What could be 'different' about Pentax FF?

Vitalii · 10-09-2014, 01:47 PM - **2 Likes**

ehmmmm... thinking different... a better poor-mans-tilt shift?
imagine a FF camera which has a fully functional tilt-shift-sensor system, so you can really make use of the narrow DOF. Guess how many photographers would switch to that?) Its unique and fully pentaxian. even if it goes only for 6mm and 6° it will still be a bomb.
although an appropriate adapter for middle format lenses, so you can use all funktions.
P.S. i want a stake on this one...)

although multizone WB is quite promissing, so i would work on that.
And maybe not only metering, but adjusting WB, Dynamic range, etc. Splitting the sensor in arrays which would be Metered and adjusted separatly one of each other and then composed and adjusted into one picture, geveng you better dynamic range and true colors. fiction and not how its working, but still... idea..)

some new software would be nice, not for the FF, but for aps-c cameras. Pentax is really good with double exposures and time lapse videos. for most hobbists, although a panorama and bulb-composite function that saves in raw would be awesome.

patarok · 10-09-2014, 02:11 PM

Originally posted by Vitalii

ehmmmm... thinking different... a better poor-mans-tilt shift?
imagine a FF camera which has a fully functional tilt-shift-sensor system, so you can really make use of the narrow DOF. Guess how many photographers would switch to that?) Its unique and fully pentaxian. even if it goes only for 6mm and 6° it will still be a bomb.
although an appropriate adapter for middle format lenses, so you can use all funktions.
P.S. i want a stake on this one...)

although multizone WB is quite promissing, so i would work on that.
And maybe not only metering, but adjusting WB, Dynamic range, etc. Splitting the sensor in arrays which would be Metered and adjusted separatly one of each other and then composed and adjusted into one picture, geveng you better dynamic range and true colors. fiction and not how its working, but still... idea..)

some new software would be nice, not for the FF, but for aps-c cameras. Pentax is really good with double exposures and time lapse videos. for most hobbists, although a panorama and bulb-composite function that saves in raw would be awesome.

i completely agree! good ideas! And i have to admit, again... Locking the pics with AE-L button when in review... :-| *doublepoke* that could be so easy AND IT SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTED ON EVERY "ACTUAL" DSLRs FIRMWARE!!!

Vitalii · 10-09-2014, 02:22 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by rawr

Too different is too risky.

A conventional looking camera with great under-the-hood sensor and AF performance, great low-light specs like the K-3, miscellaneous cool enhancements maybe to the viewfinder, modern stuff like WiFi, and a flippy screen is all they need to do to wow people. Think of recent high performing cameras like the 7DII, D750, Sony A77II, A7S

, even the recent Samsung NX1. The templates are there. No Frankenstein designs or features.

I dont think Pentax future should just be in following the mainstream. look at the competitors, no one has jack of all trades. Canon made a shitty video AF for 3 lenses and decidet not to build smaller cameras. Nikon bringing at aps-c market same models for at least 3 years. Olympus are good at InCamera Postprocessing and IS-System, but sticks with µFT and BIG DOF. Samsung makes cameras, which doesn´t feel as cameras at all. And sony, well i´ve just never liked its design..%). They all arent really trying to make their camera totally universal or just same good in their weak spots. mostly they are just working on stuff and developing new one that the trademark is known for.

Pentax was always known for its size and solidness. meanwhile it has much more things to offer than just saying, hey - we have everithing same, just cheaper. exept for size, we lost that one...))))

I don´t think i would talk for all pentaxians, but is a jumpy video AF really necessary? professionals still does it manual no matter how good the system is.
I would rather preffer a camera which is really good in photography or giving me an advantage of best IS system, best colors and dynamic range, or such a fiction as sensor tilt shift, than another "yeah sure, you can although make videos with it, and with few attachments camera turns into a toaster"

rawr · 10-09-2014, 04:01 PM

Originally posted by Vitalii

I dont think Pentax future should just be in following the mainstream.

Sure they can follow the FF mainstream, but just do it better, like they have generally done with APS-C.

The first Pentax FF digital doesn't need to be revolutionary, just a very credible, solid and serious product.

kadajawi · 10-09-2014, 04:59 PM

Originally posted by easyreeder

This is all great information, thanks! Yes, well I was calling it "face tracking," because I can't duplicate the problem without a hand or face. I do think there's some face recognition coding in there. But it does seem fixable, because the problem goes away at about 12 feet. (I suspected this, so I did some tests with the kids, ha.)

I didn't say I'm shooting 1/50 at 25 p. I shoot 30p. But that's rather interesting. I don't mind a little blur so much, and the low light benefit of shooting 1/40 or even 1/30 for a static situation, like an interview, is something I've been experimenting with. The "blur" also looks more filmic (film has blur), and seems to me a better approximation of film than 25p, and it covers some of the shake reduction problems. I'm not a sports photographer, ha.

