[c.a.m]

you've drawn a line in the sand where you're comfortable

IMO you make a valid point about automation, integrated photo-taking aids, and progress in general. Each person will draw their own line, I suppose, and that's fine.

I think that people can still appreciate the "old ways" while also embracing new technology. In my own case, I certainly enjoy autofocus lenses, for example. But I also get satisfaction from mounting a 60-year old lens and focusing it manually. I get good pictures from both. At home, we drive cars with automatic transmissions, but I wouldn't mind having an automobile with a manual gearbox again -- because I find manuals are fun to drive (except in rush-hour traffic, hehe). For a third example, buying stuff from a store is so easy, but I enjoy woodworking with hand tools and making things.

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Last edited by c.a.m; 12-30-2018 at 08:20 AM.

[normhead]

So you talk the biggest load of rubbish Ive evercome across.. So you didnt grow into your hobby and purchased all your lenses at the counter with your cameras did you ? Over the years you didnt try different Genres and needed different equipment along the way...And please dont refer to me as "ignorant"

Then don't post ignorant stuff.
If I were to guess, I'd say 90% of camera owners can find the lenses they need to do what they want to do with Pentax.
I'd guess another 10% might find what they need from one of the other companies.
And folks like me get a better selection of what we want from Pentax because of their focus on light weight, water resistant, portable systems at really good prices.

From my perspective up-selling folks, less value now for possible future needs is an irresponsible sales tactic harmful in the real world to 90% of the population. And I've had to deal with it. People with inferior cameras they paid good money for, that don't do things even the most basic Pentax cameras do. Which is all fine and dandy until I try to explain bracketing and there is no one click bracketing feature on their camera, discovered after half hour of clicking through ridiculously hard to access back screen help systems. Everyone who repeats the dumb reasons not to buy Pentax helps with that.

See I think of "rubbish" as something you can't support with a logical argument. You seem to think of rubbish as anything that goes against what everyone repeats over and over again based on arguments they've never actually examined for relevance. Or are you saying in your mind, you can evaluate the relevance of "lens support" by simply counting the number of lenses available for each system? Because in my mind that would truly be "rubbish", as in only true for maybe 10% of the ILC using public, and even 10% is probably grossly exaggerated.

How am wrong?
(Maybe this time do something other than labelling without reference to anything. While "rubbish" might be what you feel emotionally, it hardly has any relevance in a technical discussion.)

[BigMackCam]

I hope I'm allowed to answer this. It's here, or in plain text:

Pentax K-1 vs. K-1 II: NR with DxO PRIME – breakfastographer

I applaud your NR tests, but with respect I'd say the level of noise reduction used is rather heavy (for both cameras). IMHO, there's no need to remove all noise from a 100% pixel-peep image.

Take the following examples, processed in Darktable 2.4.4...

Here's a 100% crop of the same ISO 12,800 K-1II image you used, with AMaZE demosaicing and no noise reduction or sharpening applied:



... and here's the same crop of the K-1 image, same demosaic algorithm and no noise reduction or sharpening:



We can easily see that the K-1II image (the first one above) has less colour and luminance noise - exactly as we'd expect, given the baked-in NR.

Now, here's the K-1II image with some colour noise reduction (using Darktable's Equalizer and De-noise (Bilateral) tools), and a little gentle sharpening. Note that I haven't applied any luminance noise reduction... It's just not necessary, as this level of luminance noise isn't noticeable once you view at sensible reproduction sizes, or from sensible distances:



... and here's the K-1 image, also with colour noise reduction (but more of it was required), but here I had to add luminance noise reduction too (using Darktable's Equalizer tool) to more-or-less match the quality of the K-1II image. Sharpening level is the same, though:



As you can see, in this simple test I was able to match (fairly closely) the output of the K-1II by carefully applying stronger noise reduction to the K-1 image. But the most interesting outcome is that the detail in both images is largely the same. If there is a slight edge to the K-1, I can't see it. But either way, it's negligible, and - for this photo at least - won't be noticeable at typical reproduction sizes and viewing distances. You might just see a tiny difference when pixel-peeping at 100%+, but none of us actually views photos that way.

As a point of interest, I tried the same experiment using VNG4 as the demosaic algorithm. Here, the K-1II file did in fact appear to lose a tiny amount of detail in the green feathery areas compared to the K-1... but it really was minimal. Not enough to matter in real use. This further reinforces just how important the processing software and user skills are in getting the most from either camera's files.

[normhead]

Not enough to matter in real use. This further reinforces just how important the processing software and user skills are in getting the most from either camera's files.

Thanks to both of you for this excellent work. The bottom line for me is, images like this, I often have to apply noise reduction to the back ground, but usually don't take the time unless I really like the image. My Raw import program applies noise reduction on import. I suspect there would be files where the extra bit of noise reduction would make a custom background treatment be unnecessary. Unlike others I see noise reduction applied automatically above 400 ISO as a potential time saver. I've never felt the quality of an image was dependant on what the image looks like pixel peeping. And if I'm going to be applying NR, the Accelerator head start would be welcome. Since most of my favourite images are 100 ISO to 800 ISO or better, the whole argument comes down to discussing the merits of images i wouldn't use anyway.

Here's an 800 ISO image, sort of the low end of what I like.... the above images fall well below my accepted standard, hence for me becoming irrelevant. Others of course will have different standards. A bit more noise reduction would have helped out a bit IMHO. Sure I could have done it in post, but time saved in post makes for more time to shoot.

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Last edited by normhead; 12-30-2018 at 01:40 PM.

[Class A]

As you can see, in this simple test I was able to match (fairly closely) the output of the K-1II by carefully applying stronger noise reduction to the K-1 image.

I appreciate your approach of trying to squeeze out the most out of each file. This seems the most pragmatic approach (one needs to be careful though, not to lose potential in one or both the images).

When flipping between the two images (by opening two browsers showing the same page and placing them on top of each other so that the two images are exactly aligned and then swapping between the browsers by pressing Alt-Tab (Windows)), I see a very slight detail advantage for the K-1. One can debate whether the difference is worth having a discussion about, but in all K-1 vs K-1 II comparisons I've seen, that small difference was always there. Again, instead of using post-processing (here, in particular denoising) on a single image one may also use image stacking, i.e. using multiple exposures and averaging them out. This increase of signal is what makes PixelShift images less noisy as four separate exposures are combined, yielding a two stop advantage in light gathering. As I mentioned before, image stacking is very popular in astrophotography. I'd expect the differences between K-1 and K-1 II to be a bit bigger when using deep image stacks compared to comparing single exposures only (as stacking won't be able to recover what the K-1 II had already smoothed away).

In my view, there is not a world of difference by any stretch of the imagination, but with a high performance camera like the K-1 II, ideally one should be given all the options to squeeze out the last iota of IQ out of it. The mandatory RAW denoising prevents that. In that sense, DPReview had a point, but obviously it is preposterous of them to make a meal out of the K-1 II's behaviour essentially concluding that the camera has a fundamental problem, while Sony cameras that exhibit striping, banding, and star eating get a pass with the lapidary comment that "most users will never be affected" (paraphrased; I'm sparing myself the effort to look up the exact wording).

[Breakfastographer]

As you can see, in this simple test I was able to match (fairly closely) the output of the K-1II by carefully applying stronger noise reduction to the K-1 image. But the most interesting outcome is that the detail in both images is largely the same. If there is a slight edge to the K-1, I can't see it.

Right, and that matches what I've said in the article. It's only when you want to remove noise quite strongly, e.g. using PRIME, that you see clear differences.

As for the chosen NR being strong, I believe that would be the goal for anybody actually using PRIME. It's not something you unleash if you want to just reduce noise a little bit.

I would agree that some materials don't mind a little noise, but if it's smooth glass, metal, or sometimes plastic, even a little bit can look quite wrong imo. And you I believe correctly intuited that I chose that part of the image because I wanted to see what would happen to the fine detail in the feathers and moss (?), rather than because of wanting the dark grey background to be super-smooth (if you look at the ISO 100 image, you'll see it has vertical grooves in it and so isn't actually smooth at all).

As a point of interest, I tried the same experiment using VNG4 as the demosaic algorithm. In this situation, the K-1II file did in fact appear to lose a tiny amount of detail in the green feathery areas compared to the K-1... but it really was minimal. Not enough to matter in real use. This further reinforces just how important the processing software and user skills are in getting the most from either camera's files.

Interesting indeed. I often wonder how frequently people use anything other than AMaZE. FWIW, the recent changelog said this regarding the new filmic module:

For the automatic setting to work best, it is also advised to use the“AMaZE” mode in the demosaic module.

I don't know whether to assign any particular interpretation to that w.r.t. the direction of future development and supporting multiple demosaic algorithms - I guess we'll find out.

Thanks for your comment, independent research, and editing suggestions. It was fun reading, and I appreciate it.

[Tad1952]

Well, at least one person believes them.....

Hi Norm,

It is not a case of believing DPR, but agreeing with them concerning the K1 Mark II.

