[alvaro_garcia]

I noted this camera to be prone for overexposure metering and initially very soft JPGs out of camera and therefore had to decrease the EV by -0.3 with the Pentax 2.8/24-70 lens and by -0.7 with the Zeiss lenses, as well as increasing the contrast.

However after many test shots I discovered the setting "clarity" and by increasing it to its maximum value +4 it gives the transparence and tridimensional look missing in the default settings.

So, after many test shots, these below are my personal settings (I find the "Bright" image mode the most realistic one in terms of color):

With Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35:
----------------------------------------------

- GENERIC SETTINGS:
EV: -0.7
Highlight Correction: Auto
Shadow Correction: Auto
Shake Reduction: Off
Clarity: +4

- BRIGHT:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- NATURAL:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- LANDSCAPE:
Satur: -1
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

With Pentax DFA 2.8/24-70:
--------------------------------------------

- GENERIC SETTINGS:
EV: -0.3
Highlight Correction: Auto
Shadow Correction: Auto
Shake Reduction: Off
Clarity: +4

- BRIGHT:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- NATURAL:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- LANDSCAPE:
Satur: -1
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

---------- Post added 02-24-18 at 04:35 PM ----------

By the way, the Pentax lens does not reach the necessary level to match the K-1's sensor. The Zeiss does: its sharpness and micro-contrast reaches far superior level and outresolves this resolution, whereas the Pentax lens does not.

[pschlute]

By the way, the Pentax lens does not reach the necessary level to match the K-1's sensor

I suggest that very much depends on what you do with your photographs. For posting on the web or printing normal size I disagree with your statement.

[Na Horuk]

I find the "Bright" image mode the most realistic one in terms of color):

I prefer film reversal because it gives more saturated colours. Depends on the scene, of course.
I would also enable SR if the shutter is slower than 2*focal length. Note that you need to give SR half a second to activate - when SR is fully active an icon lights up. If you shoot before SR is fully active, it won't give you its best. Just half-press the shutter button.
Highlight correction is fine, but I usually have it turned off. Shadow correction I have disabled, since it only affects jpegs, not raw, and I prefer to have manual control over the shadows.

The Zeiss does: its sharpness and micro-contrast reaches far superior level and outresolves this resolution, whereas the Pentax lens does not.

You mean a Pentax zoom lens has lower resolution than a Zeiss prime? Well, I would expect that. Primes should have some advantages, and Zeiss is supposed to be a legendary brand. Zeiss lenses are not WR, no AF.. that 35mm f2 is not even super fast aperture.. it had better give good resolution, or nobody will buy it for that price
That does not mean the 28-70mm is bad or useless. And most pros who shoot raw will use special sharpening in post, which gets these modern zoom lenses as sharp as you could possibly need for most any commercial reason, With good light and good sharpening even 20, 30 year old primes can give you decent resolution

But good overall! To each their own. That is the main point of DSLRs - anyone can configure them to their needs

[Tas]

By the way, the Pentax lens does not reach the necessary level to match the K-1's sensor. The Zeiss does: its sharpness and micro-contrast reaches far superior level and outresolves this resolution, whereas the Pentax lens does not.

G'day mate,

Welcome to the forums.

I have both of these lenses and wouldn't bother comparing that zoom to any of my Zeiss primes. They serve different purposes, as does shooting in RAW versus jpeg. To get the best out of that camera and your lenses I think you'll see more benefit shooting in RAW for the times where you can. The same as shooting with the prime instead of making use of the flexibility of the zoom.

As you're new around here, might I suggest you consider how you post a comment like the above statement? I'm sure you see something when comparing your images to have made the statement in the first place but to not expect some negative feedback from that statement would be naive. Threads about gear tend to draw the most opposition between people posting, and you're posting a negative about a Pentax lens on a Pentax forum.

Whilst your post is clearly an attempt to share your findings, might I suggest next time you utilise images to show the improvements you're seeing as a better way of demonstrating what you have found, and a back to back same image comparison where one lens renders better than the other will be more apparent and is less likely to be taken the wrong way if you point it out.

Tas

[alvaro_garcia]

Hi Tas. Well, I primarily compared the JPGs from my brand new K-1 + DFA 24-70mm to the ones from my APS-C'ed sensor Nikon Coolpix A (with 28mm equivalent prime lens) and found the Coolpix A's being better too (sharper).