As for the crop, yes, there's more crop, but if you try to apply crop reduction in premiere or fcx you get an even bigger crop, and you don't get the resolution, so it seems to me like it'd be better to do it in camera. The lesser evil.

I'm not against mechanical SR by any means, haha, but I'm just trying to understand their decision making process. When the software SR works in video mode, you can get good results. Unfortunately, that's an extremely unique situation: shallow depth of field with a static object that you're focused on in the foreground.

Take a book, painting, whatever, and move it in front of the stationary camera. As long as the (probably) majority of the image is moving more or less in the same direction it will try to stabilize on that. To do it is perfectly reasonable if that's your only input.

Doesn't matter if you're shooting 30p, 25p, 60p, ... though the higher the frame rate the smaller the effect. And you got me wrong there: The problems with shake reduction are reduced by HIGH shutter speeds. At 1/1000 you can stabilize really well. That's also one of the reasons why they say if you want to stabilize in post, you should shoot at the fastest possible shutter speed, then stabilize in post and add motion blur in post. It is not a smoothening motion blur, it is in one frame a motion blur from left to right, next frame it's sharp, and then you'll see a top to bottom motion blur. It changes all the time, is there, then gone, and coming back again. Shoot tele, maybe 200mm or so, and do it handheld, trying to hold it steady. Longest possible exposure at your framerate.

Film has blur because DoPs typically shoot 24p with more or less 2x the framerate, i.e. 1/48th or so, in order to make it look less stuttery. It's a rule of thumb. But again, it's not the kind of blur you'd see with electronic SR.

If you say apply electronic stabilization in Premiere or FCX, well, you do get a crop, but not necessarily a bigger one. While you do lose more resolution (it seems like the Pentax is shooting at a higher resolution, so that the resulting video has 1080p, at least that's how they can do it), you have a more sophisticated algorithm, and one that can be tweaked. Sometimes you need a bigger crop, sometimes not. There is no tweaking in the camera.

That's my point. Electronic SR clearly does have it's reasons of existence, but in MOST situations it is clearly inferior to mechanical SR. Offering both options would be reasonable (in addition to an off setting of course), there can be situations where I'd rather shoot with electronic stabilization, but ONLY offer electronic SR? Mechanical SR offers plenty of advantages (and can be used together with electronic SR, in fact I'd like to have a system that stabilizes fast movements mechanically, and slow movements electronically).

Yup, TILT + shift (and to a bigger extend perhaps) is a very neat function, and one that I use for my work (well, shift, tilt doesn't exist). Olympus might have it, though I don't know if you can access it. But they can move around the sensor quite a bit. It's more of a APS-C thing though, because with FF lenses on a FF sensor you'll hit the limits of the sensor, while a FF lens on a APS-C sensor will offer you plenty of leeway.

I like the idea of metering different areas differently... could give you a HDR amount of data with one exposure. Or perhaps segmenting an exposure into many small segments. Samsung's NX-1 sensor can be read 240 times a second at full resolution. So what if you take one 1/240th exposure, then another one, and another one, ... that way highlights aren't a problem, are they? It would be much harder to fully fill the bucket. You can just add up all your exposures and output a 32 bit raw image with a massive dynamic range!

Canon has created a pretty good video AF, which is more in line with their DSLR video strategy... for them their DSLRs are for consumers, at least the video functionality. So they invested in something that mostly consumers would appreciate, while they keep functionality the cameras are clearly capable of to models that cost 10x as much, simply because that is how much they can charge for a few firmware upgrades done by people who don't even have proper access to the firmware and documentation!

Nikon has made significant improvements to the video capabilities of their APS-C cameras. The D5300 is pretty damn good in terms of image quality, though controls leave a bit to be desired. And they have given their cameras clean HDMI output, so you can record externally.

Samsung MADE cameras that didn't feel like a camera. While I've yet to try out the NX-1, it seems like they have finally created a proper camera.

Sony's DSLR and DSLT cameras felt really good to me. Intuitive, ergonomic, well designed, and small/light. While I still prefer Pentax in terms of ergonomics and handling, their DSLRs/DSLTs would easily be second for me. They are really, really good.

Obviously I'd like my camera to help me with my photography/videography, but there are plenty of advanced features that can be added to it to do just that. I'd like to see it run a heavily customized version of Android. As long as it looks and feels like a proper Pentax, but with extended functionality, that would be great. Samsung went the wrong way IMHO, by creating cameras that run Android, and have a camera app hidden somewhere. It should be a camera first and foremost. And if it only does stills, well, I'm out, because I enjoy doing both a lot, and might be required to do both too.

All I really want is a better firmware, is that too much to ask for?

Paul MaudDib · 10-09-2014, 07:05 PM

Originally posted by kadajawi

Btw., I previously suggested that Pentax could team up with Magic Lantern. Hire some of them, or in other ways work with them. Well... they are working with AXIOM, which is a 6000 Euro APS-C camera, and much of it's value comes from Magic Lantern.

Photokina Q&A: Can the Samsung NX1 redefine pro performance with a quantum leap in technology?

The interconnect on the new DRIMe V image processor sounds pretty fantastic, like some kind of a FPGA that allows reconfiguring of processing components.

Being able to toy around with the operation of the image processor would be pretty sweet, the Samsung guys have already done some interesting stuff it sounds like.

It would be tough to do without sharing an undue amount of IP - the only practical way would be to write something like a shader language for image capture. Basically the image-capture counterpart of modern GPUs - OpenGL for cameras.

mecrox · 10-10-2014, 02:25 AM

Originally posted by Paul MaudDib

Photokina Q&A: Can the Samsung NX1 redefine pro performance with a quantum leap in technology?

The interconnect on the new DRIMe V image processor sounds pretty fantastic, like some kind of a FPGA that allows reconfiguring of processing components.

Being able to toy around with the operation of the image processor would be pretty sweet, the Samsung guys have already done some interesting stuff it sounds like.

It would be tough to do without sharing an undue amount of IP - the only practical way would be to write something like a shader language for image capture. Basically the image-capture counterpart of modern GPUs - OpenGL for cameras.

Yes, it seems to me that the Samsung NX1 has served notice that a camera with a very powerful processor plus good software is more capable and flexible than the traditional approach espoused by Canonikon and co - or potentially so anyway, it all depends on implementation. This could influence what users can do with their images/videos and how - the workflow thing (dread terms!). I don't think iterations of Milbeaut and "you'll have to take what we give you" are going to cut it now. If this shakes up the traditional camera brands, we might all benefit even if we never own a Samsung camera.

kadajawi · 10-10-2014, 04:56 AM

The DRIMe V processor does indeed seem to be a part time FPGA, which is pretty amazing. However Samsung is in a position to do this, unlike most other camera makers. Samsung makes displays... some of the best, and they are leading when it comes to small high quality OLED screens. Samsung makes processors for mobile devices, and very competitive ones at that. Samsung makes image sensors, again, some pretty advanced ones. Pentax doesn't do any of these things, and neither does Nikon. Canon used to dabble with an interesting display technology, but that went nowhere. Processors... the advantage of the DIGIC system is that it is easily scalable, but their sensors seem mostly a bit dated. Sony is able to do sensors, but I believe screens they have to buy from outside, and their processors seem to be in house developments...?

Fujitsu seems to lag behind at least Sony and Samsung in terms of image processors, the Sony chip is also used in some video cameras, and the Samsung chip is just impressive.

Depending on how good the image processing part of the Snapdragon series is I'd like to see Pentax switch to those... they are very potent chips, and ARM based (like the current Milbeaut?). Hopefully those processing advancements don't just go into producing nicer JPEGs, though I guess for videos that is important.

I think at least for the moment though the hardware Pentax uses is fairly capable, what is ultimately letting it down is the software. Magic Lantern can get pretty amazing things out of ancient image processors... surely Fujitsu's latest and greatest can compete with a 6 (!!!) year old image processor from Canon?! Even if all the K-3 or FF Pentax is capable of is what the 5D Mk II with Magic Lantern can, with a better sensor and proper SR, that would already be pretty nice and could draw quite some attention (and sales).

The Apertus Axiom Beta offers several different sensors, and I'm a bit surprised at the prices. The S35 option in the Apertus Axiom Beta for example. 4:3 aspect ratio, 12 MP, global shutter, APS-C sized, 300 fps. It costs a whooping 1300 Euro (that is only the parts and assembly cost). Both mFT options are much cheaper, at 400 and 650 Euro (the one for 650 allows to switch between rolling and global shutter, in global shutter mode it will lose dynamic range). Clearly, sensors aren't cheap. I wonder how much the sensor in the K-3 costs... The company making these sensors, CMOSIS, also has some other interesting sensors, including a FF sensor with 70 MP, and a 20 MP FF sensor. I guess what Samsung does is more suitable for Pentax though

Anyway, if a company can come out of nowhere, and develop a working prototype camera that is competitive in terms of quality using mostly off the shelf components in 6 months and without much funding, what could Pentax do? I'd find it rather interesting if Pentax would chose to do a cinema line of cameras using the K mount perhaps, which is pretty profitable, and use the experience gained there to also enhance their still cameras.

philbaum · 10-10-2014, 10:45 AM

Wow - sounds like Samsung is on a roll. If Samsung chooses to sell their sensors to other camera makers - like Sony does ???? This could cause Sony to offer more of their primo sensor designs they reserve for themselves, to other camera makers. Or other camera makers could flock to Samsung with money in hand. Camera.japan has had it their way for a long time, but i don't think Samsung has the lenses to compete with Canikon. That might drive Samsung to sell sensors. This is going to be fascinating to watch.

patarok · 10-10-2014, 11:09 AM

PENTAX FF - NOT SAMSUNG WHAT COULD BE THREAD!!!

