[robjmitchell]

Pentax K1 system with 3 DFA primes costs only 20% of the cost of a Nikon system with 3 FF primes, because, the 3 DFA primes don't exist.

Actually they do! DFA 50/2.8, DFA 100/2.8, DFA 100/2.8WR.😉

[Larrymc]

Yawn. For anyone who has been waiting for a proper video camera, this is no upgrade. Guess it won't ever be coming from Pentax. Good news is the Panasonic GH5s is out, and I'm saving for it. Wish it was FF too.

What exactly made you expect a huge video upgrade with the K-1II, there was never a hint that Pentax was going to do that with the K-1II only wild speculation. Run on along sonny boy and stop carping about this its obvious what you are doing.

Larry

[Pentax_WA]

I don't think you can compare the K1 (or K1mk2) to the D810 anymore since Nikon has replaced it with a D850. The upside I've gathered thus far is going with Pentax means a cheaper price-point to jumping in compared to Nikon. Will the Pentax K1mk2 with PS compare favorably to the D850's 45mp sensor? not likely, although it would be close. Also, the lens issue. A lot of people here have the "well it's good enough" attitude but I find that hard to live with especially in a time when third party lens makers are putting out the best glass they've ever made at very reasonable prices. Sigma has the 35mm art lens in K mount still, but not a single other piece of their entire ART series has it which is sad. By no means am I saying the K1mk2 is a bad system but it is starting to show it's age and without stellar modern glass to put in front of it, how long will the Pentax community stand for it? It's been pointed out by Tony Northrup while testing the Sony A7RIII's pixel shift feature that only the sharpest glass will produce the best results, I'm really surprised Pentax hasn't pushed for high resolution glass. Even Rokinon/Samyang has "SP" glass said to be able to resolve 50mp for the 5DR. With all of this said, I was considering the K1mk2 but if you really buy into a system for the glass and not the body...whats the draw here?

You have made some very valuable points. There is no doubt Pentax has many shortcomings and it is behind many competitors in terms of new advances in photography. I'm a huge critique of Pentax yet I have spent thousands of dollars investing in it. One of the main reasons is the shooting experience that it gives me compared to other brands. To me, Pentax has the best grip/handling, weather sealing and the $$$ value. There have been times, I was thinking of selling my Pentax gears and switch to other brands, but after renting/testing them out, it was so hard to let go. Instead, I added a Fuji system to my gear as a second camera, especially for my wildlife photography. The combination has worked amazingly well for my work. ��

[jatrax]

To me, Pentax has the best grip/handling, weather sealing and the $$$ value.

And there you have it.
Although I might add, possibly the best landscape camera available. And the easiest menus I have worked with. And best button layout.

[redpit]

Will the Pentax K1mk2 with PS compare favorably to the D850's 45mp sensor? not likely, although it would be close.

You could be very surprised by real world results! I'm wondering why don't you make your own tests as there are already so many D850 users out there, but I end up with the conclusion that you are not K-1 users! The K-1 at the normal mode shooting is at least as good as the D850 with less noise at the same ISO levels and better clarity if you combine it with lenses like the DFA* 70-200 or the DFA 150-450. In PS mode K-1 IQ is way better than the D850, when you can use it, you can tell the difference even when reviewing the images at the cameras rear screens... That's just for your information. You can check my findings any time you like and come up with yours. What I find ridiculous is some peoples' notion that we (the Pentaxians) are some poor victims that have been cheated by Ricoh-Pentax and are trapped in Pentax defending her lagging behind the competition products. Change you mind, the truth is that most of us have chosen to be Pentaxians and enjoy shooting Pentax! As Normhead has very well said every system is a compromise and it just happens that Pentax system is the best compromise for some people. I recognize that other photographers have different priorities and Pentax doesn't cover them, but enough with the effort to turn white into black or the generic depreciation of everything Pentax comes up with. I find it tiring and annoying that lately most of my posts end up being like this and not about photography itself. Many remarkable PF memebrs have left this place or rarely come up these days. I'm thinking of following their example as there is so much controvercy over equipment, Pentax being unable to provide what some users personally want (although it is already in the market from other brands and cost 2-3 times more than the Pentax similar offering - where such an offering exists).

