[Dlanor Sekao]

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well......I finally figured out what was "WRONG" with my K3 !
It was........"ME" !

I almost didnt buy this camera as some of the reviews kept mentioning the noise on the large MP sensor ?
However when Quickandone dropped their price on Ebay I simply couldnt resist and forked out the cash.

It seemed that when I first tried it out all I got was noise.....noise everywher....even the Live View looked noisier than my K30 !
I didnt like the different control layout at all......it wasnt like my K30.
I didnt know how to handle the added settings....It was different than my K30.
I didnt like the rear display that was supposed to be better in live view than any predescessor.....it didnt look any better...well maybe a bit.
The You tube reviews had me turning everything either off or down and I was "LOOKING" for the reported noise issues right from the start.

In all of the new excitement of having one of the latest Pentax Flagship models in my hands.....I wasnt immediately getting anything that resembled even good !

Arrgggghhhh....I shouldnt have bought this K3 !....Its just like the nay-sayers warned ! I just should have bought a replacement K5II or even a second K30 would have been better.......Buyer remorse set in quickly !
I felt let down and tried consoling myself it would be a quick sell on Ebay and then I could ponder the K5II vs K5IIs.....ok.....I can handle that.

I had hurriedly changed setting after setting doing simply the same as on my K30 looking for the sharpest settings . I did get some good shots here and there , but nothing was coming together like it had on my previous cameras. Nothing was excitedly sharp , and when I zoomed in on the LCD it all looked like crap somewhere.....seemed like noise was everywhere.

I called my friend Jason who is overseas... and explained my dilema. Right off the bat he said it wasnt the camera.....He said it was me !
He told me to quit looking for a problem when there wasnt an obvious one. He told me that the increase MP sensor just needed to be steady when shooting and more prone to any movement being more obvious when viewing/ peeping at pixels.
And he told me that I needed to view "everything" on a monitor and not to rely much on the rear display for anything but obvious compensation and a confirmation of close exposure.
He explained that pixel peeping would look worse for sure ! Its a huge file ! Its NOT a K30 , K5 , or K anything previous....Its a K3 !

We sat down on the phone and the very first thing I did was a factory Default Reset......................... Then he insisted that I re-installed the K3 firmware (which I thought was unescessary but did anyway)....................................... Then we went through the book settings , menus , and everything for over an hour and a half.......... discussed about everything possible setting wise.......................... And last but not least....I got a thorough tongue lashing for not Formatting my SD Cards at all before doing anything.

How could he guess all of this and know so much ? Well.....it seems he upgraded from two K5 bodies and a K20........to two K3 bodies a few months ago !

He went through some of the initial quandry and confusion also. What was different ? He is used to working with Adobe and all its wonders...Im not.
He learned long ago to not trust displays for much and I didnt.................. and he learned that large MP sensors have weaknesses and strengths and works around them.

To get back to the point..... Im now using very few auto anything settings on the K3. Most everything is turned off or down to a minimum , and since I only shoot M mode I can get away with it !
Slow NR Off.....High ISO NR Off....AA filter Off....auto ISO set to 100-400.... SR Off or ON....Really just a Factory default with a purpose this time.......Im learning quickly.

Bottom line ?....................................This camera is AWESOME !
Im not exactly sure it was any ONE single thing that I got wrong , but maybe a small variety that didnt come together properly. Quite honestly I thought I had it isolated a couple times with unpredictable results. But I just cant keep wondering about him accusing a Non formatted SD card as a culprit ???

"WHATEVER"......it... "WAS".......is NO longer plagueing me.....its gone !
The "something" that was amiss.........was not the K3's fault ! Ultimately......It was mine !

I love my K3 ! Its really impressive now and the old glass has new life !

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Last edited by Dlanor Sekao; 12-12-2014 at 12:04 PM.

[aleonx3]

well......I finally figured out what was "WRONG" with my K3 !
It was........"ME" !

