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11-26-2018, 09:09 AM   #46
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QuoteOriginally posted by larryaustin3 Quote
Pricing is the key word, imho. Instead of looking at all the specs, magazines may take a shortcut and decide what is pro and what is enthusiast based on price alone.
Not necessarily. Go ask a really large photo store.

Hereabouts the answer to my question who is the main buying group for 1DXII and D5 and A9 cameras was: dentists, bankers, manager types and self-employed real estate agents. All mainly for family event snapshots, toddlers, flowers in the garden etc.
Based on the anecdotes around all this, half were not even close to "enthusiast" level.

Also some commercial photographers, but less then 1/5th of units. Commercial photography is not a business where the average gets rich these days and will buy 3,4,5-grand cameras.

11-26-2018, 12:13 PM   #47
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QuoteOriginally posted by biz-engineer Quote
Where DPR get their money from? Who pay them?
Amazon, not its forum members or the public.

11-26-2018, 12:43 PM - 1 Like   #48
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QuoteOriginally posted by clackers Quote
Amazon, not its forum members or the public.
It is actually the forum members and the public, which generate income for DPR. By clicking affiliated Amazon links. Which then automatically generates a small margin for DPR. Same as almost every Youtube camera gear vlog gets its income.

This is why DPR is so keen on providing good content and state-of-art reviews, and why they evolve getting better continually. They want their funders, the public people, to visit them for decision making. THEY trigger the income. Amazon is totally passive with their links. No clicking users, no income.

I think that the most recent Pentax reviews are a good example of DPR getting better.

The KP got a favourable review, because at that time, the testing staff member was not the brightest around, so he didn't realize that the (good) KP noise results were stemming from a cheat, i.e. from the secret forced denoising of lower-ISO RAWs, via this Accelerator cheating chip.

With the K-1 II review, at that time they had hired a genius, which discovered all of that. Just using his professional diligence, even before it was validated mathematically by another forum mathematician later on via Fourier freqency analysis.

I can't see hat DPReview would have to be deemed as biased, just because the most recent review (K-1 II) was less favourable. What about all the others in history? There were Pentax bodies, which got a "highly recommended". Did anybody here complain about DPR's testing or alleged bias back then? probably not

Last edited by Frater; 11-26-2018 at 12:49 PM.
11-26-2018, 12:47 PM - 2 Likes   #49
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QuoteOriginally posted by Frater Quote
The KP got a favourable review, because at that time, the testing staff member was not the brightest around, so he didn't realize that the (good) KP noise results were stemming from a cheat, i.e. from the secret forced denoising of lower-ISO RAWs, via this Accelerator chip.
This is a rather pejorative recitation of the facts. Many of us would much rather have this denoising than not. I believe the sensors used in Sony products have something similar built in. I am looking forward to the arrival of my KP tomorrow, and the superior high-ISO it will provide.

11-26-2018, 01:09 PM - 2 Likes   #50
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QuoteOriginally posted by reh321 Quote
I believe the sensors used in Sony products have something similar built in.
No, the most recent Sensors used by Sony (and Nikon) tend to count on evolving techology, namely
- dual gain pixel amplifiers
- BSI back side illumination
which give them noise superiority natively. I believe the accelerator cheating chip was a defensive tactics by Ricoh engineers, to achive still-competitive noise figures w/o having the budget granted to purchase the current expensive state-of-art Sony sensors.

And it kind of worked out, until it was revealed by DPReview and forum members.

Sony sensors don't (need to) do such cheats, because they already have the lead via technology advances mentioned above.

Sony had another issue though, purely software: a heavy-handed removal of long exposure hot-pixels, known as star eater problem. By now they learned their lesson (albeit slowly) and the problem seems gone with their recent models.

But this shows a fundamental difference
- Sony users are demanding, and give / gave Sony a hard time with their complaints. So Sony learns about the issue (slowly) and fixes them eventually.
- Pentax users are non-demanding, hail everything and neglect any quality ussues with Pentax products. Lick everything from Pentax' boots. So Pentax never gets a chance to learn about issues or about fields requiring urgent improvements, and consequently never improves on these.

This is the true core of the problem, e.g. why Pentax is so much behind in many areas (starting with autofocus to begin with).

Related to that, It could also be, that a company just needs many professional users, and active pressure from professionals' high demands, to stay on top with their development efforts.
Pentax only has hobbyists, which are not very demanding, use their cameras more as spare time toys. If this is the only user base, then the cameras evolve to toys indeed eventually, i.e. the product development focuses on toy-ish features and gimmicks, rather than on the core competencies which professionals would demand.

I think this explains the development of Pentax for the past 10 or 20 years.

That is the problem. The problem ist not DPR. They are just the messengers. Don't shoot the messenger

Last edited by Frater; 11-26-2018 at 01:17 PM.
11-26-2018, 01:17 PM - 1 Like   #51
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QuoteOriginally posted by Frater Quote
Sony had another issue though, purely software: a heavy-handed removal of long exposure hot-pixels, known as star eater problem. By now they learned their lesson (albeit slowly) and the problem seems gone with their recent models.

