[texandrews]

I guess that depends on the advantages made in a new FF body and its sensor over against a 7,8 years old sensor. But the larger format should still offer some pluses

Indeed. I'm also pretty sure that no one speculating here has a real fix on the accurate cost projections for this. But I, too can think of ways in which the larger sensor could be a boon. I can also think of multiple ways a crop frame 645ZII could be a big improvement over the Z. It seems to me there's lots of room for improvements no matter which way Pentax went.

[kwb]

The upper limit for a resolution increase due to losing the Bayer CFA is a factor of two. In reality, the increase will be much smaller than that since cameras do not simply bin four sensels into one pixel but reconstruct resolution through advanced algorithms.

It is furthermore easy to overestimate the sensitivity improvements as the CFA only steals around a stop of light. The colour spectra are overlapping so it is not the case that 66% is killed by filtering out a single colour for a particular sensel.

Monochrome sensors are useful, but they are not the performance monsters that some people believe them to be.

In general, I hope that all these K-3 III variants can be produced with minimal effort. They won't generate a lot of additional revenue and I'd rather see development efforts flow into a K-1 II successor.

Even a factor of ~sqrt(2) improvement in linear resolution would be worth the resolution monster moniker.

I have to admit that I did not understand exactly what they are saying about the tastes of overseas users. One thing they said that they know a lot of overseas users prefer to shoot in RAW and edit after the fact. Then they talked about how they created the new profile, which was by looking at film images from overseas. So I sort of filled in the gap of logic to say that this was designed to appeal to users overseas. Perhaps kwb can clarify here.

You're correct, @JPT.

The devs said that their existing custom images were good at capturing 「日本の美しさ」("Japanese beauty" or "beauty in Japan" or something like that), but they thought that majority of users overseas prefer to shoot RAW somehow. They wanted to make something that would attract these users. On one of their slides describing the development process, there was this line "Sample picture from overseas captured the atmosphere of desolation of a dry land".

@jersey, it's not that the Japanese don't like calm and somewhat desaturated. They do, you could probably google wabi-sabi, which is an aesthetic combination of wabi (詫び, beauty of the calm, the quiet and the plain) and sabi (寂び, beauty that comes from the fact that certain type of things, which are often old, silent, and/or well used, provoke emotion of loneliness).

It's interesting that something that they developed with overseas users in mind works great for something in wabi-sabi context too, e.g. the samples from Hanawa san and Sasaki san I posted earlier.

[Serkevan]

"[...]captured the atmosphere of desolation of a dry land".

Now that you mention it, that hits the nail right on the head with the Satobi profile.

[house]

Now that you mention it, that hits the nail right on the head with the Satobi profile.

Except the sample images so far has given the feel of the "desolation of somewhat moist air and land"
At least that's what I see in the samples.

[thibs]

Now that you mention it, that hits the nail right on the head with the Satobi profile.

Yep, pretty interesting preset IMO

[Rondec]

The upper limit for a resolution increase due to losing the Bayer CFA is a factor of two. In reality, the increase will be much smaller than that since cameras do not simply bin four sensels into one pixel but reconstruct resolution through advanced algorithms.

It is furthermore easy to overestimate the sensitivity improvements as the CFA only steals around a stop of light. The colour spectra are overlapping so it is not the case that 66% is killed by filtering out a single colour for a particular sensel.

Monochrome sensors are useful, but they are not the performance monsters that some people believe them to be.

In general, I hope that all these K-3 III variants can be produced with minimal effort. They won't generate a lot of additional revenue and I'd rather see development efforts flow into a K-1 II successor.

I think the reason that they have suggested these variations is that they can be taken care of with low effort. Using a kick starter type campaign would assure them of a minimum number of sales -- they wouldn't start till they had a certain number of orders guaranteed.

[JPT]

I think the reason that they have suggested these variations is that they can be taken care of with low effort. Using a kick starter type campaign would assure them of a minimum number of sales -- they wouldn't start till they had a certain number of orders guaranteed.

Let me quote kwb's post about this (bold is my emphasis).

Wakashiro-san admitted that there won't be huge demands, but there will be demands nevertheless, and said that they'd like to respond to these demands as far as that won't delay the development of other new products.

So I hope that will calm Class A's concerns. I think the point is that when they put a lot of effort into a major new model they want to leverage it in a few variants to meet different customer demands. You can see that already in the 40mm variant of the GR III. It actually seems strange to me that in all the years DSLR have been produced, noone has made a monochrome model. If noting else, it will add to the uniqueness of K-mount.

[RobA_Oz]

It actually seems strange to me that in all the years DSLR have been produced, noone has made a monochrome model. If noting else, it will add to the uniqueness of K-mount.

It would, of course, be noted in certain quarters as quirky but unnecessary, right up until Sony produces their version.

I think it’s a good idea, but I’d support doing it with pre-commitments.

[thibs]

Let me quote kwb's post about this (bold is my emphasis).

Wakashiro-san admitted that there won't be huge demands, but there will be demands nevertheless, and said that they'd like to respond to these demands as far as that won't delay the development of other new products.

So I hope that will calm Class A's concerns. I think the point is that when they put a lot of effort into a major new model they want to leverage it in a few variants to meet different customer demands. You can see that already in the 40mm variant of the GR III. It actually seems strange to me that in all the years DSLR have been produced, noone has made a monochrome model. If noting else, it will add to the uniqueness of K-mount.

Absolutely, I don't get the angst over this.

[Kunzite]

Absolutely, I don't get the angst over this.

There's angst at anything Pentax is doing, even when they release some of their best products. And the small things always generate angst, as "why didn't they do <big thing> instead?" - as if they'd be the same.
Part of it is their fault though, as there are many issues Pentax is taking their time to address.

[JPT]

You're correct, @JPT.

The devs said that their existing custom images were good at capturing 「日本の美しさ」("Japanese beauty" or "beauty in Japan" or something like that), but they thought that majority of users overseas prefer to shoot RAW somehow. They wanted to make something that would attract these users. On one of their slides describing the development process, there was this line "Sample picture from overseas captured the atmosphere of desolation of a dry land".

I didn't notice this post earlier. Thank you very much for the confirmation.

It's interesting how Pentax does this with their profiles and lens designs. They define an image or feeling and then go through a laborious process of human evaluation to get the look they want, like "a seashell on the beach with a background of breaking whitecaps and the faraway horizon", which they used to define the characteristics they were targeting for the DFA 21mm.

[Serkevan]

I didn't notice this post earlier. Thank you very much for the confirmation.

It's interesting how Pentax does this with their profiles and lens designs. They define an image or feeling and then go through a laborious process of human evaluation to get the look they want, like "a seashell on the beach with a background of breaking whitecaps and the faraway horizon", which they used to define the characteristics they were targeting for the DFA 21mm.

And the best part is that it works. I'm very happy with the output of the Limited lenses (not particularly happy with like half the JPG presets though - Bright, Portrait and Landscape are *horrible*).

[DamienW]

It's interesting how Pentax does this with their profiles and lens designs. They define an image or feeling and then go through a laborious process of human evaluation to get the look they want, like "a seashell on the beach with a background of breaking whitecaps and the faraway horizon", which they used to define the characteristics they were targeting for the DFA 21mm.

This must be the pixie dust I guess. I was trying to explain it to somebody recently. It's not very explainable!

[ffking]

"a seashell on the beach with a background of breaking whitecaps and the faraway horizon"

Don't DXO have a test for that?

[thibs]

This must be the pixie dust I guess. I was trying to explain it to somebody recently. It's not very explainable!

Clearly not