I almost didnt buy this camera as some of the reviews kept mentioning the noise on the large MP sensor ?
However when Quickandone dropped their price on Ebay I simply couldnt resist and forked out the cash.

It seemed that when I first tried it out all I got was noise.....noise everywher....even the Live View looked noisier than my K30 !
I didnt like the different control layout at all......it wasnt like my K30.
I didnt know how to handle the added settings....It was different than my K30.
I didnt like the rear display that was supposed to be better in live view than any predescessor.....it didnt look any better...well maybe a bit.
The You tube reviews had me turning everything either off or down and I was "LOOKING" for the reported noise issues right from the start.

In all of the new excitement of having one of the latest Pentax Flagship models in my hands.....I wasnt immediately getting anything that resembled even good !

Arrgggghhhh....I shouldnt have bought this K3 !....Its just like the nay-sayers warned ! I just should have bought a replacement K5II or even a second K30 would have been better.......Buyer remorse set in quickly !
I felt let down and tried consoling myself it would be a quick sell on Ebay and then I could ponder the K5II vs K5IIs.....ok.....I can handle that.

I had hurriedly changed setting after setting doing simply the same as on my K30 looking for the sharpest settings . I did get some good shots here and there , but nothing was coming together like it had on my previous cameras. Nothing was excitedly sharp , and when I zoomed in on the LCD it all looked like crap somewhere.....seemed like noise was everywhere.

I called my friend Jason who is overseas... and explained my dilema. Right off the bat he said it wasnt the camera.....He said it was me !
He told me to quit looking for a problem when there wasnt an obvious one. He told me that the increase MP sensor just needed to be steady when shooting and more prone to any movement being more obvious when viewing/ peeping at pixels.
And he told me that I needed to view "everything" on a monitor and not to rely much on the rear display for anything but obvious compensation and a confirmation of close exposure.
He explained that pixel peeping would look worse for sure ! Its a huge file ! Its NOT a K30 , K5 , or K anything previous....Its a K3 !

We sat down on the phone and the very first thing I did was a factory Default Reset......................... Then he insisted that I re-installed the K3 firmware (which I thought was unescessary but did anyway)....................................... Then we went through the book settings , menus , and everything for over an hour and a half.......... discussed about everything possible setting wise.......................... And last but not least....I got a thorough tongue lashing for not Formatting my SD Cards at all before doing anything.

How could he guess all of this and know so much ? Well.....it seems he upgraded from two K5 bodies and a K20........to two K3 bodies a few months ago !

He went through some of the initial quandry and confusion also. What was different ? He is used to working with Adobe and all its wonders...Im not.
He learned long ago to not trust displays for much and I didnt.................. and he learned that large MP sensors have weaknesses and strengths and works around them.

To get back to the point..... Im now using very few auto anything settings on the K3. Most everything is turned off or down to a minimum , and since I only shoot M mode I can get away with it !
Slow NR Off.....High ISO NR Off....AA filter Off....auto ISO set to 100-400.... SR Off or ON....Really just a Factory default with a purpose this time.......Im learning quickly.

Bottom line ?....................................This camera is AWESOME !
Im not exactly sure it was any ONE single thing that I got wrong , but maybe a small variety that didnt come together properly. Quite honestly I thought I had it isolated a couple times with unpredictable results. But I just cant keep wondering about him accusing a Non formatted SD card as a culprit ???

"WHATEVER"......it... "WAS".......is NO longer plagueing me.....its gone !
The "something" that was amiss.........was not the K3's fault ! Ultimately......It was mine !

I love my K3 ! Its really impressive now and the old glass has new life !

Sounds like growing pain that some of us went through every single step of the way similar to yours. Persistence does pay off and I am sure the k-3 will reward you with years of enjoyment. I too ordered the k-3 from the same seller, except in your case, you get it cheaper (with no tax). So far, I like it compare to my k-5IIs... with more features and options, I noticed immediately the improvement in diopter adjustment and larger rear LCD screen, not to mention the AF and focus peaking features. Enjoy!!

