[monochrome]

What if the vast majority of their customers accept the trade-off, buy the camera and enjoy the better jpeg’s, and it’s only this backwater market with it’s self-important clickbait Amazon sales feeder website Ph.D. that objects?

[Kunzite]

Personally, I believe the reports of smoothing are way over blown. They aren't "fake news," but they are relatively unimportant in every day shooting.

I believe the same, after studying various samples (and tried with my own). My only issue is that I'd have to pay for it. And with my luck, Pentax would backport the other improvements to the K-1 the day after

[Class A]

Personally, I believe the reports of smoothing are way over blown.

I have no problem with you holding that view.

However, the damage has been done.
We can argue about the extent of the damage, but undeniably the "accelerator" issue has caused bad press for the K-1 II and it would have been 100% avoidable.

The answer is that the K-1 II makes such an iso much more usable and that's enough.

I disagree.

It is fine if someone finds their family pictures quicker to process now.
It is not fine to impose some RAW smoothing on everyone whether they benefit from it or not.

And I don't think that Ricoh feels that this is a big deal because folks, like yourself, who are upset over the K-1 II's smoothing of RAW images...

I'm not "upset".

I disagree with the notion of messing with RAW data, but I'm at least equally concerned with the damage the bad press may have done to the K-1 II sales and to Pentax in general.

...just will buy a K-1, if they were ever interested in Pentax in the first place.

Some may make that choice but

1. the K-1 won't be around forever; didn't we first "hear" about the K-1 II by virtue of the K-1 becoming "unavailable"?
2. what if someone likes the K-1 but reads the K-1 II development as seeing no future going forward? They could be worried about not having an upgrade path that provides clean RAW data and/or wonder about the future of Pentax if it does so badly in a DPReview.

I don't think you can just brush away such concerns.

In the end, Ricoh will make money on the K-1 II

Yes, they will, but I'm convinced they could have made more money if they had given the people to opt out of the RAW smoothing, since that would have avoided the respective bad press.

As far as DP Review sinking Pentax's ship, I doubt that highly.

They may not be able to sink it entirely, but I think it would be naive to believe that they don't have some influence on some readers. Pentax can use every single customer and could do with some enthusiastic reporting, instead of being "outed" as a RAW file manipulator.

but my guess is that they'll do the best they can to satisfy everyone, meaning I suppose, that no one will truly be happy.

Please tell me how would it be possible -- for this one "accelerator" issue -- for not everyone truly being happy, if the processing were optional?

The freedom to opt in or out must make everyone truly happy.

I agree with you that people will find ways to be unhappy about something in general, but the "accelerator" business could have been easily removed from the equation! No single soul would have ever had to be unhappy about it. I guess DPReview would have criticised the default setting, if it had been "on" -- they are just childish like that -- but in this case it is clearly DPReview embarrassing themselves as opposed to a camera exhibiting a trait that can reasonably be criticised.

Anyhow, this is off-topic in this thread, isn't it?

[Class A]

What if the vast majority of their customers accept the trade-off, buy the camera and enjoy the better jpeg’s, and it’s only this backwater market with it’s self-important clickbait Amazon sales feeder website Ph.D. that objects?

Dpreview receives 20,000,000 hits per months.

It is possible that no one cares about their findings about the K-1 II.
Is it likely?
I don't think so.

[Sandy Hancock]

If you don't want the extra things on the Mark II, you can get the original K-1.
Since when was choice a bad thing?

The DFA*50 might create more Pentaxians then the K-1 II ever loses.

[Rondec]

I have no problem with you holding that view.

However, the damage has been done.
We can argue about the extent of the damage, but undeniably the "accelerator" issue has caused bad press for the K-1 II and it would have been 100% avoidable.


I disagree.

It is fine if someone finds their family pictures quicker to process now.
It is not fine to impose some RAW smoothing on everyone whether they benefit from it or not.


I'm not "upset".

I disagree with the notion of messing with RAW data, but I'm at least equally concerned with the damage the bad press may have done to the K-1 II sales and to Pentax in general.


Some may make that choice but

1. the K-1 won't be around forever; didn't we first "hear" about the K-1 II by virtue of the K-1 becoming "unavailable"?
2. what if someone likes the K-1 but reads the K-1 II development as seeing no future going forward? They could be worried about not having an upgrade path that provides clean RAW data and/or wonder about the future of Pentax if it does so badly in a DPReview.

I don't think you can just brush away such concerns.