BESIDES THAT THE AF ON nx1 IS VERY GOOFY FOR est. 250 focus points.... WHO EXACTLY BELIEVES THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR SHOOTING GOOD LOOKING PHOTOS?
AND A LAST BONE FOR THE SAMSUNG - HYPE GUYS:
THE DESIGN IS VERY UNCOMPASSIONATE. i could go on ... but i let you chew on this for a while.

kadajawi · 10-10-2014, 01:29 PM

Originally posted by philbaum

Wow - sounds like Samsung is on a roll. If Samsung chooses to sell their sensors to other camera makers - like Sony does ???? This could cause Sony to offer more of their primo sensor designs they reserve for themselves, to other camera makers. Or other camera makers could flock to Samsung with money in hand. Camera.japan has had it their way for a long time, but i don't think Samsung has the lenses to compete with Canikon. That might drive Samsung to sell sensors. This is going to be fascinating to watch.

Sony said they'll keep some sensor designs to themselves for the time being, including that of the A7S. They will be sold to others, eventually, but for the moment they like to be the only one with it. Should be the same with Samsung, first and foremost they'll want to sell their cameras. Samsung is in a partnership with Schneider Kreuznach, though mostly that's just lending the name. But who knows...?

@patarok: I've had massive problems with the ginormous K-5 AF points. I usually only use the center one, and recompose, but it's useless, really. I could be focusing on ANYTHING that is roughly in the center area of the image. Often it's focusing on what is behind my motive, even though the red dot is clearly covering the motive. It's a joke. Having more, and much much smaller focus points, would, if the exact one the camera picked is marked, be extremely helpful. Plus it would help people who want to do focus tracking, and it also covers a much larger area of the sensor, 90% IIRC. Of course that's helpful!

jsherman999 · 10-10-2014, 04:37 PM

Originally posted by patarok

PENTAX FF - NOT SAMSUNG WHAT COULD BE THREAD!!!

BESIDES THAT THE AF ON nx1 IS VERY GOOFY FOR est. 250 focus points.... WHO EXACTLY BELIEVES THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR SHOOTING GOOD LOOKING PHOTOS?
AND A LAST BONE FOR THE SAMSUNG - HYPE GUYS:
THE DESIGN IS VERY UNCOMPASSIONATE. i could go on ... but i let you chew on this for a while.

quite the morsel to chew on, thx

easyreeder · 10-10-2014, 05:12 PM

Originally posted by patarok

PENTAX FF - NOT SAMSUNG WHAT COULD BE THREAD!!!

BESIDES THAT THE AF ON nx1 IS VERY GOOFY FOR est. 250 focus points.... WHO EXACTLY BELIEVES THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR SHOOTING GOOD LOOKING PHOTOS?
AND A LAST BONE FOR THE SAMSUNG - HYPE GUYS:
THE DESIGN IS VERY UNCOMPASSIONATE. i could go on ... but i let you chew on this for a while.

It has too many AF points? It's designed like a Canon? Ha, I'm not even sure that's a crumb. If this camera lives up to the specs, it is very impressive.

And the last time we got into a discussion like this, by the way, we went into the market capital of Ricoh, Sony, Fuji, Canon and Samsung, which now has me looking at the NX1 pretty hard, haha.

RogerD_AZ · 10-10-2014, 06:59 PM

While I think it's much too soon due to cost, a three layer sensor (aka Foveon style) would (could) be the next significant improvement in image quality.

But, that would be groundbreaking if at an affordable cost unlike Sigma's very expensive and rather featureless camera.

...Roger D

kadajawi · 10-11-2014, 01:27 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by RogerD_AZ

While I think it's much too soon due to cost, a three layer sensor (aka Foveon style) would (could) be the next significant improvement in image quality.

But, that would be groundbreaking if at an affordable cost unlike Sigma's very expensive and rather featureless camera.

...Roger D

That might not even be necessary. I have suggested it before, and I'll say it again... Pentax could just shift the sensor and take 3 photos, to cover all the pixels. The exposure time might be longer than for a regular photo, and it wouldn't work at all for moving motives (weird artefacts), but still it would give a significant advantage on certain photos. Combining the 3 photos into one raw should be pretty trivial.

