[normhead]

ON paper a 14 Mp Sigma looks very similar to a D800 36 Mp image. I wish someone had done the same test with a K-5 image. Actually someone did with similar results. The fallacy in the more MP argument, is that sometimes more detail just makes the image look messier. A guy compared D800 and K-01 images on A-3 prints, and asked his wife to judge not knowing which was which, she said one looked better in some areas and the other looked better in others, and refused to commit to one or the other as the "best". So we're talking a $300 camera and a $3000 camera. That says all you need to know right there.

Increasing resolution does not necessarily produce a more pleasing looking print. The secret camera makers don't want you to know. You heard it here first.

[Clavius]

So... None of you guys crop at all? Ever?

[RonHendriks1966]

ON paper a 14 Mp Sigma looks very similar to a D800 36 Mp image. I wish someone had done the same test with a K-5 image. Actually someone did with similar results. The fallacy in the more MP argument, is that sometimes more detail just makes the image look messier. A guy compared D800 and K-01 images on A-3 prints, and asked his wife to judge not knowing which was which, she said one looked better in some areas and the other looked better in others, and refused to commit to one or the other as the "best". So we're talking a $300 camera and a $3000 camera. That says all you need to know right there.

Increasing resolution does not necessarily produce a more pleasing looking print. The secret camera makers don't want you to know. You heard it here first.

I have two 59 inch prints overhere, both made with the K-01 and they are perfect.

[normhead]

So... None of you guys crop at all? Ever?

That's what I bought the K-3 for... but you can still do some cropping even with a K-5. And I have 16x12 images that look gorgeous (and have sold at craft sales) taken with a 10 Mp Optio W80. I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion nobody crops, at all. Everybody crops. Many FF enthusiasts claim you can crop more with FF... some poor suckers have actually bought FF systems so they could crop more. But the simple fact is, people crop images all the time shooting APS-c, even 12 Mp APS-c. Hell, I used to crop 6 Mp APS-c for web display.

The thing is, people can say whatever they want, it doesn't make any of it true. And it's incredible how many people say these things, and then they get repeated over and over, until people just believe them and even the first guy never posted anything that shows what he's talking about.... personally, if they can't demonstrate what they are talking about, I really don't pay much attention to them. There is a lot of information out there in photography that is perpetuated because people don't know what they are talking about. people buy expensive stuff, and assume they are getting better results, but people are always lazy enough to just accept that what they have now is better for their purposes.

How many on here with various folksy opinions that sound like they should be true, have never subjected those notions to a blind taste? Many of us who have have been shocked by the results. Like when 9 out of 10 people can't tell the difference between a 100 DPI print, and a 300 DPI print. or can't position prints done at 72, 100 and 150 dpi, in the correct sequence. This is just not what the techno geeks want to hear. Many who do comparisons don't understand the absolute necessity of testing blind. If you do all your testing by the book, but don't blind test to see if your conclusions are generally accepted by people who don't now which image is which, you're wasting your time.

If Pentax came out with a 10 Mp APS-c camera based on the same low light sensor as the Nikon D4s, with no noise up to 24,000 ISO, i bet a lot of us would buy it "small" sensor and all. 10 Mp is actually a lot of camera.

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Last edited by normhead; 03-18-2014 at 02:38 PM.

[bossa]

Physicists recently said they heard the faintest, earliest signals from 1 trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang. When asked what it sounded like, they said, "We here at Pentax are considering the development of a full frame DSLR."

I realize that was a joke but just to clarify; they didn't hear anything as they were measuring B-Mode Polarization of photons and detected a pattern suggesting Gravity Waves were the source at the beginning of everything.

[ElJamoquio]

There's people that tell me spending thousands more on APS-C lenses is where it's at, and the lighter wallet is really something you can feel on long hikes, it offsets the weight of the lenses. I don't know that I can tell the difference though.

[jsherman999]

So... None of you guys crop at all? Ever?

I crop quite a bit, and have made prints from crops for people. Sometimes it's just a change to something like a square crop, sometimes it's a bit deeper.

I also just worked on a neat little school collage project where I put a lot of 'head' and full body images into a collage for a big poster. Some of the head shots looked almost portrait-worthy, despite being tight crops of a group photo. It was fun to have all those MPs at our disposal.

