[pid]

this was the reason for me not to upgrade my K1. Hope we get the AF Update later.

[Wild Mark]

TBH my only interest in upgrading to the K1ii is to access the hand held pixel shift. I want this for on the fly landscape photography, macro and maybe the odd wildlife shot. The noise reduction in camera is not something I am interested in and am glad it only kicks in at ISO800 and above.

So what are you going to be shooting at ISO800 and above? Perhaps a dumb questions, but, if you are using ISO 800 and above are you likely to be shooting subjects that need the micro contrast and sharpness? Im thinking sports, racing cars that kind of thing. Yes, macro shooters shoot at ISO 800 and sometimes above, but I suspect with hand held pixel shift this might be avoided.

Anyway, the tech included in the mark ii is not all bad, but I agree, the accelerator chip seems to be a step back (especially for those who are willing and able to do their own post processing).

[Shivaess]

Easy way to test this is to take an image at 400 iso and 1600iso and push the 400 iso one to match. You can see the detail drop off. I’d be interested to see if the pushed 400iso files match the k-1. Also lonelyspeck reported seeing the images push magenta with higher ISOs which I (think) I’ve seen as well. I’m a little fuzzy on a good test to prove that though.

Of course the easiest fix to all of this would be to make the accelerator optional. Then you could get the best of both worlds.

[RGlasel]

Here's something else to check out. Looking at the OUTB sample photo, if you zoom in on the fake bouquet on the right side of the woman's chest (her right, not yours!), just above the white bloom, coming out the bottom of the yellow-orange petals there is a green fabric leaf. The ISO is 100, yet the details and contrast of the fabric leaf is much better in the K-1 II sample. Same sensor, no acceleration at ISO 100, yet there is an obvious difference.

Psychologically, people don't like it when they don't have control, but calling the accelerator chip a step back because of cherry-picked differences that may be within the limits of even IR's ability to control variables, isn't justified in my opinion. What we do know is that the accelerator chip produces a full stop of high quality noise reduction in camera, without requiring any effort or time from the photographer.

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Last edited by RGlasel; 06-23-2018 at 05:59 PM.

[Not a Number]

The ISO is 100, yet the details and contrast of the fabric leaf is much better in the K-1 II sample. Same sensor, no acceleration at ISO 100, yet there is an obvious difference.

One of the Japanese blogs that JPT or OokU linked to the Ricoh engineers said that the accelerator chip is tuned for each ISO setting. It's not a flat setting that just kicks in at some point.

[normhead]

Here's something else to check out. Looking at the OUTB sample photo, if you zoom in on the fake bouquet on the right side of the woman's chest (her right, not yours!), just above the white bloom, coming out the bottom of the yellow-orange petals there is a green fabric leaf. The ISO is 100, yet the details and contrast of the fabric leaf is much better in the K-1 II sample. Same sensor, no acceleration at ISO 100, yet there is an obvious difference.

Psychologically, people don't like it when they don't have control, but calling the accelerator chip a step back because of cherry-picked differences that may be within the limits of even IR's ability to control variables, isn't justified in my opinion. What we do know is that the accelerator chip produces a full stop of high quality noise reduction in camera, without requiring any effort or time from the photographer.

Cherry picked, well, OK then, post what you think is better.

I have found in the past that many Pentax models reproduce that pink pattern and that orange swatch in that position very poorly. The K-1 was the first that aced it.

Anyway, I took the time to post the spot I always check at a coupe of different ISO's. When everyone else has "cherry picked their favourite sets and ISOs I'll maybe contribute again. But until someone does, it's evidence, accusations of cherry picking aren't.

[Rondec]

This sort of thread is disappointing to me. Because it misses the point of photography completely. I currently do own a K1 and K1 II. The difference is that the K1 II high iso images do look cleaner without noise reduction compared to the K1 images. Was it a revelation? Not particularly. But the "loss of detail" is pretty minimal too. Have I taken a bunch of photos side by side with the K1 and K1 II? No and I don't really plan to do so either. They both work well and I like them both a lot.

The photo below is iso 6400 1/125 second brightened 1/4 stop in Lightroom. Shot with the DFA 100 macro at f2.8. Is there loss of detail? Perhaps, but how would I know, because I didn't shoot a K-1 image at the same time and my daughter probably would have moved before I could have exactly reproduced the same image. But I'm pleased with the image and any loss of detail doesn't detract from it. At the same time, to use the K-1 in this setting would require a bit of noise reduction which would probably remove detail as well. But it took me a lot less time to process this image.

[normhead]

This sort of thread is disappointing to me. Because it misses the point of photography completely. I currently do own a K1 and K1 II.