[narual]

I was waiting for you to say you had focus peaking turned on and thought that was noise in live view.

[stevebrot]

We sat down on the phone and the very first thing I did was a factory Default Reset......................... Then he insisted that I re-installed the K3 firmware (which I thought was unescessary but did anyway)....................................... Then we went through the book settings , menus , and everything for over an hour and a half.......... discussed about everything possible setting wise...

Congratulations! Everyone should have such a good friend


Steve

[dtorion1970]

I tried looking for the seller you and aleonx3 mentioned; however, do not find such a seller listed?

[Michaelina2]

....auto ISO set to 100-400....

pssst... sharpen your post processing skills a bit, then try auto ISO set to 100-6400... you'll love it even more!


Cheers... M

[ScooterMaxi Jim]

My vote is for Auto 100-3200, but if you must you can opt to go higher. One other "auto" worth having is auto highlight compensation.

[Dlanor Sekao]

I was waiting for you to say you had focus peaking turned on and thought that was noise in live view.

Ummmm...I did. And that was throwing me off real bad too. I since learned to not believe much of anything in Live view and to trust my PC when looking at images.

---------- Post added 12-12-14 at 03:14 PM ----------

I tried looking for the seller you and aleonx3 mentioned; however, do not find such a seller listed?

Here Pentax K 3 23 4 MP Digital SLR Camera Black Body Only | eBay is the special I got it for....hes out of Canada. Good prices and Im extremely happy.
I believe his current price is $699 not the $619 I paid.

[dtorion1970]

Ummmm...I did. And that was throwing me off real bad too. I since learned to not believe much of anything in Live view and to trust my PC when looking at images.

---------- Post added 12-12-14 at 03:14 PM ----------

Here Pentax K 3 23 4 MP Digital SLR Camera Black Body Only | eBay is the special I got it for....hes out of Canada. Good prices and Im extremely happy.
I believe his current price is $699 not the $619 I paid.

Sweet. Thank you

[Medomare]

Am now even more envious of the U.S./Canada prices for the K3, grrrr, Here in Europe you can get it at best for 800-900€ (1000-1125$ US), and that's for body only! Jealous as hell

Greets,

Marko

[FantasticMrFox]

... and since I only shoot M mode ...

Yeah, you're gonna do that for a couple of weeks maybe until you discover the beauty of Av

[photodesignch]

well......I finally figured out what was "WRONG" with my K3 !
It was........"ME" !

I almost didnt buy this camera as some of the reviews kept mentioning the noise on the large MP sensor ?
However when Quickandone dropped their price on Ebay I simply couldnt resist and forked out the cash.

It seemed that when I first tried it out all I got was noise.....noise everywher....even the Live View looked noisier than my K30 !
I didnt like the different control layout at all......it wasnt like my K30.
I didnt know how to handle the added settings....It was different than my K30.
I didnt like the rear display that was supposed to be better in live view than any predescessor.....it didnt look any better...well maybe a bit.
The You tube reviews had me turning everything either off or down and I was "LOOKING" for the reported noise issues right from the start.

In all of the new excitement of having one of the latest Pentax Flagship models in my hands.....I wasnt immediately getting anything that resembled even good !

Arrgggghhhh....I shouldnt have bought this K3 !....Its just like the nay-sayers warned ! I just should have bought a replacement K5II or even a second K30 would have been better.......Buyer remorse set in quickly !
I felt let down and tried consoling myself it would be a quick sell on Ebay and then I could ponder the K5II vs K5IIs.....ok.....I can handle that.

I had hurriedly changed setting after setting doing simply the same as on my K30 looking for the sharpest settings . I did get some good shots here and there , but nothing was coming together like it had on my previous cameras. Nothing was excitedly sharp , and when I zoomed in on the LCD it all looked like crap somewhere.....seemed like noise was everywhere.