One way cropping will be used on a Pentax FF digital - if you're transitioning to a FF kit, you can still shoot your aps-c lenses on your FF body in 'crop' mode. If you have 36MP to work with, 'crop mode' gives you the exact output K5 would give you natively - which has proven to be quite acceptable for large reproductions.

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Last edited by jsherman999; 03-19-2014 at 09:39 AM.

[SyncGuy]

For me, I just can't wait for the day Pentax launches a FF camera which will detect DA lenses attached and auto-set to shoot crop mode only.

LoL! I wanna see how many of the believers of "DA lenses have been proven to work on FF" will die believing that DA lenses will work on FF.. Haha!
Will work and allowed to work is 2 different things.. LoL!

[Clavius]

For me, I just can't wait for the day Pentax launches a FF camera which will detect DA lenses attached and auto-set to shoot crop mode only.

LoL! I wanna see how many of the believers of "DA lenses have been proven to work on FF" will die believing that DA lenses will work on FF.. Haha!
Will work and allowed to work is 2 different things.. LoL!

Would that crop mode be user-selectable then? And would the RAW files be completely uncropped anyway?

[dtmateojr]

So... None of you guys crop at all? Ever?

I crop a lot. I absolutely love 2x1 panos. On my K5, a 2x1 crop is still 12Mp. That's a lot.
I have two 1m wide prints of them hanging on my wall and they look fantastic.

[SyncGuy]

Would that crop mode be user-selectable then? And would the RAW files be completely uncropped anyway?

Yea... That's the main concern.. I can only imagine there are some who will go ballistic when it is not user-selectable.. Hehe!

[Clavius]

Yea... That's the main concern.. I can only imagine there are some who will go ballistic when it is not user-selectable.. Hehe!

Haha... You've found one already!

[Kayaker-J]

@bossa... Not to be pedantic, but it's gravitation waves. "Gravity waves" -- in physics, strictly speaking... not the same thing. 😃 But to be fair, there IS a lot of loose talk going around (What else is new?) -- Even the cover of 'Scientific American' played fast and loose with this a few months back. If this thing gets to be as much a topic of general discussion as the Higgs boson ID, then the popular usage will win out, I'd expect. It seems most linguists these days are cool with that. I couldn't speak for physicists who've made this sort of thing their life's work. I do know that some feel a little touchy on the matter at present. Not as touchy as about the "God particle" business, though!

[justinr]

ON paper a 14 Mp Sigma looks very similar to a D800 36 Mp image. I wish someone had done the same test with a K-5 image. Actually someone did with similar results. The fallacy in the more MP argument, is that sometimes more detail just makes the image look messier. A guy compared D800 and K-01 images on A-3 prints, and asked his wife to judge not knowing which was which, she said one looked better in some areas and the other looked better in others, and refused to commit to one or the other as the "best". So we're talking a $300 camera and a $3000 camera. That says all you need to know right there.

Increasing resolution does not necessarily produce a more pleasing looking print. The secret camera makers don't want you to know. You heard it here first.

Well I didn't die but I got so pee'd off with Pentax flashing their knickers but not delivering the goods that I swapped over to Nikon anyway. Why am I here then? Because I was/am a great Pentax fan and would loved to have stayed loyal but time moves on and they didn't. I just pop back every now and then to see if it's time to regret my hastiness: not yet I see.

[jsherman999]

Would that crop mode be user-selectable then? And would the RAW files be completely uncropped anyway?

If it's implemented like Nikon, then it will be user-selectable - meaning you can turn it off and just have the edges really vignette if you want, and then crop later in post.

Nikon defaults to auto-crop when it detects a DX (aps-c) lens on the camera, but you can turn that off. You can also select other crop modes, like 1.2x crop and 5x4 crop. There's no reason to think Pentax wouldn't offer almost exactly the same thing - it's all software.

The raw is cropped. The advantage to using crop mode is that it increases your throughput/FPS a bit and saves space on the card - the disadvantage is that you can't un-crop later. (but then keep in mind you *have* to crop later, which takes labor/time in post for a lot of shots.)

I use my Sigma 50-150 2.8 HSM II in crop mode on my D800 all the time, it gives me the same MP/DR/noise performance a D7000 would natively with the lens. (still holding off on buying a 'proper' 70-200 2.8 for FF )

Here's the Sigma in DX (aps-c) mode on D800, 150mm f/2.8: