[OTH]

If the leaked specs are correct, that's not great and that's not bad either. If not having anything brand new to present at CP+, Pentax buys some time with presenting a K1 mark II with a firmware tweak, without spending much on it.
... But If you have a K1 and if you are able to appreciate an increase of image quality from a K1, you may be able to sell the K1 and get a K1 II for a couple of hundred dollars, it's not a big deal either.

The noise-reduction-unit that is already used in the K70 and KP will improve the picture quality typical at a range of ISO 200-800. That is a nice-to-have and we'll see what they changed at the Pixel-Shift-function. Most K-1 owner's would not upgrade, but it's a nice step into future if the price will remain almost identical.

[pres589]

Norm, when you say that "AF is still a frill", are you really manually focusing that much on a camera without a split prism focusing screen? Manual focus on a camera that was really meant for it, and had features like a split prism, sounds pretty alright vs. when I deal with it on my K-5 II unless I want to go through Live View and a couple steps of magnification, holding it away from my face like I would a cell phone, and generally feeling like I'm wasting a bunch of time.

If I'm honest, the biggest reason I want to have a full frame camera isn't some hoped for jump-up in image quality. It's to have lenses at their "right" field of view, so lenses like the FA 35, DA 40XS, or FA 43 are all normal and more useful to me. It's why I own a pile of 28mm primes for my crop camera and keep moaning about a lack of 24-26mm options. It's why I've thought about getting a film body and then remembering that I don't want to monkey with processing at all.

[Rico]

Norm, when you say that "AF is still a frill", are you really manually focusing that much on a camera without a split prism focusing screen? Manual focus on a camera that was really meant for it, and had features like a split prism, sounds pretty alright vs. when I deal with it on my K-5 II unless I want to go through Live View and a couple steps of magnification, holding it away from my face like I would a cell phone, and generally feeling like I'm wasting a bunch of time.

If I'm honest, the biggest reason I want to have a full frame camera isn't some hoped for jump-up in image quality. It's to have lenses at their "right" field of view, so lenses like the FA 35, DA 40XS, or FA 43 are all normal and more useful to me. It's why I own a pile of 28mm primes for my crop camera and keep moaning about a lack of 24-26mm options. It's why I've thought about getting a film body and then remembering that I don't want to monkey with processing at all.

99% of my images are manually focused on the K-1. I find no need for a split prism screen. Matter of fact I found using a split prism screen on the K-20 a huge hinderance in focusing as the split screen made it hard to see past the screen and what I was focusing on.

[zapp]

Maybe the MK ii stands for a camera that was intorduced two years ago. Currently the news is not overwhelming, but a nice addition if you have you want to buy into a K1.
Looks like Pentax let go of the ii in the same, so the real successor needs a more creativ name.
Time to concentrate on LENSES.

[normhead]

Norm, when you say that "AF is still a frill", are you really manually focusing that much on a camera without a split prism focusing screen?

Heck no. While people like to portray me as a brand loyalist, really I just like to buy bodies that work with the lenses I own. The lens that got me into a *ist D was the Tamron 35-300 macro adaptal. I loved that lens on my ME. However the guy at the store convinced me to buy a Sigma 70-300 and I never actually used the Tarmon on the *ist D. The point I'm making is if you don't expect camera to do anything for you, what a Pentax does is just great. Whether or not others are better is moot. Others are better, it's always been true. When I bought my Pentax Program Plus, I could ha e bought either Pentax AF or a Nikon F4. I just don't think of AF as something you buy a camera for. If it has AF, it's good enough. Great AF is only worth paying for, for a select few.

Unfortuntaley there are a lot of folks who have convinced themselves they are part of that select few. I've never been that delusional.

There are very few images I miss because of Pentax AF. Most of the time it's because I wasn't able to stabilize the camera enough and I've moved more than SR can compensate for. People seem to forget, the best SR and AF have their limits, nothing is fool proof.

If you are familiar with MF techniques, all AF is amazing. The question is do you want amazing or more amazing? Some folks insist amazing isn't good enough for them.

When people talk about AF they seem to think in absolutes. I think, well I get 90% of the images I want with Pentax AF, probably 5% of the images it doesn't get , no AF is going to help, leaving maybe 5% of my images where better AF would have helped. I'm not willing to pay much for that.