10-09-2014, 02:22 PM - 1 Like	#528
Vitalii Senior Member Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 115	Originally posted by rawr Too different is too risky. A conventional looking camera with great under-the-hood sensor and AF performance, great low-light specs like the K-3, miscellaneous cool enhancements maybe to the viewfinder, modern stuff like WiFi, and a flippy screen is all they need to do to wow people. Think of recent high performing cameras like the 7DII, D750, Sony A77II, A7S , even the recent Samsung NX1. The templates are there. No Frankenstein designs or features. I dont think Pentax future should just be in following the mainstream. look at the competitors, no one has jack of all trades. Canon made a shitty video AF for 3 lenses and decidet not to build smaller cameras. Nikon bringing at aps-c market same models for at least 3 years. Olympus are good at InCamera Postprocessing and IS-System, but sticks with µFT and BIG DOF. Samsung makes cameras, which doesn´t feel as cameras at all. And sony, well i´ve just never liked its design..%). They all arent really trying to make their camera totally universal or just same good in their weak spots. mostly they are just working on stuff and developing new one that the trademark is known for. Pentax was always known for its size and solidness. meanwhile it has much more things to offer than just saying, hey - we have everithing same, just cheaper. exept for size, we lost that one...)))) I don´t think i would talk for all pentaxians, but is a jumpy video AF really necessary? professionals still does it manual no matter how good the system is. I would rather preffer a camera which is really good in photography or giving me an advantage of best IS system, best colors and dynamic range, or such a fiction as sensor tilt shift, than another "yeah sure, you can although make videos with it, and with few attachments camera turns into a toaster" Last edited by Vitalii; 10-09-2014 at 02:39 PM.

10-09-2014, 07:05 PM	#531
Paul MaudDib Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Michigan Posts: 294	Originally posted by kadajawi Btw., I previously suggested that Pentax could team up with Magic Lantern. Hire some of them, or in other ways work with them. Well... they are working with AXIOM, which is a 6000 Euro APS-C camera, and much of it's value comes from Magic Lantern. Photokina Q&A: Can the Samsung NX1 redefine pro performance with a quantum leap in technology? The interconnect on the new DRIMe V image processor sounds pretty fantastic, like some kind of a FPGA that allows reconfiguring of processing components. Being able to toy around with the operation of the image processor would be pretty sweet, the Samsung guys have already done some interesting stuff it sounds like. It would be tough to do without sharing an undue amount of IP - the only practical way would be to write something like a shader language for image capture. Basically the image-capture counterpart of modern GPUs - OpenGL for cameras. Last edited by Paul MaudDib; 10-09-2014 at 07:20 PM.

10-10-2014, 04:56 AM	#533
kadajawi Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 2,799	The DRIMe V processor does indeed seem to be a part time FPGA, which is pretty amazing. However Samsung is in a position to do this, unlike most other camera makers. Samsung makes displays... some of the best, and they are leading when it comes to small high quality OLED screens. Samsung makes processors for mobile devices, and very competitive ones at that. Samsung makes image sensors, again, some pretty advanced ones. Pentax doesn't do any of these things, and neither does Nikon. Canon used to dabble with an interesting display technology, but that went nowhere. Processors... the advantage of the DIGIC system is that it is easily scalable, but their sensors seem mostly a bit dated. Sony is able to do sensors, but I believe screens they have to buy from outside, and their processors seem to be in house developments...? Fujitsu seems to lag behind at least Sony and Samsung in terms of image processors, the Sony chip is also used in some video cameras, and the Samsung chip is just impressive. Depending on how good the image processing part of the Snapdragon series is I'd like to see Pentax switch to those... they are very potent chips, and ARM based (like the current Milbeaut?). Hopefully those processing advancements don't just go into producing nicer JPEGs, though I guess for videos that is important. I think at least for the moment though the hardware Pentax uses is fairly capable, what is ultimately letting it down is the software. Magic Lantern can get pretty amazing things out of ancient image processors... surely Fujitsu's latest and greatest can compete with a 6 (!!!) year old image processor from Canon?! Even if all the K-3 or FF Pentax is capable of is what the 5D Mk II with Magic Lantern can, with a better sensor and proper SR, that would already be pretty nice and could draw quite some attention (and sales). The Apertus Axiom Beta offers several different sensors, and I'm a bit surprised at the prices. The S35 option in the Apertus Axiom Beta for example. 4:3 aspect ratio, 12 MP, global shutter, APS-C sized, 300 fps. It costs a whooping 1300 Euro (that is only the parts and assembly cost). Both mFT options are much cheaper, at 400 and 650 Euro (the one for 650 allows to switch between rolling and global shutter, in global shutter mode it will lose dynamic range). Clearly, sensors aren't cheap. I wonder how much the sensor in the K-3 costs... The company making these sensors, CMOSIS, also has some other interesting sensors, including a FF sensor with 70 MP, and a 20 MP FF sensor. I guess what Samsung does is more suitable for Pentax though Anyway, if a company can come out of nowhere, and develop a working prototype camera that is competitive in terms of quality using mostly off the shelf components in 6 months and without much funding, what could Pentax do? I'd find it rather interesting if Pentax would chose to do a cinema line of cameras using the K mount perhaps, which is pretty profitable, and use the experience gained there to also enhance their still cameras. Last edited by kadajawi; 10-10-2014 at 05:37 AM.