I called my friend Jason who is overseas... and explained my dilema. Right off the bat he said it wasnt the camera.....He said it was me !
He told me to quit looking for a problem when there wasnt an obvious one. He told me that the increase MP sensor just needed to be steady when shooting and more prone to any movement being more obvious when viewing/ peeping at pixels.
And he told me that I needed to view "everything" on a monitor and not to rely much on the rear display for anything but obvious compensation and a confirmation of close exposure.
He explained that pixel peeping would look worse for sure ! Its a huge file ! Its NOT a K30 , K5 , or K anything previous....Its a K3 !

We sat down on the phone and the very first thing I did was a factory Default Reset......................... Then he insisted that I re-installed the K3 firmware (which I thought was unescessary but did anyway)....................................... Then we went through the book settings , menus , and everything for over an hour and a half.......... discussed about everything possible setting wise.......................... And last but not least....I got a thorough tongue lashing for not Formatting my SD Cards at all before doing anything.

How could he guess all of this and know so much ? Well.....it seems he upgraded from two K5 bodies and a K20........to two K3 bodies a few months ago !

He went through some of the initial quandry and confusion also. What was different ? He is used to working with Adobe and all its wonders...Im not.
He learned long ago to not trust displays for much and I didnt.................. and he learned that large MP sensors have weaknesses and strengths and works around them.

To get back to the point..... Im now using very few auto anything settings on the K3. Most everything is turned off or down to a minimum , and since I only shoot M mode I can get away with it !
Slow NR Off.....High ISO NR Off....AA filter Off....auto ISO set to 100-400.... SR Off or ON....Really just a Factory default with a purpose this time.......Im learning quickly.

Bottom line ?....................................This camera is AWESOME !
Im not exactly sure it was any ONE single thing that I got wrong , but maybe a small variety that didnt come together properly. Quite honestly I thought I had it isolated a couple times with unpredictable results. But I just cant keep wondering about him accusing a Non formatted SD card as a culprit ???

"WHATEVER"......it... "WAS".......is NO longer plagueing me.....its gone !
The "something" that was amiss.........was not the K3's fault ! Ultimately......It was mine !

I love my K3 ! Its really impressive now and the old glass has new life !

There are things I do care about image quality but things I don't trust cameras doing them for me. I guess I am just native born to shoot in RAW, that's why I dislike any additional help from the camera, which people tend to think it's helping but it's really not.

1) Noise Reduction.. I always have it off. Simply because when it's on, the old Pentax algorithms tend to make things softer because they are using blurring channel technique. This will result less detail on image. I rather have "SOME" noises but better sharpness and details. Therefore, NR on high ISO, low ISO.. whatever you want to name it, I always get better result when it's off. Not to mention the black frame technique.. If you are off NR on long time exposure, it save you twice amount of time when image saves into camera. It saves both time and battery life.

2) SR.. I actually recommend people to turn it off. Training your own hand and poster to hold your camera better. You will always get sharper image if you are doing it right. Take multiple shots at same time, you will often come out on the top with at least one or two perfect image. The reason I recommended people to not rely on SR simply due to it's electronic that is guessing your movements. Which means you will always get the benefit when hand held around 1/60s or under.. Let's say you can do it on 1/15s. But you might realize even the best SR, it's giving you "SHARPER" image but never "SHARPEST" image. Enough said, I learnt that when low light under 1/60s, I'll try to push my own handling around 1/50s, 1/40s.. and anything beyond that, I simply find a place (such as table, chair.. whatever) as temporary tripod, then I can go as low as I wanted with timer count down (serves as remote control, mirror lock-up) to get sharper image. I am not saying you shouldn't use SR. It's just always times you will forget to turn off SR when you are on tripod, or you forgot which setting you were on SR..etc.... But if you trained yourself to always shooting without SR, your brain will always trigger yourself to watch out the safest shutter speed, finding right poser to take photo. It's just better practice.

