[stevebrot]

the raw file would not pass the SOS standard

SOS pertains to JPEG, as does REI...


Steve

[stevebrot]

This can be seen very easily as any raw viewer and will show that 18% is under exposed (by 1- 1.2 stops far greater than is allow under SOS standaed) and then brightened to meet the SOS standards for sRGB in the jpg image. The SOS standard only applies to the outgoing jpg and not to outgoing raw files.

I don't think you understand RAW processing, but that is OK.

Edit: I am not going to proceed down this rabbit hole any further. The CIPA specification (on which the current ISO spec is based) is clear as to the requirements for Japanese manufacturers to meet the standard.


Steve

[lithedreamer]

That's one of the situations of the sunny f16 rule. In short, the f16 rule tells you that for the most common still shooting situations, you don't need more than ISO1600, even with a Pentax long lens (f5.6 / f8). All current apsc cameras can cover this range. You need at least one full stop ISO improvement when shooting moving subjects with >200mm long lenses, that where full frame helps a lot.

What makes 'sunny' the most common still shooting situation? It certainly isn't where I live.

[Nicolas06]

I think it's important to distinguish between daytime shots and night shots, like in the examples which were taken at night. Night shots, or poorly lit situations, is where this bit of technology is really going to improve results.

Let's be clear we must define what are night shots and poorly lit situations and why we want to take memories of that... Just the picture provided in example of that thread... Not that interresting, there flare, there no much details. Who is going to frame it, even if you where able to get no noise at all?

The problem with poorly lit situations is that better high iso just give poorly lit pictures with lower visible noise. Not great looking pictures. Light make or break a photo. Not just the quantity, but the quality. If your subject is right, the timing is perfect, the composition is nice... You'll get a bit less great picture with a previous generation APSC vs KP. But the picture will be great anyway. If the lighting is wrong you'll have bad photo anyway, one with a bit less noise than the other.

If you are not happy already with K3/K5 that KP isn't going to change much. K1 would be another league, but even, if you are already using the best lenses, PP and technique, you'll fall in the bit less great picture if the picture was great to begin with. And that were you should concentrate.

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Last edited by Nicolas06; 01-29-2017 at 04:42 PM.

[lithedreamer]

Let's be clear we must define what are night shots and poorly lit situations and why we want to take memories of that... Just the picture provided in example of that thread... Not that interresting, there flare, there no much details. Who is going to frame it, even if you where able to get no noise at all?

The problem with poorly lit situations is that better high iso just give poorly lit pictures with lower visible noise. Not great looking pictures. Light make or break a photo. Not just the quantity, but the quality. If your subject is right, the timing is perfect, the composition is nice... You'll get a bit less great picture with a previous generation APSC vs KP. But the picture will be great anyway. If the lighting is wrong you'll have bad photo anyway, one with a bit less noise than the other.

If you are not happy already with K3/K5 that KP isn't going to change much. K1 would be another league, but even, if you are already using the best lenses, PP and technique, you'll fall in the bit less great picture if the picture was great to begin with. And that were you should concentrate.

I've had photos that I just didn't have the low-light capability to take on my K-30, that I can take with my K-1. Here are two:





ISO 12,800. Perhaps not as great as photos taken in perfect light, sure, but I feel like I got the shot. If it were my K-30, I would've just given up, since I wasn't happy with its results at anything above ISO 3200 (and even that was rare).

[Nicolas06]

What makes 'sunny' the most common still shooting situation? It certainly isn't where I live.

You don't need "sunny" to take picture at low isos settings. Even in bad weather, in daylight, you don't need to crank the iso that much and all camera can go iso 800/1600 and do a great job... If there something interresting to capture to begin with. And you can push it to iso 3200/6400 is the light is interresting and still get nice results. If the light is bad, iso 50 is going to look bad too.

I have been in vacation in Ireland, britany, iceland, for that last one I had only a compact camera. The weather was far from being always sunny. This was never a problem of high iso. This was maybe sometime a problem of unterresting lighting and that many subjects look better on a sunny day than on a cloudy day. But that more complex than that. In Tanzania, the light was harsh most of the time and I got some of the best shots on overcast day because the light was better.