I have been a Pentaxian for 38 years, but I do not blindly endorse everything Pentax.

[Breakfastographer]

Thanks to both of you for this excellent work. The bottom line for me is, images like this, I often have to apply noise reduction to the back ground, but usually don't take the time unless I really like the image. My Raw import program applies noise reduction on import. I suspect there would be files where the extra bit of noise reduction would make a custom background treatment be unnecessary. Unlike others I see noise reduction applied automatically above 400 ISO as a potential time saver. I've never felt the quality of an image was dependant on what the image looks like pixel peeping. And if I'm going to be applying NR, the Accelerator head start would be welcome.

That's really the heart of the issue. The accelerator is probably giving you that head start, unless you want to use PRIME denoising, in which case, it's going to be hampering it.

Since most of my favourite images are 100 ISO to 800 ISO or better, the whole argument comes down to discussing the merits of images i wouldn't use anyway.

Here's an 800 ISO image, sort of the low end of what I like.... the above images fall well below my accepted standard, hence for me becoming irrelevant. Others of course will have different standards. A bit more noise reduction wouldn't have help out a bit IMHO. Sure I could have done it in post, but time saved in post makes for more time to shoot.

As dusk comes, so does the point when ISO 800 will seem like a distant luxury.

---------- Post added 12-30-18 at 10:44 AM ----------

Thanks for sharing this. Could you elaborate if pixel shift was employed in either of these samples. It does appear that the image sharpness is obviously less with the K-1 II all else being equal at ISO 12,800.
And is there any other way with a raw image editor like Adobe Camera RAW to preserve such image sharpness in the K-1 II?

No pixel shift in either case, afaict from the information available. Source images are from DPR. And for your second question, I happily defer to the answer already provided by BigMackCam.

So it's an untouched k1ii vs a worked k1. Why not work them both to get the best you can and compare? Also time taken should be compared. There are many metrics. If you took an unworked k1 vs a worked one the conclusion is well duh. Against the k1ii the conclusion is that is the k1ii is
Impressive for unworked.

Time indeed is the limiting factor, my friend.

[reh321]

Thanks for posting Breakfastographer. My conclusion is pretty much the same as before. A 12,800 ISO better be a very good composition, because the resolution isn't going to blow anyone away. I've never understood the logic to saying "This bad photo is better than that bad photo." The "bad" part cancels the value of the comparison. Kind of like if you can't swim, 12 feet of water is exactly the same danger as 120 feet.

The 'logic' issue comes from your use of the word "bad". This entire discussion depends on who you are, and what you expect from the photo. I do not create art; I have made half-a-dozen prints 6"x8" or larger in the sixty years I've been taking photographs, and one of those was with an Instamatic (*). I do record my life as I experience it, so capturing the scene - getting details and colors basically as they were - is important to me, but getting something is of more value than getting nothing is. I am pleased with how my KP is working out, even at high ISO values, because TAv mode allows me to capture both the motion and the DOF I want while still preserving most detail I know is there.
Iso 25600! - PentaxForums.com
From my perspective, I would not use the word 'bad' to describe the scenes I captured at a recent Christmas program - nor did the publicity person who responded "WONDERFUL" to the photos I sent her - but she and I would both apply the word 'bad' to similar photos taken with the K-30 I was using a month earlier.

As far as I'm concerned, the KP was made for me - other people will have other expectations - but I was surprised when Pentax applied the same technology to a 36mp FF camera, because I would expect most of those who spend the extra bucks to have different expectations. That does not make the K-1ii a "bad" camera .... there are some people who want this kind of advance (**) .... but they may be in the minority of the western market for 36mp FF cameras, so I was surprised when Pentax retired the K-1 {I had expected them to keep both on the market}; I know nothing of the eastern market.


(*) in college, I was a member of the Student Senate; when I ran for re-election, I had a friend take a photo of me at my Senate seat to use on posters. The technology of the day meant that the posters were silk-screened, and then we rubber-glued a photo onto each.

(**) I was also a tad surprised at the interest in August in 'promoting' the last giveaway. I noticed that @Mark_ii didn't turn it down; if he hadn't wanted it, I would have gladly accepted it - once I had thought through lens issues, it would have been roughly the same utility as a KP to me, albeit uglier, and a lot less expense to me.

[normhead]

Hi Norm,

It is not a case of believing DPR, but agreeing with them concerning the K1 Mark II.

I have been a Pentaxian for 38 years, but I do not blindly endorse everything Pentax.

Are you saying someone here does?
Did you read my post.