Yes, they will, but I'm convinced they could have made more money if they had given the people to opt out of the RAW smoothing, since that would have avoided the respective bad press.


They may not be able to sink it entirely, but I think it would be naive to believe that they don't have some influence on some readers. Pentax can use every single customer and could do with some enthusiastic reporting, instead of being "outed" as a RAW file manipulator.


Please tell me how would it be possible -- for this one "accelerator" issue -- for not everyone truly being happy, if the processing were optional?

The freedom to opt in or out must make everyone truly happy.

I agree with you that people will find ways to be unhappy about something in general, but the "accelerator" business could have been easily removed from the equation! No single soul would have ever had to be unhappy about it. I guess DPReview would have criticised the default setting, if it had been "on" -- they are just childish like that -- but in this case it is clearly DPReview embarrassing themselves as opposed to a camera exhibiting a trait that can reasonably be criticised.

Anyhow, this is off-topic in this thread, isn't it?

It is a bit off topic.

I would just say a couple of things (a) the main point of the K-1 II is the accelerator. If you aren't interested in it then there is probably little point in the K-1 II as a camera. (b) If you disable the accelerator, the improvement in auto focus and certainly the dynamic pixel shift may go away. There is not telling what things have been off loaded to the accelerator to allow for some tweaks to tracking auto focus. People have acted as though Pentax could just port the dynamic pixel shift and auto focus improvements to the original K-1, but my guess is that those things require the accelerator in order that the whole thing doesn't gring to a halt.

But we don't know, do we? You assume that you are looking at a stack of blocks and you could just take these two items away from the base and nothing would happen, but it is possible that the whole thing falls down if you take one of those away.

[monochrome]

Dpreview receives 20,000,000 hits per months.

It is possible that no one cares about their findings about the K-1 II.
Is it likely?
I don't think so.

Clearly RIAC could have done a better job managing the K-1II rollout. Even more clearly Ricoh Imaging doesn’t care. What do they know that we don’t? They’re not just benighted old Japanese men.

Maybe the K-1II with the IMX sensor it has is the terminal iteration of the entire K-7 - based imaging process design. Maybe DPR is not relevant to the market niche they plan to design for and sell to.

I don’t think Consumer and Mass Affluent is their target market. 20,000,000 clicks by people to whom you aren’t selling and from whom you are courting courting future purchases might not really matter much.

---

Last edited by monochrome; 06-30-2018 at 08:35 AM.

[RGlasel]

Dpreview receives 20,000,000 hits per months.

What you see when you access DPR's website is customized to the digital profile of you that Amazon has. If you have never done anything to indicate an interest in Pentax products, you won't see any links to anything Pentax related. Even if something Pentax related ends up on the landing page you arrive at, you still have to click on a Pentax related link before there is a risk to being exposed to DPR's anti-pentaxian propaganda. It's a closed system, with nothing but neurotic Pentax users and narcissistic nobodies poking Pentax users with pointy sticks when they get tired of telling themselves how smart they are. DPR's raison d'être is to claim titles like "#1 site for digital photography reviews" to keep its Amazon masters satisfied, and all of us here do our part by obsessing over an occasional lazy, petulant dig at Pentax.

[Class A]

If you disable the accelerator, the improvement in auto focus and certainly the dynamic pixel shift may go away.

It is highly unlikely that the AF improvements have anything to do with the "accelerator" chip. The latter is most likely a DSP and only used for image processing.

It is likely that the "accelerator" is involved in processing the dynamic pixel shift processing but I'm rather certain that this is 100% independent from the RAW smoothing.

In other words, I'm rather sure that the RAW smoothing could be made optional without affecting anything else.

I didn't argue for the removal of the "accelerator" chip, just for making one of its functions optional.

[Class A]

Clearly RIAC could have done a better job managing the K-1II rollout.

Agreed.

Even more clearly Ricoh Imaging doesn’t care. What do they know that we don’t?

I hope that they know something that justifies their apparent indifference.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm still a huge Pentax fan. I'm just concerned that Pentax isn't doing as well as it could.

Maybe DPR is not relevant to the market niche they plan to design for and sell to.

It is entirely possible that Ricoh does not regard this particular market as relevant for them.
Ricoh surely cannot think of the New Zealand market as being relevant for them, otherwise they wouldn't tolerate the abysmally bad New Zealand distributor that makes sure that Pentax has zero ("0", zilch, nada) chance in New Zealand.

20,000,000 clicks by people to whom you aren’t selling and from whom you are courting courting future purchases might not really matter much.

Well, I'm not so sure.