Ireland, a snapshot: f/8, 1/200, iso 80. Weather isn't exactly sunny.


Ireland, at night, 1/50, iso 400, f/2.4. The DA35 f/2.4 helped more for a much lower noise than a fancy camera. That's K5 here. 5 year old technology.



DA15, K3, iso 6400, 1/5s. No issue !


Would that would have looked better at iso 6400 f/5.6 with KP and kit lens or maybe even iso 12800 f/8 to get the max sharpness rather than 1600 f/2.8 with K3 or K5... Don't think so

[Nicolas06]

ISO 12,800. Perhaps not as great as photos taken in perfect light, sure, but I feel like I got the shot. If it were my K-30, I would've just given up, since I wasn't happy with its results at anything above ISO 3200 (and even that was rare).

K1 vs K30 is more like 2-3EV and there almost the same difference between K1 and KP at least in RAW. Let remember the K1 was the first FF with the improved high iso beyond the sensor size. But K30 vs KP once you used DxO prime. Maybe there 0.5 EV.

As for the 2 pictures, I feel like the second is nice, but really noisy. But the picture is interresting, the ligthing is interresting.That would be a nice photo to frame. The first photo could have been taken at iso 100, well you wouldn't frame that... That's my point...

So anyway the second picture, maybe you could have tried a second shoot at 1/40s instead of 1/80s as apparently the subject was not moving... You could have done that with a 85mm f/1.4 too on that K30 the framing would have been quite similar than 140mm on FF and being 3200 iso only, well maybe it would have gotten even better. Anyway the K1 allowed you to get a good enough shoot and because the lighting and subject were interresting you got something nice.

But the KP alone would not have been enough.

And if you had discussed a bit with the girl asking for a shot what would have been possible with an old K20 on one hand and a manual flash on the other hand...! And well you could have gotten her facebook or email to send the picture

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Last edited by Nicolas06; 01-29-2017 at 05:22 PM.

[lithedreamer]

K1 vs K30 is more like 2-3EV and there almost the same difference between K1 and KP at least in RAW. Let remember the K1 was the first FF with the improved high iso beyond the sensor size. But K30 vs KP once you used DxO prime. Maybe there 0.5 EV.

As for the 2 pictures, I feel like the second is nice, but really noisy. But the picture is interresting, the ligthing is interresting.That would be a nice photo to frame. The first photo could have been taken at iso 100, well you wouldn't frame that... That's my point...

So anyway the second picture, maybe you could have tried a second shoot at 1/40s instead of 1/80s as apparently the subject was not moving... You could have done that with a 85mm f/1.4 too on that K30 the framing would have been quite similar than 140mm on FF and being 3200 iso only, well maybe it would have gotten even better. Anyway the K1 allowed you to get a good enough shoot and because the lighting and subject were interresting you got something nice.

But the KP alone would not have been enough.

And if you add discussed a bit with the girl asking for a shot what would have been possible with an old K20 and a manual flash! Wow... And well you could have gotten her facebook or email to send the picture!

I know they come across as really noisy online, but having printed 8x10s, they actually turn out looking better as prints. Not everything has to be fit for framing, at least for me. My memory is pretty bad, but even 'documentary' photos help me remember where I was, who I was with, and what I was feeling at the time.

[pathdoc]

Is this high-ISO a hardware upgrade from the K-1 or a firmware one? If it's a major firmware update, all is well. If it's hardware, I may even hold off buying until a K-1 replacement comes out with new image accelerators and maybe even some custom modes on the new top dial. Because more than anything else, I use +/- FLASH compensation, and it would be super-convenient to be able to dial that up easily on the body without having to take a hand off the camera to change it on the flash.

[rawr]

I wonder how well it will AF in low light?

The AF is spec'd to work down to -3EV, just like K-3/K-1. That's very dark.