[Zygonyx]

Kudos redpit, but please keep on line

[Dan Rentea]

You could be very surprised by real world results! I'm wondering why don't you make your own tests as there are already so many D850 users out there, but I end up with the conclusion that you are not K-1 users! The K-1 at the normal mode shooting is at least as good as the D850 with less noise at the same ISO levels and better clarity if you combine it with lenses like the DFA* 70-200 or the DFA 150-450. In PS mode K-1 IQ is way better than the D850, when you can use it, you can tell the difference even when reviewing the images at the cameras rear screens... That's just for your information. You can check my findings any time you like and come up with yours. What I find ridiculous is some peoples' notion that we (the Pentaxians) are some poor victims that have been cheated by Ricoh-Pentax and are trapped in Pentax defending her lagging behind the competition products. Change you mind, the truth is that most of us have chosen to be Pentaxians and enjoy shooting Pentax! As Normhead has very well said every system is a compromise and it just happens that Pentax system is the best compromise for some people. I recognize that other photographers have different priorities and Pentax doesn't cover them, but enough with the effort to turn white into black or the generic depreciation of everything Pentax comes up with. I find it tiring and annoying that lately most of my posts end up being like this and not about photography itself. Many remarkable PF memebrs have left this place or rarely come up these days. I'm thinking of following their example as there is so much controvercy over equipment, Pentax being unable to provide what some users personally want (although it is already in the market from other brands and cost 2-3 times more than the Pentax similar offering - where such an offering exists).

This kind of "debates" are going and going (sometimes in the wrong direction) because there are no pictures involved in these discussions. There are to many technical comments and I rather prefer to see 2-3-5 images than 50 comments which are kind of the same in all the topics.

Sure, there will probably going to be debates even when pictures are involved into discussions, but at least I can rely on what my eyes see in those images rather then believing what someone who has 2000 comments on a forum and not a single image posted (I'm not referring to you ) has to say. Images always speak better than words.

[Rondec]

The D850 has better high iso capabilities than the D810 everyone that I have spoken to agrees with this
If we take a look at the read noise found in the D810 and the D850 the D850 has less read noise because of the DCG inherent with the D850 sensor
Shadow Improvement of Photographic Dynamic Range versus ISO Setting

Photographic Dynamic Range versus ISO Setting

Studio shot comparison: Digital Photography Review

Many D850D810 owners would disagree with you

Maybe so. DXO Mark gives a higher sports iso score to the D810 over the D850 (the K-1 beats both of them). Regardless, my main point is that the D810 is still on the market and it is still the camera that I would compare the K-1 and K-1 II to.

[Dan Rentea]

Maybe so. DXO Mark gives a higher sports iso score to the D810 over the D850 (the K-1 beats both of them). Regardless, my main point is that the D810 is still on the market and it is still the camera that I would compare the K-1 and K-1 II to.

You can't rely on DXO when comes to shooting in real life conditions... At high ISO and bad lighting conditions where you can't set a custom white balance, the first thing that matters is aquiring focus fast enough to capture the scene. The noise is the last aspect that I notice when I look at the high ISO images on a big screen. Skin tones and white balance are far more time consuming to correct/adjust in post processing than noise.

[Rondec]

You can't rely on DXO when comes to shooting in real life conditions... At high ISO and bad lighting conditions where you can't set a custom white balance, the first thing that matters is aquiring focus fast enough to capture the scene. The noise is the last aspect that I notice when I look at the high ISO images on a big screen. Skin tones and white balance are far more time consuming to correct/adjust in post processing than noise.

DXO Mark is good for what it says it is -- testing dynamic range and SNR at various isos. Basically, sensor performance. It doesn't test camera features like white balance, auto focus, etc. When it comes to auto focus, the K-1 is decent, but not great and depends greatly on the lens used. We will see about improvements that come with the K-1 II (I expect some improvement, but no miracles).

[Dan Rentea]

Basically, sensor performance.

In the lab, with controled lighting. It's like fuel consumption on cars. In perfect conditions you get the values specified by producers, but in real conditions is almost imposible to achieve those values.

[Rondec]

In the lab, with controled lighting. It's like fuel consumption on cars. In perfect conditions you get the values specified by producers, but in real conditions is almost imposible to achieve those values.

But, if the conditions are consistent across brands then they should be comparable.

I find that people who don't like DXO Mark results usually do so because their chosen cameras don't do as well as they would like. Pentaxians loved DXO Mark when it said that the K5 was the top of the heap, but were much more down on them when the K3 came out and was middle of the pack with regard to sensor performance.

[JPT]

A post about the image quality of the K-1 mark 2 was put up on the Pentax Japan Facebook page today.



So leaving aside how cool that shirt is for a moment, here is what says via Google translate. I think you can get the gist. He is talking up the impact of the accelerator unit and the rendering of blue.

------------------

Hello, it is Larry.

Have you already seen the news of the 35 mmfl size digital single lens reflex camera PENTAX K - 1 Mark II announced the other day?
When a new product is announced, I think that you will be concerned about new topics such as new devices and new functions which are inherently easy to see, but this time it is hard to quantify the evaluation criteria, so it is often difficult to get high image quality, high definition, low noise We will introduce only a little about "image quality improvement" that we can only inform you with similar expressions every time.