If only a fraction of those could be persuaded to buy into a Pentax system, that could make quite a difference.

Ricoh may not be targeting DPReview readers but we all know the principles of economy of scale and how beneficial it would be for Ricoh and their customers if Pentax developed a broader user base.

[Class A]

If you have never done anything to indicate an interest in Pentax products, you won't see any links to anything Pentax related.

Pardon?

First, there is the "News" column.

Second, there is the camera guide.

Third, there is the review database.

Fourth, there are annual comparisons of cameras within their respective class. DPReview use these to make recommendations (the K-1 gets a mention in the "Landscape" category).

Fifth, cameras appear in the camera comparison tool. You may spot a model that you didn't initially look for as part of the camera comparison tool which is used in every review.

In summary, there are a ton of chances that a reader may come across a Pentax product, even if they did not set out do look for one.

I find the notion of DPReview having zero impact on buyer decisions to be absurd.

As a matter of fact, I consulted DPReview when I was deciding between a K100D and a D40 on recommendation of a shop owner. This happens all the time all over the world.

[monochrome]

@ Class A: it is eminently possible that there is an economic moat wide enough to preclude Pentax from aspiring to gathering more market share. The investment necessary to permit more share might be so large as to reduce Return on Invested Capital, Operating Income and GAAP Earnings to loss status for many quarters. It very well could be the smartest thing for Ricoh to do with Pentax (at least for now) is keep it small and build a reputation for very high quality products. The RAW smoothing is without meaning in the real world. I’ll keep my K-1 and use my KP for high ISO jpeg’s. What’s wrong with that? I’ll also probably find a way to sell some stuff and buy the 50, mostly because I’m curious. The accelerator hasn’t really hurt them, I don’t think, and it certainly hasn’t hurt me. It probably gave some benighted editors a cheap thrill for a couple weeks. Whoopeeee.

There’s an expression for what I think DPR can do that is not family friendly. You may select from those in your own mind to which one I refer.

[Class A]

@ Class A: it is eminently possible that there is an economic moat wide enough to preclude Pentax from aspiring to gathering more market share.

Yes, you may be right.

But that doesn't mean that one should take steps to reduce market share.

I wondered whether the very enthusiastic KP review by DPReview encouraged Ricoh to believe that adding an accelerator to the K-1 would be perceived as a very welcome step forward by the tech-press as well as customers.

After all, DPReview was unusually gushing about how impressively Pentax had been able to squeeze out more quality of a sensor that everyone else couldn't use to the same level of noise-free excellence. Goes to show how inconsistent and unreliable their reviewing is, as they could have called out Pentax then and there.

It very well could be the smartest thing for Ricoh to do with Pentax (at least for now) is keep it small and build a reputation for very high quality products.

Yes, I agree.

In my book, though, "very high quality" means being able to get access to the full capabilities of the sensor.
As it is, the K-1 II does not quite do that at high ISO levels, as it precludes the benefits of image stacking (e.g., in astro-photography) to be fully realised.

The RAW smoothing is without meaning in the real world.

For some, this is correct.

For others, it isn't.

And again, there is the debate about what it means in real world terms, and there is the other debate what it does to the perception of the K-1 II.
So many incompetent reviewers and trolls. No need to feed them.

I’ll keep my K-1 and use my KP for high ISO jpeg’s. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing is wrong with that. But that's really not the question going forward, and you know it.

I’ll also probably find a way to sell some stuff and buy the 50, mostly because I’m curious.

Same here. I'm rather keen on the new 50/1.4. It looks like they hit a home run with it. Who wants a Sigma Art lens if Pentax knocks something like the D FA* 50/1.4 out of the park?!

There’s an expression for what I think DPR can do that is not family friendly.

One? I can think of a large number of expressions that aren't family friendly!

[ffking]

I wondered whether the very enthusiastic KP review by DPReview encouraged Ricoh to believe that adding an accelerator to the K-1 would be perceived as a very welcome step forward by the tech-press as well as customers.

I've been consulting he way I feel about this a lot, and I actually think that the accelerator is fine on models like the KP, but your flagship - particularly in FF - should be as pure as possible because the whole point of a (D)SLR is user control over every aspect of the photographic process and anything that (unavoidably) takes some aspect of that out of the user's hands is contrary to what a professional tool is about. I agree with what you've said previously - if they had made it optional it would be seen as another useful tool.

[Paul the Sunman]

$1648.90 in Australia.

Ricoh Imaging | Pentax-D FA 50mm F1.4 SDM HD AW W/C