The astrophotgraohy site praised the K-1ii and provided comparative images to show what they were taking about.
DPR criticized the K-1ii without providing any evidence whatsoever.
Who's position was taken blindly?

I'm quite happy to accept the K-1ii doesn't suit your shooting style.
I'm also accepting you are one person and that the majority don't agree with you. There's nothing wrong with that. You may have the correct opinion for your work flow. But that doesn't make it right for anyone else.
Sorry, but "everyone else but me is blind" just doesn't cut it.

I've been a Pentax user for 50 years now, and have had meaningful ventures into Mamiya (MF) and Nikon (WR) cameras, if your thinking length of service is some kind of chest bumping kind of thing, don't. And I've been critical of Pentax as much as anyone, particlulary with regards to the lack of current ƒ4 wide angle primes. But with the accelerator chip everyone does pretty heavy noise reduction these days. Pentax was just catching up with the accelerator chip and did the same thing it did with the DFA 50, they raised the bar a little higher creating a new standard for other companies to try and match. Everyone has their things they don't like. But for me and many others , the accelerator chip isn't one of them. And not because we are blind Pentax followers.

But hey, I'm dependant on others not having a K-1ii, and honestly the people criticizing the accelerator chip so far have seemed to me a lot like conspiracy theorists. I little bit of evidence a lot of conjecture as to what it might mean. Show us what you're talking about.

[FS1]

Well, you can afford to keep a detached view when you're not an Other.

As I said earlier: if we don't defend "our" brand, who will? If we don't speak up when the DPR's samples are plain wrong, when they're "testing" a feature using an incorrect software; if we don't speak up when Pentax' 36MP are fewer than Sony's 24... that means we accept all of it. (Note: the popular brands are well defended, and even promoted. Singling us out as "zealous" is blatantly dishonest).
We've already established that such things do have an impact.

Enjoying photography with your current gear actually can go together with pointing out when DPR botched out a test.

Absolutely. Like it or not, DPR has an enormous amount of influence on people considering photography equipment and evaluating brands. Their equipment review material can even appear directly within related Pentax product links on Amazon. In the case of PentaxForums, in addition to being a top 'hit' for searches for Pentax product names, it is well-known to be the most knowedgeable source for 'all things Pentax'. So it's also particularly disheartening to sometimes see misinformation (or blatant falsehoods!) spread here.

Addressing and correcting such scenarios in either place has a major impact on anyone seeking background for the related products or functionality. It's particularly important and helpful for less informed users that really need the information the most. (And of course, Pentax also doesn't have the gigantic marketing arm of Canon to help offset such bad information. Currently, those two photographic names probably represent the two ends of the marketing spectrum, at least outside of Japan.)

[swanlefitte]

Being they "couldn't " test astro, star eater on steroids was enough to confirm 2nd worst camera of the year. Top notch reason in my view. 😀

[Lord Lucan]

Couldn't a very slightly modified version of your post have been made in 1900 and 1970, and 1980, and 1990 and 2000, and 2010? Weren't the kids of 1920 hopelessly pampered with their cellulose films instead of wet plates, and mechanical shutters in lieu of removing and replacing the lens cap? Weren't the kids of 1980 lost without their built in light metering and auto film winding? How could those poor lost souls of 1995 have pressed a single shutter button without autofocus and the one-hour photo finishing booth?

You have cherry picked successful and lasting (at least until digital came along) improvements. But there are plenty of failed innovations littering the history of photography, because not all innovations are improvements. Examples of ones that died out are Autochrome colour photography, the returnable camera (although successful for a time), and Polaroid instant photography (became a niche market).

The returnable Kodak box camera of 1888 for example was the equivalent "auto-everything" camera for the masses at the time, based on the assumption that the masses were too dumb to load and unload a film, at least not without fogging it. But it turned out that the masses were quite capable of handling a roll of film.

Similarly, from the very earliest days it was assumed that cameras would need to produce more-or-less immediate positive useable pictures in order for photography to catch on. Many inventors spent their lives on it. Daguerre and Land did it, but there were overwhelming advantages to going with enlarged negative technology, despite the time lag.

[normhead]

You have cherry picked successful and lasting (at least until digital came along) improvements. But there are plenty of failed innovations littering the history of photography, because not all innovations are improvements. Examples of ones that died out are Autochrome colour photography, the original Kodak box camera (although successful for a time), and Polaroid instant photography (became a niche market).

Where are those darn organic sensors with 200 MP and 200 EV DR Panasonic and Canon were promising us back in 2012? I had my heart set on one.

[ogl]

I'm happy man. I've made not above 150 shots at ISO1600 and higher from 2005 year.