[stevebrot]

Is this high-ISO a hardware upgrade from the K-1 or a firmware one?

Sensor + accelerator (image co-processor) to allow rapid calculation-intensive NR for in-camera JPEG. How well the KP works for RAW capture is not known at present.


Steve

[gazonk]

Looks good to me, although the highest ISO is a joke. If it's at least a stop better than my K-5, I can think of lots of cases where it would have salvaged low light shots that turned out just a tiny bit too noisy.

[redpit]

I wonder how well it will AF in low light?

Eric

It's performance is great in low light! The best to this day in Pentax cameras! These are the words of an impressed tester! i still don't have any feedback on continuous tracking performance but this week I will have the chance to play with it and see for myself hopefully (I want to mount my DFA 150-450 and see what the KP offers).

[f22]

Let's be clear we must define what are night shots and poorly lit situations and why we want to take memories of that... Just the picture provided in example of that thread... Not that interresting, there flare, there no much details. Who is going to frame it, even if you where able to get no noise at all?

If you are not happy already with K3/K5 that KP isn't going to change much. K1 would be another league, but even, if you are already using the best lenses, PP and technique, you'll fall in the bit less great picture if the picture was great to begin with. And that were you should concentrate.

I respectively disagree with your opening comment, "why we want to take memories of that". Are you saying all night time pictures shouldn't even be attempted since they are all going to be bad? Maybe you need to learn how to take pictures in dark lighting? Or in situations where shadowed areas are also part of the composition (tunnels, museums, etc.)? There are PLENTY of interesting subjects, night city skylines, fireworks, astronomical, just to name a few, that have a purpose for a camera that can accurately capture the contrast between light and dark. As for flare, I don't have photos that suffer from flare. Maybe its because I use quality coated lens that reduce it, along with knowing how to compose a shot to not induce flare. If you think these example pictures are the sum total of "interesting subjects", or the epitome of nighttime photography, instead of just some samples to demonstrate the resolution, then you maybe missing the point of their use? It illustrates how the gradual degradation of noise starts to occur at a much higher ISO than earlier models, where it begins become unusable at 6400. Instead of saying that night photography has no value, it may be because the results you are getting aren't good? Maybe having a tool like this might add capabilities that would allow satisfactory and creative possibilities. That's all I was saying.

The major benefit of the technology n this camera is that what used to be unusable, noisy shots can now be properly exposed. And that also extends to the opposite side of the lighting spectrum. With an electronic shutter as fast a 1/24,000 sec, you can reduce overexposed areas of shot. If you look at the Pentax 645Z, a MF, it's ability to take high resolution images at higher ISO is it's strength.

Interesting subjects are the photographer's function, not the camera. Having a tool that handles a wider range of situations where less than ideal lighting conditions exist, seems to me to increase the number of memories that can be captured.

[Rondec]

Let's be clear we must define what are night shots and poorly lit situations and why we want to take memories of that... Just the picture provided in example of that thread... Not that interresting, there flare, there no much details. Who is going to frame it, even if you where able to get no noise at all?

The problem with poorly lit situations is that better high iso just give poorly lit pictures with lower visible noise. Not great looking pictures. Light make or break a photo. Not just the quantity, but the quality. If your subject is right, the timing is perfect, the composition is nice... You'll get a bit less great picture with a previous generation APSC vs KP. But the picture will be great anyway. If the lighting is wrong you'll have bad photo anyway, one with a bit less noise than the other.

If you are not happy already with K3/K5 that KP isn't going to change much. K1 would be another league, but even, if you are already using the best lenses, PP and technique, you'll fall in the bit less great picture if the picture was great to begin with. And that were you should concentrate.

I think high iso performance is that it helps with situations where you want better shutter speed in dark situations. Astro photography is one application where folks can't always do lower isos. Obviously if you are shooting in an athletic event and the gym isn't well lit, you still want to come away with some photos.

Landscape high iso images are often not great and would be better using a tripod, but there are a lot of other situations where you need as high an iso as will work.