10-10-2014, 05:12 PM	#538
easyreeder Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2013 Photos: Albums Posts: 128	Originally posted by patarok PENTAX FF - NOT SAMSUNG WHAT COULD BE THREAD!!! BESIDES THAT THE AF ON nx1 IS VERY GOOFY FOR est. 250 focus points.... WHO EXACTLY BELIEVES THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR SHOOTING GOOD LOOKING PHOTOS? AND A LAST BONE FOR THE SAMSUNG - HYPE GUYS: THE DESIGN IS VERY UNCOMPASSIONATE. i could go on ... but i let you chew on this for a while. It has too many AF points? It's designed like a Canon? Ha, I'm not even sure that's a crumb. If this camera lives up to the specs, it is very impressive. And the last time we got into a discussion like this, by the way, we went into the market capital of Ricoh, Sony, Fuji, Canon and Samsung, which now has me looking at the NX1 pretty hard, haha. Last edited by easyreeder; 10-10-2014 at 06:16 PM. Reason: why make this two posts

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10-09-2014, 01:47 PM - 2 Likes	#526
Vitalii Senior Member Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 115	ehmmmm... thinking different... a better poor-mans-tilt shift? imagine a FF camera which has a fully functional tilt-shift-sensor system, so you can really make use of the narrow DOF. Guess how many photographers would switch to that?) Its unique and fully pentaxian. even if it goes only for 6mm and 6° it will still be a bomb. although an appropriate adapter for middle format lenses, so you can use all funktions. P.S. i want a stake on this one...) although multizone WB is quite promissing, so i would work on that. And maybe not only metering, but adjusting WB, Dynamic range, etc. Splitting the sensor in arrays which would be Metered and adjusted separatly one of each other and then composed and adjusted into one picture, geveng you better dynamic range and true colors. fiction and not how its working, but still... idea..) some new software would be nice, not for the FF, but for aps-c cameras. Pentax is really good with double exposures and time lapse videos. for most hobbists, although a panorama and bulb-composite function that saves in raw would be awesome.

10-09-2014, 02:11 PM	#527
patarok Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2013 Photos: Gallery Posts: 389	Originally posted by Vitalii ehmmmm... thinking different... a better poor-mans-tilt shift? imagine a FF camera which has a fully functional tilt-shift-sensor system, so you can really make use of the narrow DOF. Guess how many photographers would switch to that?) Its unique and fully pentaxian. even if it goes only for 6mm and 6° it will still be a bomb. although an appropriate adapter for middle format lenses, so you can use all funktions. P.S. i want a stake on this one...) although multizone WB is quite promissing, so i would work on that. And maybe not only metering, but adjusting WB, Dynamic range, etc. Splitting the sensor in arrays which would be Metered and adjusted separatly one of each other and then composed and adjusted into one picture, geveng you better dynamic range and true colors. fiction and not how its working, but still... idea..) some new software would be nice, not for the FF, but for aps-c cameras. Pentax is really good with double exposures and time lapse videos. for most hobbists, although a panorama and bulb-composite function that saves in raw would be awesome. i completely agree! good ideas! And i have to admit, again... Locking the pics with AE-L button when in review... :-\| doublepoke that could be so easy AND IT SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTED ON EVERY "ACTUAL" DSLRs FIRMWARE!!!

10-09-2014, 04:01 PM	#529
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	Originally posted by Vitalii I dont think Pentax future should just be in following the mainstream. Sure they can follow the FF mainstream, but just do it better, like they have generally done with APS-C. The first Pentax FF digital doesn't need to be revolutionary, just a very credible, solid and serious product.