But this shows a fundamental difference
- Sony users are demanding, and give / gave Sony a hard time with their complaints. So Sony learns about the issue (slowly) and fixes them eventually.
- Pentax users are non-demanding, hail everything and neglect any quality ussues with Pentax products. Lick everything from Pentax' boots. So Pentax never gets a chance to learn about issues or about fields requiring urgent improvements, and consequently never improves on these.

This is the true core of the problem, e.g. why Pentax is so much behind in many areas (starting with autofocus to begin with).

Related to that, It could also be, that a company just needs many professional users, and active pressure from professionals' high demands, to stay on top with their development efforts.
Pentax only has hobbyists, which are not very demanding, use their cameras more as spare time toys. If this is the only user base, then the cameras evolve to toys indeed eventually, i.e. the product development focuses on toy-ish features and gimmicks, rather than on the core competencies which professionals would demand.

I think this explains the development of Pentax for the past 10 or 20 years.

That is the problem. The problem ist not DPR.
If Sony 'doctored' their sensors, you would never know.
You cannot tell by looking at an image whether it is missing tiny detail or the detail has been removed by a consistent process.

People here yammered on and on about "star eating" .... but Pentax cameras don't actually do that.

I like what Pentax is doing with their cameras - that is why I am back using Pentax after 20 years of using Canon.
That is why a KP will be delivered to me tomorrow.

If you think Sony is so great, why are you still here???
11-26-2018, 01:39 PM - 4 Likes   #52
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QuoteOriginally posted by Frater Quote
The KP got a favourable review, because at that time, the testing staff member was not the brightest around, so he didn't realize that the (good) KP noise results were stemming from a cheat, i.e. from the secret forced denoising of lower-ISO RAWs, via this Accelerator cheating chip.
If it works, it isn't a trick is it.

11-26-2018, 01:48 PM - 1 Like   #53
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QuoteOriginally posted by reh321 Quote
If you think Sony is so great, why are you still here???
Sony is not "great". There's enough stuff to dislike about them. In some areas they are doing really well, and have a lead, but they have their distinct weaknesses as well.

Every company has its quirks. No camera company is great throughout their entire product line or product strategy.

The topic is, to be open for the reality. The declaration of the K-1 II as being best in class seems a bit weird, because it isn't perceived anywhere else as that. No DPR recommendation. The EISA award for the best (non-professional) DSLR in its class went to the Canon 6D Mark II, which is humiliating for the K-1 II. Because the 6D II wasn't hailed at all, but got a good amount of headwind from the internet communities, if I remember right. So the K-1 II couldn't even stand against a weak (or unspectacular) competition.

The amazon.com DSLR sales ranking tells, that the K-1 II hardly sells any longer, if that is a manifestation of swarm intelligence.

So "declared best in class" is so absurd, that makes me wonder, who got paid by whom. Or was it really only feature counting and comparing (many sites which don't afford real tests just compare features, but without really testing them. They just do editorial writing in a style which pretends as if they were testing).

Last edited by Frater; 11-26-2018 at 02:00 PM.
11-26-2018, 02:07 PM - 1 Like   #54
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QuoteOriginally posted by Frater Quote
Sony is not "great". There's enough stuff to dislike about them. In some areas they are doing really well, and have a lead, but they have their distinct weaknesses as well.

Every company has its quirks. No camera company is great throughout their entire product line or product strategy.

The topic is, to be open for the reality. The declaration of the K-1 II as being best in class seems a bit weird, because it isn't perceived anywhere else as that. No DPR recommendation. The EISA award for the best (non-professional) DSLR in its class went to the Canon 6D Mark II, which is humiliating for the K-1 II. Because the 6D II wasn't hailed at all, but got a good amount of headwind from the internet communities, if I remember right. So the K-1 II couldn't even stand against a weak (or unspectacular) competition.

The amazon.com DSLR sales ranking tells, that the K-1 II hardly sells any longer, if that is a manifestation of swarm intelligence.

So ?tag=pentaxforums-20&"declared best in class" is so absurd, that makes me wonder, who got paid by whom. Or was it really only feature counting and comparing (many sites which don't afford real tests just compare features, but without really testing them. They just do editorial writing in a style which pretends as if they were testing).
All these words, and all you say is that different evaluation methods result in different rankings. Why are you so sure that this is not the correct one?
11-26-2018, 02:22 PM   #55
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Because it says good things about Pentax, I'd guess.
11-26-2018, 02:30 PM   #56
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QuoteOriginally posted by reh321 Quote
All these words, and all you say is that different evaluation methods result in different rankings. Why are you so sure that this is not the correct one?
That is a fair point. I'm just assuming (but not knowing), that photographers prefer tests/evaluations which are as close as possible to their craft's reality, so that such evaluations have as much validity and relevance as possible.