It's never absolute, it's always situational. If the AF is adequate for the situations you find yourself in, better AF is moot. I love those Canon and Nikon images of the owl flying across a field straight at the camera, but I have never been in a situation where I had chance for one of those images. It's great those cameras have great tracking, but so far in 63 years of shooting, I have had no opportunities for those types of shots, thus that's completely irrelevant to me. If something changes and I start getting those kinds of opportunities, maybe I'll think differently.

[biz-engineer]

Maybe the MK ii stands for a camera that was intorduced two years ago. Currently the news is not overwhelming, but a nice addition if you have you want to buy into a K1.

Most posts of thread show that people buy camera specs but not image quality. No a single image was shown here, but the specifications make or break the sales. Funny.

[pres589]

99% of my images are manually focused on the K-1. I find no need for a split prism screen. Matter of fact I found using a split prism screen on the K-20 a huge hinderance in focusing as the split screen made it hard to see past the screen and what I was focusing on.

Were you as good at focusing on previous DSLR's? I've got some 28mm and a 50mm prime that are manual focus, and on my K-5 II, I am not so hot at nailing focus. Stock focusing screen, bought a Katz Eye and never installed it, usually just using the OVF and coming home to find out I didn't do so hot.

[biz-engineer]

Were you as good at focusing on previous DSLR's?

I focus faster and more accurately manually than Pentax autofocus :-) :-) )))

[Rondec]

I think from a landscape standpoint, the goal is to produce the cleanest image possible before you start post processing. That is where pixel shift helps, because it really gives you a base image with very minimal noise. Hopefully the accelerator helps with that as well and by eliminating some of the noise in the shadows allow for a little bigger dynamic range with a single image.

A pixel shifted image with the FA 31...

[pres589]

I focus faster and more accurately manually than Pentax autofocus :-) :-) )))

Pfft. Whatever.

[Rico]

Were you as good at focusing on previous DSLR's? I've got some 28mm and a 50mm prime that are manual focus, and on my K-5 II, I am not so hot at nailing focus. Stock focusing screen, bought a Katz Eye and never installed it, usually just using the OVF and coming home to find out I didn't do so hot.

I have used the K-10/20, K-7/5 and now the K-1. I thought getting the Katz Eye would help for the K-10/20 but I found it to be to distracting. For the K-7/5 I switched to the Pentax ME-60 Plain Matte Focusing Screen. I find having nothing obstructing my view makes it much easier to focus. The K-7/5 has a much better viewfinder than the K-10/20. The K-3/3II is even better. I use the K-1 with no overlays.

My most used lens on APS-C was the Pentax A series 28mm ƒ2. On the K-1 I moved to the 43mmLTD. 99% of the time it is in manual focus. Wish it had focus shift. I usually travel with the 28 and 43.

Focusing depends on ƒ stop. If you are shooting wide open good luck "nailing" focus no matter what brand you are using manually or autofocusing.

IMHO.

[biz-engineer]

Hopefully the accelerator helps

What accelerator means is that the filtering is done through a dedicated chip instead of being processed by the main processor. So, I don't expect to have less noise on the K1 mark II, however, I expect to see faster in camera image processing, which is what accelerator would mean. Anyway, I current K1 already smooth out chroma noise, we don't get raws unfiltered.

---------- Post added 14-02-18 at 19:46 ----------

Kenspo said he was excited (he also said "the future is bright"), and so this K1 mark II is likely not the only novelty presented at CP+.

[mohb]

"Why did you buy this camera?" is "I would buy every camera ever made given sufficient funds and storage space. I just like cameras."

I wonder how many others on here feel the same?

[Belnan]

I guess on the bright side the K-1/ K-1 mark II still offer great value for the price and its not like they are asking much more AFAIK. However this seems like the weakest of the mark II upgrades, similar to the D800 --> D810 I suppose. The problem is that Pentax doesnt have the user base to keep selling K-1's nor the Optics to entice new people. Most importantly the odds of me getting a K-1 original recipee for a steel are slightly less promising.

[baldeagle21b]

I focus faster and more accurately manually than Pentax autofocus :-) :-) )))

Then do that and don't complain about the AF then.