax K1, but the APS-C flagship ?
With this new sensor, I think that the photon efficiency - ie the number of photons that produces an electron in the photocell - largely exceed 50 % - which was the performance of the K5ii - and reach 80 %, which gives very little room for improvement - apart fom removing the color filters as Nicolas said

Maybe the 'quantum film' will be a technical approach to improve the results in the coming years (InVisage brings long-promised Quantum Film smartphone sensor to market: Digital Photography Review). Innovation tends to come from the smartphones nowadays... We will see