10-09-2014, 04:59 PM	#530
kadajawi Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 2,799	Originally posted by easyreeder This is all great information, thanks! Yes, well I was calling it "face tracking," because I can't duplicate the problem without a hand or face. I do think there's some face recognition coding in there. But it does seem fixable, because the problem goes away at about 12 feet. (I suspected this, so I did some tests with the kids, ha.) I didn't say I'm shooting 1/50 at 25 p. I shoot 30p. But that's rather interesting. I don't mind a little blur so much, and the low light benefit of shooting 1/40 or even 1/30 for a static situation, like an interview, is something I've been experimenting with. The "blur" also looks more filmic (film has blur), and seems to me a better approximation of film than 25p, and it covers some of the shake reduction problems. I'm not a sports photographer, ha. As for the crop, yes, there's more crop, but if you try to apply crop reduction in premiere or fcx you get an even bigger crop, and you don't get the resolution, so it seems to me like it'd be better to do it in camera. The lesser evil. I'm not against mechanical SR by any means, haha, but I'm just trying to understand their decision making process. When the software SR works in video mode, you can get good results. Unfortunately, that's an extremely unique situation: shallow depth of field with a static object that you're focused on in the foreground. Take a book, painting, whatever, and move it in front of the stationary camera. As long as the (probably) majority of the image is moving more or less in the same direction it will try to stabilize on that. To do it is perfectly reasonable if that's your only input. Doesn't matter if you're shooting 30p, 25p, 60p, ... though the higher the frame rate the smaller the effect. And you got me wrong there: The problems with shake reduction are reduced by HIGH shutter speeds. At 1/1000 you can stabilize really well. That's also one of the reasons why they say if you want to stabilize in post, you should shoot at the fastest possible shutter speed, then stabilize in post and add motion blur in post. It is not a smoothening motion blur, it is in one frame a motion blur from left to right, next frame it's sharp, and then you'll see a top to bottom motion blur. It changes all the time, is there, then gone, and coming back again. Shoot tele, maybe 200mm or so, and do it handheld, trying to hold it steady. Longest possible exposure at your framerate. Film has blur because DoPs typically shoot 24p with more or less 2x the framerate, i.e. 1/48th or so, in order to make it look less stuttery. It's a rule of thumb. But again, it's not the kind of blur you'd see with electronic SR. If you say apply electronic stabilization in Premiere or FCX, well, you do get a crop, but not necessarily a bigger one. While you do lose more resolution (it seems like the Pentax is shooting at a higher resolution, so that the resulting video has 1080p, at least that's how they can do it), you have a more sophisticated algorithm, and one that can be tweaked. Sometimes you need a bigger crop, sometimes not. There is no tweaking in the camera. That's my point. Electronic SR clearly does have it's reasons of existence, but in MOST situations it is clearly inferior to mechanical SR. Offering both options would be reasonable (in addition to an off setting of course), there can be situations where I'd rather shoot with electronic stabilization, but ONLY offer electronic SR? Mechanical SR offers plenty of advantages (and can be used together with electronic SR, in fact I'd like to have a system that stabilizes fast movements mechanically, and slow movements electronically). Yup, TILT + shift (and to a bigger extend perhaps) is a very neat function, and one that I use for my work (well, shift, tilt doesn't exist). Olympus might have it, though I don't know if you can access it. But they can move around the sensor quite a bit. It's more of a APS-C thing though, because with FF lenses on a FF sensor you'll hit the limits of the sensor, while a FF lens on a APS-C sensor will offer you plenty of leeway. I like the idea of metering different areas differently... could give you a HDR amount of data with one exposure. Or perhaps segmenting an exposure into many small segments. Samsung's NX-1 sensor can be read 240 times a second at full resolution. So what if you take one 1/240th exposure, then another one, and another one, ... that way highlights aren't a problem, are they? It would be much harder to fully fill the bucket. You can just add up all your exposures and output a 32 bit raw image with a massive dynamic range! Canon has created a pretty good video AF, which is more in line with their DSLR video strategy... for them their DSLRs are for consumers, at least the video functionality. So they invested in something that mostly consumers would appreciate, while they keep functionality the cameras are clearly capable of to models that cost 10x as much, simply because that is how much they can charge for a few firmware upgrades done by people who don't even have proper access to the firmware and documentation! Nikon has made significant improvements to the video capabilities of their APS-C cameras. The D5300 is pretty damn good in terms of image quality, though controls leave a bit to be desired. And they have given their cameras clean HDMI output, so you can record externally. Samsung MADE cameras that didn't feel like a camera. While I've yet to try out the NX-1, it seems like they have finally created a proper camera. Sony's DSLR and DSLT cameras felt really good to me. Intuitive, ergonomic, well designed, and small/light. While I still prefer Pentax in terms of ergonomics and handling, their DSLRs/DSLTs would easily be second for me. They are really, really good. Obviously I'd like my camera to help me with my photography/videography, but there are plenty of advanced features that can be added to it to do just that. I'd like to see it run a heavily customized version of Android. As long as it looks and feels like a proper Pentax, but with extended functionality, that would be great. Samsung went the wrong way IMHO, by creating cameras that run Android, and have a camera app hidden somewhere. It should be a camera first and foremost. And if it only does stills, well, I'm out, because I enjoy doing both a lot, and might be required to do both too. All I really want is a better firmware, is that too much to ask for?