The image sensor which can be said as the heart part of a digital camera, its evolution is momentum that does not know where to stay, but, if you put even the latest sensor, if you say whether you can take a picture with super high quality far more than it actually is, There is none. Even with the latest image sensor, if you look at the image that comes out in a raw state that does not do any image processing, none of them is an image that is far from the picture uniformly (if you say you want to put an image , It seems I'm going to break your dreams, so I was told you no good ...). It is to make it an image that the image quality engineer develops as a photograph by making full use of the image processing engine and accelerator unit etc., but this work is not OK if one parameter is decided, Perform optimum processing individually.

Since it is all settable sensitivity, not step by step, for example, next to ISO 100 is not ISO 200, but image quality design is carried out individually for ISO 125 and ISO 160 in 1/3 steps and ISO 140 in 1/2 steps. In PENTAX K-1 Mark II this time, the highest sensitivity that can be taken quickly jumped to ISO 819 200. Of course, although it is the sensitivity that could be achieved only with the newly installed accelerator unit, this accelerator unit, the effect is not only high sensitivity noise. So, what the development team did was redesigning image quality with full sensitivity. To that background, in addition to the reputed green coloring that was received from users, there may have been a highly-valued voice for the recently increased blue coloring.

With PENTAX K - 1, we were proud that the features were good as sensors were used for the first time, but as prime we were proud to have achieved the highest image quality at that time, but we were able to confirm the effect of the accelerator in the model that we released later By doing so, it seems that K - 1 thought that the color development of blue, which can be evolved more, can be improved still more than the person in charge. And the birth of the PENTAX K - 1 Mark II is not just improving the picture quality with just the accelerator. Even after the release of PENTAX K-1, developers have developed daily technological developments that have deeply understood the characteristics of image sensors and can be used more effectively, and developers themselves take photographs with the camera, and sometimes subjects By repeating live-action tests such as cooperating with families as a steady image quality exceeding K-1 was realized. It is impossible to tell it numerically, but when the developer tells me "While the sensitivity is getting better as well, blue is super clean even if I shoot it with a slight increase in sensitivity!" I feel confident and confident in his full smile.

It will take some time to go on sale, but when I also get the product, the first thing I think about while grinning is whether to go for shooting a beautiful subject with blue.

[photoptimist]

In the lab, with controled lighting. It's like fuel consumption on cars. In perfect conditions you get the values specified by producers, but in real conditions is almost imposible to achieve those values.

That's actually not true at all and the analogy to car fuel consumption measurement is false. Car fuel consumption is a strong function of driver behavior and terrain but sensor dynamic range (for example) is strictly a physical property of the device independent of photographer or scene.

"Imperfect conditions" don't change the physics of the lens, pixels, analog electronics, and digital circuits. The pixels don't contain pixies (except the Pentax ones ) that get happy or sad when the conditions are good or bad to produce a better or worse sensor performance. Pixels simply measure light the light that falls on them with some measurable degree of gain, fidelity, and noise.

The measurements of sensor performance taken under "perfect conditions" tell you exactly how the sensor will behave under imperfect conditions.

[Dan Rentea]

But, if the conditions are consistent across brands then they should be comparable.

I find that people who don't like DXO Mark results usually do so because their chosen cameras don't do as well as they would like. Pentaxians loved DXO Mark when it said that the K5 was the top of the heap, but were much more down on them when the K3 came out and was middle of the pack with regard to sensor performance.

I find that people who read and trust DXO lab tests before doing their own tests are very much influenced by the chart results that they see and even if they do try to make a comparation between cameras after they read DXO results, their mind/opinion is already influenced by those charts. You don't have to believe me. Just pick 2 cameras that you don't know anything about, with similar specs, and do some comparation tests in 2 or 3 real life shooting conditions. Write your findings and conclusions and then see if they match the DXO charts. You may have some surprises.

Do you know why almost everybody who doesn't shoot Pentax thinks that Pentax af is so bad that it can't track a snail? Because even if they have the chance to shoot with a K-3 or with a K1 and a 70-200mm lens, in their mind Pentax is so bad at tracking because they saw DPreview or Tony Northrup review, or they read about it on the internet. In their minds already is a partial conclusion in which Pentax has poor af. This has a lot of influence on them when they are performing af tests. One way of making them change their opinion is to shoot with the Pentax gear next to them while they are shooting with Nikon, Canon, or whatever camera and get better results at the end of the tests. Only then Tony Northrup, DXO and DPreview influence starts to dissapear.

---------- Post added 02-26-18 at 02:29 PM ----------

The measurements of sensor performance taken under "perfect conditions" tell you exactly how the sensor will behave under imperfect conditions.

I don't agree, but I may be able to prove it with a D610 vs D750. Both have 24mp, both are full frame cameras and I can borrow both from my friends... If I get the chance to go out this weekend, I will send you the raw files.