But you may be right. Some others may purchase a camara just to be able to tell their buddy "see, my new camera has this and that feature, but your's doesn't". If a camera is purchased as an item to show off towards friends, then pleasure may be drawn from just having features and telling buddies about them.

A bit like when smartphones were not yet pretty-much-all-the-same, and when friends gave exhaustive lectures about the bunch of cool features when they got a new model.

So yes, feature counting may be a pleasure in its own right to some, even though it is totally unrelated to photography of course.

Last edited by Frater; 11-26-2018 at 02:38 PM.
11-26-2018, 02:43 PM   #57
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Compared to the 6D Mk II - and I must say, I'm not convinced the Pentax "lost" against this camera and not against the D850 - the K-1 Mk II has several clear advantages.
First and foremost, image quality. The 6D Mk II manages to do worse than its predecessor, so there isn't a contest here.
Is it absurd to consider the camera with superior image quality, "better"? Perhaps having a touch screen is more important?
11-26-2018, 03:10 PM - 1 Like   #58
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QuoteOriginally posted by Frater Quote
It is actually the forum members and the public, which generate income for DPR. By clicking affiliated Amazon links. Which then automatically generates a small margin for DPR. Same as almost every Youtube camera gear vlog gets its income.
Yes, sounds correct. That's why DPR have to craft their opinion in such way that they appeal to as many people as possible, it's a bit like in politics, if you want to get more votes you have to say what people like to hear, you won't say the truth except with regards to competitor party. DPR can't afford to trash main camera brands, otherwise they would lose too much audience. DPR simply can't afford not to praise Canon, Nikon and Sony. or else they would lose voters of the majority. Let's imagine DPR would say Pentax camera offer best in class sensors , plus other unique features that are great and that other brands don't offer, they would get clicks from 5% of their TAM (Total Available Market), which would generate 20 times less clicks as opposed to if DPR says that Canon, Nikon and Sony are great and Pentax is crap. DPR just follow the trends, for instance they have been reviewing mobile phones because there is money to be made out of it. They don't say image quality on mobile phone is much lower than from cameras, they made a special section for phones. DPR wouldn't review mobile phones along with DSLR simply because doing so would shadow mobile phones clicks. The bottom line is, DPR follow trends and tell what people like to read. Evidence is, when they reviewed Canon EOS R and Nikon Z, they kinda said what everyone else said (single SD card slot etc). And after a while, they said "Canon EOS and Nikon Z and Sony are good", because they also have to generate sales of cameras: when the only new camera models are MILC, they can't say "it's not so good" otherwise that will negatively impact sales on amazon, DPR have to say "It's good" because Jeff Bezos is waiting around the corner.

Last edited by biz-engineer; 11-26-2018 at 03:21 PM.
11-26-2018, 03:25 PM - 1 Like   #59
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QuoteOriginally posted by Frater Quote
Sony is not "great". There's enough stuff to dislike about them. In some areas they are doing really well, and have a lead, but they have their distinct weaknesses as well.

Every company has its quirks. No camera company is great throughout their entire product line or product strategy.

The topic is, to be open for the reality. The declaration of the K-1 II as being best in class seems a bit weird, because it isn't perceived anywhere else as that. No DPR recommendation. The EISA award for the best (non-professional) DSLR in its class went to the Canon 6D Mark II, which is humiliating for the K-1 II. Because the 6D II wasn't hailed at all, but got a good amount of headwind from the internet communities, if I remember right. So the K-1 II couldn't even stand against a weak (or unspectacular) competition.

The amazon.com DSLR sales ranking tells, that the K-1 II hardly sells any longer, if that is a manifestation of swarm intelligence.

So ?tag=pentaxforums-20&"declared best in class" is so absurd, that makes me wonder, who got paid by whom. Or was it really only feature counting and comparing (many sites which don't afford real tests just compare features, but without really testing them. They just do editorial writing in a style which pretends as if they were testing).
The question is what other cameras are in the same class with the K1 II. Going by price alone that should be the 6D II and the D750. Maybe the A7 III too, although that is priced a little higher at this point.

As far as sales numbers go, Pentax doesn't have high sales for anything so that doesn't mean much. It does seem to be selling in Japan, for what it's worth.

But I'm not sure why you are so upset. This is a website that decided that the K-1 II was a nice camera. Maybe they decided it was the only new camera in its class last year. Maybe they just are fools, as you suggest, and can't see the terrible noise reduction done on the K-1 II files. Maybe they just like the camera and decided to give it award. Either way, it makes little difference. Clearly you aren't going to purchase one and for those who have purchased one, it won't make a hill of beans difference as to the images we get. It might sell a couple more cameras, but probably not many, in Australia. That's about all you can say. Certainly not enough to generate so much negativity.

And by the way, I still don't think DP Review is a credible review site...
11-26-2018, 03:53 PM   #60
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
And by the way, I still don't think DP Review is a credible review site...
Their final word and scoring is a bit messed up, but if you read the complete reviews and get to the conclusion by yourself they are pretty good.
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