10-10-2014, 02:25 AM	#532
mecrox Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Oxford, UK Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,375	Originally posted by Paul MaudDib Photokina Q&A: Can the Samsung NX1 redefine pro performance with a quantum leap in technology? The interconnect on the new DRIMe V image processor sounds pretty fantastic, like some kind of a FPGA that allows reconfiguring of processing components. Being able to toy around with the operation of the image processor would be pretty sweet, the Samsung guys have already done some interesting stuff it sounds like. It would be tough to do without sharing an undue amount of IP - the only practical way would be to write something like a shader language for image capture. Basically the image-capture counterpart of modern GPUs - OpenGL for cameras. Yes, it seems to me that the Samsung NX1 has served notice that a camera with a very powerful processor plus good software is more capable and flexible than the traditional approach espoused by Canonikon and co - or potentially so anyway, it all depends on implementation. This could influence what users can do with their images/videos and how - the workflow thing (dread terms!). I don't think iterations of Milbeaut and "you'll have to take what we give you" are going to cut it now. If this shakes up the traditional camera brands, we might all benefit even if we never own a Samsung camera.

10-10-2014, 10:45 AM	#534
philbaum Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Port Townsend, Washington State, USA Posts: 3,659	Wow - sounds like Samsung is on a roll. If Samsung chooses to sell their sensors to other camera makers - like Sony does ???? This could cause Sony to offer more of their primo sensor designs they reserve for themselves, to other camera makers. Or other camera makers could flock to Samsung with money in hand. Camera.japan has had it their way for a long time, but i don't think Samsung has the lenses to compete with Canikon. That might drive Samsung to sell sensors. This is going to be fascinating to watch.

10-10-2014, 11:09 AM	#535
patarok Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2013 Photos: Gallery Posts: 389	PENTAX FF - NOT SAMSUNG WHAT COULD BE THREAD!!! BESIDES THAT THE AF ON nx1 IS VERY GOOFY FOR est. 250 focus points.... WHO EXACTLY BELIEVES THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR SHOOTING GOOD LOOKING PHOTOS? AND A LAST BONE FOR THE SAMSUNG - HYPE GUYS: THE DESIGN IS VERY UNCOMPASSIONATE. i could go on ... but i let you chew on this for a while.

10-10-2014, 01:29 PM	#536
kadajawi Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 2,799	Originally posted by philbaum Wow - sounds like Samsung is on a roll. If Samsung chooses to sell their sensors to other camera makers - like Sony does ???? This could cause Sony to offer more of their primo sensor designs they reserve for themselves, to other camera makers. Or other camera makers could flock to Samsung with money in hand. Camera.japan has had it their way for a long time, but i don't think Samsung has the lenses to compete with Canikon. That might drive Samsung to sell sensors. This is going to be fascinating to watch. Sony said they'll keep some sensor designs to themselves for the time being, including that of the A7S. They will be sold to others, eventually, but for the moment they like to be the only one with it. Should be the same with Samsung, first and foremost they'll want to sell their cameras. Samsung is in a partnership with Schneider Kreuznach, though mostly that's just lending the name. But who knows...? @patarok: I've had massive problems with the ginormous K-5 AF points. I usually only use the center one, and recompose, but it's useless, really. I could be focusing on ANYTHING that is roughly in the center area of the image. Often it's focusing on what is behind my motive, even though the red dot is clearly covering the motive. It's a joke. Having more, and much much smaller focus points, would, if the exact one the camera picked is marked, be extremely helpful. Plus it would help people who want to do focus tracking, and it also covers a much larger area of the sensor, 90% IIRC. Of course that's helpful!

10-10-2014, 04:37 PM	#537
jsherman999 Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 8,237	Originally posted by patarok PENTAX FF - NOT SAMSUNG WHAT COULD BE THREAD!!! BESIDES THAT THE AF ON nx1 IS VERY GOOFY FOR est. 250 focus points.... WHO EXACTLY BELIEVES THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR SHOOTING GOOD LOOKING PHOTOS? AND A LAST BONE FOR THE SAMSUNG - HYPE GUYS: THE DESIGN IS VERY UNCOMPASSIONATE. i could go on ... but i let you chew on this for a while. quite the morsel to chew on, thx

10-10-2014, 06:59 PM	#539
RogerD_AZ New Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Tucson, AZ Posts: 17	While I think it's much too soon due to cost, a three layer sensor (aka Foveon style) would (could) be the next significant improvement in image quality. But, that would be groundbreaking if at an affordable cost unlike Sigma's very expensive and rather featureless camera. ...Roger D

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10-11-2014, 01:27 AM - 1 Like	#540
kadajawi Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 2,799	Originally posted by RogerD_AZ While I think it's much too soon due to cost, a three layer sensor (aka Foveon style) would (could) be the next significant improvement in image quality. But, that would be groundbreaking if at an affordable cost unlike Sigma's very expensive and rather featureless camera. ...Roger D That might not even be necessary. I have suggested it before, and I'll say it again... Pentax could just shift the sensor and take 3 photos, to cover all the pixels. The exposure time might be longer than for a regular photo, and it wouldn't work at all for moving motives (weird artefacts), but still it would give a significant advantage on certain photos. Combining the 3 photos into one raw should be pretty trivial.