I'm not sure if Pixel shift work for studio works. You know how strobes and power pack's mechanism. But pixel shift require multiple shots. Any ideas for studio photography especially with still life and portrait?

[Paul the Sunman]

Not with strobes is my understanding.

[stevebrot]

This is covered by both the K-3II and recently available K-1 manuals. The short answers go like this:

• Incompatible with flash
• Cannot be used in X mode
• Exposure for continuous lighting is the same as with non-PS

Steve

[Adam]

Pixel shift is only useful when you're shooting a perfectly stationary subject (i.e. something inanimate). There's just too much movement if you're doing portraits- remember we're talking microns.

I'm not sure if they were every published, but we shot a lot of studio samples when testing the K-3 II. The pixel shifted files ended up having a good amount of artifacts, especially in hair.

You would also need four back-to-back flashes, though I don't recall if the camera even triggers the flash in PS mode. A constant light source is probably what you'd need, given you're shooting something other than a person

Adam
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[Edgar_in_Indy]

Although somewhat annoyingly, Olympus does allow their pixel shift implementation to be used with flashes by spacing out the exposures long enough for a flash to cycle. I wish Pentax would do the same.

Since I do product photography in a studio, my subjects are stationary, so it would potentially be useful.

[One3rdEV]

I would also strongly like to see Pentax offer studio flash capability for stationary pixel shift applications in the near distant future!

(As a former medium and large format studio enthusiast back in the film days. Would love to head back toward studio stills work sometime in the future.)

[stevebrot]

though I don't recall if the camera even triggers the flash in PS mode.

My guess would be that it does not.


Steve

[sbh]

I would love to see a PS + flash solution. There are modern LED continuous lights that look and work just like studio flashes (with bowens mount etc.) but using existing equipment would be preferable of course.

There is a "hack" that I would like to try but I currently don't have a pixelshift machine. Set speedlights (e.g. the YN560III) in strobe mode and trigger them at the same time as the camera. For example: Exposure 1/4 second (= 4 exposures in one second) and the strobes to 4 flashes at a frequency of 4 per second. That should roughly match the four pixelshift exposures. But I have no idea whether that works out in practice.

[sbh]

Ok so I tried this now in a quick test with the YN 560III. Somehow it doesn't work as I described above. Synchronizing Pixelshift and flash wasn't possible. The four exposures seem to be in an irregular sequence instead of exactly 1/4 of the total time each. There are always one or more frames that are un-exposed or only partly flashed.

However, what works is setting a long exposure and trigger the flash manually by hand. For example: 1.5 second exposures are manageable. Press the shutter and then trigger the flash four times. The display shows the sequence of the four images taken in real-time. This helps to get the timing right.

But: The flash brightness needs to be _exactly_ the same. Otherwise the colours will be off. If one of the frames is brighter or darker, then this will be visible as a colour cast. For example, a brighter capture of the red-pixel-frame will be clearly visible as red-ish cast in white areas.

Motion detection kills these artifacts but then the PS benefit is also gone since it affects the entire image.

I want to try it in more detail with studio strobes, but for now it looks like continuous lighting will be the way to go.

(And coming from the K-5iis, I learned that PS isn't something to hammer away one frame after the other. A 32GB card will fill up rather swiftly...)

[SBeck]

No idea what, if any, benefit was gleamed here, but these are two jpegs with PS and MC active... camera is handheld, not much wind... but these were 'just because'
One has to wonder how the in camera algorithm works with scenes totally not appropriate for this purpose.

[Digitalis]

Pixel shift is only useful when you're shooting a perfectly stationary subject

With professional studio flash units having durations upwards of T.1=1/500th and over, you would think flash would actually be a benefit in this scenario. Pentax clearly thinks differently. Hasselblad Multi-shot backs allow for studio flash use in multi-shot mode - but Hasselblad strongly recommend that 1] flash units must have rapid cycle times, under 1s. 2] multi-shot mode is only usable for still life subjects, all things considered is an easy caveat to accept.

[Adam]

With professional studio flash units having duration upwards of T.1=1/500th and over, you would think flash would actually be a benefit in this scenario. Pentax clearly thinks differently. Hasselblad Multi-shot backs allow for studio flash use in multi-shot mode - but Hasselblad strongly recommend that 1] flash units must have rapid cycle times, under 1s. 2] multi-shot mode is only usable for still life subjects*, all things considered is an easy caveat to accept.

If implemented properly, I guess. Right now the camera pauses for a bit between each sensor readout.

[tomO2013]

Pixel shift will work perfectly find with continuous lighting solutions and where your subject doesn't have a tonne of motion (a little motion with pixel shift MC works fine though).

Certainly it would not stop me using pixel shift with a model with the K1 in situations where I couldnt' use pixel shift with the K3ii.

Rotolight Neo make some fantastic lights as to ffiilex
Fiilex P180E First Impressions

You Tube

You Tube

On an aside I've been impressed with the number of situations that I can actually use pixel shift with so far - running water streams etc.. cars moving in background for cityscape etc...

[qdfb]

I would also strongly like to see Pentax offer studio flash capability for stationary pixel shift applications in the near distant future!

(As a former medium and large format studio enthusiast back in the film days. Would love to head back toward studio stills work sometime in the future.)

Petax might be able to add a firmware fix to allow this. It seems like an odd oversight not to have made the K1 suitable for use with studio flash. Pixel shift is the K1's big selling point and it should be liberated for studio use, where it would excel. I have a Hasselblad H5D200MS and its great but a Pentax K1 is closer to it than you would think.

[Adam]

Petax might be able to add a firmware fix to allow this. It seems like an odd oversight not to have made the K1 suitable for use with studio flash. Pixel shift is the K1's big selling point and it should be liberated for studio use, where it would excel. I have a Hasselblad H5D200MS and its great but a Pentax K1 is closer to it than you would think.

Since pixel shift requires a stationary subject, what would prevent you from using a floodlight along with a longer exposure time instead? Just curious regarding practical use cases.