3) higher pixel count on the same size of sensor, it's just tend to have more noise ratio as given. Do not look at into 100% pixel level because it makes no sense when you use the image on internet (resize to only 10% of what the original image size was), and make no sense on printing either (printer doesn't really print dot-by-dot like we think it would). The 100% zoom-in on photoshop is to make sure you nailed the focus point and if you are actually getting sharp image. Noise ratio over 16 megapixels is no longer really relevant to the actual output no matter what's your output medium is. Not to mention 24, 36, 50 mp images. Don't trust me? Have you seen how awesome Pentax 645Z output is? Have you seen these images on 100% hand held? They hardly justify on 100% zoom-in view! They are often noisy, unsharp. But when you zoom-out a little, the image is breathtaking!!!

4) Your friend is right. Higher resolution, you often will see more "wrong" in images. While in film school people used to teach each other that 1/focal length (seconds) is your safe shutter speed. Once I moved up from 16mp, 20mp, 24mp, 36mp.. I can tell you, the higher resolution I go, the more I realized 1/60s for steadyshot is such a bogus claim! Remembered I mentioned I don't shoot with SR on? That's right! You can see your own hand shaking, you can see how well camera can show your own flaw!! 43mm limited, my safe speed is 1/60s.. and often in the colder weather or when I am in a hurry, even 1/125s will give me blurry shots! Even with 1/60s, my successful rate is only around 70% of all my images. But when I was in 16mp, over 90% of images were acceptable as "very sharp". Hence, trust your camera! When it's burry it's nothing wrong with the camera, it's not SR.. it's YOU.

[jayman_1975]

I was waiting for you to say you had focus peaking turned on and thought that was noise in live view.

Funny to see you say this as i did that exact thing. I was about to have a fit until i tried turning focus peaking off and then it looked great!

[cbope]

I can tell you, the higher resolution I go, the more I realized 1/60s for steadyshot is such a bogus claim! Remembered I mentioned I don't shoot with SR on? That's right! You can see your own hand shaking, you can see how well camera can show your own flaw!! 43mm limited, my safe speed is 1/60s.. and often in the colder weather or when I am in a hurry, even 1/125s will give me blurry shots! Even with 1/60s, my successful rate is only around 70% of all my images. But when I was in 16mp, over 90% of images were acceptable as "very sharp". Hence, trust your camera! When it's burry it's nothing wrong with the camera, it's not SR.. it's YOU.

The 1/FL rule for the lowest handheld shutter speed is for 35mm full-frame, not APS-C. On APS-C which has 1.5x the magnification, you need to increase the shutter speed by 50% to get the same effect because of the additional magnification, so instead of 1/60 with a 60mm lens you really need 1/90 to maintain a sharp image without camera shake.

Of course, this is with SR off... and I have been able to get sharp photos with relatively slow shutter speeds with SR enabled. I agree that it's probably not the sharpest possible with SR on, but it is better in most situations than SR off in my experience. If the shutter speed starts to get too low and I can't hold the camera still enough... that's what the tripod is for.

[ggascay]

I feel I'm in the same situation and hopefully can work through it... I've used the k-500 for the past 15 months and got some excellent results. Now comparing with the new K3 I still can't seem to match the same quality as the 16MP sensor on the K500. I keep switching back to the K500 to find shots to keep. Same lenses, locations and subjects (hummingbirds) and the K3 keeps losing out. Seems I can't resolve the feather detail with the K3 compared to the K500...
I'm going to have to setup a test environment to do some critical comparisons, then will have to try the suggestions and start over from scratch and compare again.
One Question: With the differences in sensor resolution (16 vs 24), I should still be able to crop a test sheet photo to the same physical viewing size between the two for A/B comparison, even though the crop factor will be different right? I'm thinking for the images to be cropped to the same size, the 16MP might be 100% and the 24MP will be 66% or something similar...