Of course, you're right on this. I can't tell the difference between my K-3 images and K-1 images a lot o the time and the differences in these swatches pixel peeping between a K-1 and a K-3 are much more dramatic. I'm not sure at what level you actually see difference if at all in mt TV screen files of my flickr files. We always have folks saying it makes a difference if you print big. But to my knowledge no one has ever proved that with actual "big" images. I tend to take such things with a grain of salt.

But I also couldn't at the moment in good conscience tell someone to buy a K-1 mkII for better resolution. There are clearly other things to buy the camera for.

[Rico]

Just looking at some test images from imaging resources. For Micro contrast and resolution the K-1 appears to be better than the K-1 mkII both at 1600 ISO and 51200 ISO.





The differences are small but still quite distinct. They haven't put up the lw/ph measurements yet, but I'm guessing there will actually be some drop-off when they do. The K-1 is rated at 3450 lw/ph, my guess is the K-1II won't do better than 3350.

Sad news.

How is this sad news? So you think the noise in the K-1 images equal more micro contrast. It just looks like noise to me. There isn't less detail or less "micro contrast" in the K-1MKII images there is just less noise.

[normhead]

One more, on this one the K-1mk2 does better on the orange swatch, taken at 400 ISO.


I'm still not seeing enough there to change cameras for. It would be interesting to take DNGs from both and process them for the same noise level, and see who comes out on top.

---------- Post added 06-23-18 at 10:02 PM ----------

How is this sad news? So you think the noise in the K-1 images equal more micro contrast. It just looks like noise to me. There isn't less detail or less "micro contrast" in the K-1MKII images there is just less noise.

With that we are going to have to differ.

[RGlasel]

post what you think is better.

I was working with my 12.5" notebook during half-time in the Argos-Stamps game, I opened the first comparison photo on IR's website and scrolled to a busy portion of the scene with the red rubber stick. Downloading the files and posting two identical crops requires more talent and dexterity than I had available at the moment, so I described the situation in words. My point was that we can all probably find examples where one camera generates a better image than the other, for no apparent reason. I have no doubt that Imaging Resource's methodology is as good as it gets, so if their tests produce conflicting results if you look close enough, maybe the final result should be that there is no verifiable difference between the cameras (in camera noise reduction notwithstanding).

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

I have found in the past that many Pentax models reproduce that pink pattern and that orange swatch in that position very poorly. The K-1 was the first that aced it.

I found similar findings with the k1 and also in the reds, the k1 was one of the first cameras that I really liked the output in the red details ( short of shooting MF or pixel shift).

With the mark 2 there is a step back as to what the k1 gained in the reds, the NR being done has a rather strong negative consequence to the reds you want to capture. One has to look no further that the red channel contained in the raw file. And pixel peeping is not required to this.

[leekil]

Just looking at some test images from imaging resources. For Micro contrast and resolution the K-1 appears to be better than the K-1 mkII both at 1600 ISO and 51200 ISO.

Can you describe where you are seeing better micro-contrast?

Here's something else to check out. Looking at the OUTB sample photo, if you zoom in on the fake bouquet on the right side of the woman's chest (her right, not yours!), just above the white bloom, coming out the bottom of the yellow-orange petals there is a green fabric leaf. The ISO is 100, yet the details and contrast of the fabric leaf is much better in the K-1 II sample. Same sensor, no acceleration at ISO 100, yet there is an obvious difference.

In some comments from the engineers (?), Ricoh said that they had improved green (and blue?) reproduction with the K-1 II.

[Jyrkira]

Psychologically, people don't like it when they don't have control, but calling the accelerator chip a step back because of cherry-picked differences that may be within the limits of even IR's ability to control variables, isn't justified in my opinion. What we do know is that the accelerator chip produces a full stop of high quality noise reduction in camera, without requiring any effort or time from the photographer.

The main priciple of system camera is to let photographer decide how to use it. What lens to use, shooting parameters, lightning, post processing etc. Especially at the level where K-1 this should main design principle to belive photographer is able to decide when more noise recuction is needed and when not.

You can always add noise reduction in post processing but can not pull the lost details back. Limiting photographers possibilities to choose how to processes images is the worst part here IMO.

[biz-engineer]

ISO6400 would be the best ISO settings for comparison. Lets consider two general use cases: Still shooting and moving subjects (sports etc).
Usually for still, one can always find a way to use the lowest iso setting, when noise is not a problem. For shooting moving subjects, tripod or SR don't help because the problem is not the moving camera and the problem is to freeze action with high shutter. speed. The K1 Mk II is superior to the K1 for shooting moving subjects (slightly more responsible AF, with NR added. So if you compare K1 and K1 II for stills, it is not a fair comparison. The comparison should be comparing shooting indoor sport with both K1 and K1 Mrk II side by side.