Tell me how to upload full resolution images and I'll be more than happy to load three examples: #1 from the Coolpix A, #1 from the K-1 + DFA 24-70mm and #1 from the K-1 + Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35.

If I did an statement it's simply because I tested it. Is the Pentax lens bad? Well, I wouldn't say so, but being beated by the 16 Mp Coolpix it's somehow surprising and I was certainly expecting more from a 36 Mp full frame DSLR paired with a "premium" priced lens. Zeiss is obviously a better and sharper lens, but I still was expecting more from that DFA...

---------- Post added 02-24-18 at 05:48 PM ----------

But hey, once I set the EV to -0.3/-0.7, the sharpness to +4 (not the "Ex" because it delivers noise), the clarity to +4 and swap the lens to Zeiss... the result is amazing and I'm so so sooo happy with this camera.

[tduell]

Hi Tas. Well, I primarily compared the JPGs from my brand new K-1 + DFA 24-70mm to the ones from my APS-C'ed sensor Nikon Coolpix A (with 28mm equivalent prime lens) and found the Coolpix A's being better too (sharper).

Have you checked whether the 24-70 is front or back focussing?

Tell me how to upload full resolution images and I'll be more than happy to load three examples: #1 from the Coolpix A, #1 from the K-1 + DFA 24-70mm and #1 from the K-1 + Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35.

Do 100% crops to end up with an image size that can be uploaded, and clearly shows the differences.


Cheers,
Terry

[alvaro_garcia]

I did. My copy does seem to work fine (no front/back focus).

Oh, good idea about cropping. I'll try to do it and upload the images.

Cheers.

[Tas]

Tell me how to upload full resolution images and I'll be more than happy to load three examples: #1 from the Coolpix A, #1 from the K-1 + DFA 24-70mm and #1 from the K-1 + Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35.

You can't post full res images to the forums, but you can upload full res images to cloud storage like Dropbox, Google Cloud etc and add a link to them in your post for people to see for themselves. Alternatively you can add a small full size image of each one taken and also add a 100% crop from each to your post. This way what you're seeing can be seen in the thread. I only upload images directly for the Post Processing challenges and for one-off stuff, the rest are posted to Flickr, and I use the BB code to post like this:


Because of my preference for primes the 24-70 is not used as much as my other lenses but it comes in hand for somethings especially when it's raining. The image above is the K-1 and the 24-70. I know it's not a large version and the one on Flickr isn't much larger but does it look like your version could achieve the same standard, better or worse?

Please don't take my post above as criticism, I'm just giving you a heads up that you can expect some will not take kindly to your statement and this is where it can become a bit tribal. Maybe I'll be proved wrong and nobody will get too excited, but it does happen and who needs arguments over something like this? Examples of your images will assist people in identifying whether your 24-70 performs worse than theirs. For example, you may have a less than stellar version of the lens that might need checking or replacement. Or, maybe you're right and it's not very good. Well now you can see how mine performs, how do they compare?

Actually here's one captured with the 24-70 at 36mm too.


Tas

[alvaro_garcia]

Well, if I don't zoom the images, all may look similar. But when you zoom in... ooohhhhhhh...

---------- Post added 02-24-18 at 08:21 PM ----------

I never load any pics/files to the cloud or any other image load website. I did crop images from my Coolpix A, K1 + 24-70 @ 35mm and K1 + Zeiss Distagon 35. These shots with the K1 were captured before final image settings (clarity is at 0 and contrast at +4, etc).

Tell me please how can I upload these cropped images to the forum.

[Tas]

Tell me please how can I upload these cropped images to the forum.

Details for uploading photos can be found here mate: How to upload photos - BEGINNERS START HERE - PentaxForums.com

[BruceBanner]

Slightly off topic but I enjoy the idea of sharing settings such as the OP has done here.

I'm currently working on an Excel Spreadsheet that mimics the menu system in a Pentax camera (I'm using my K-1 as a guideline, but the KP doesn't vary too far from that layout either, in time I'll produce a KP Spreadsheet as well).

The idea behind this is similar to the OP, to share some settings, sharing is caring

From a personal perspective also, I tend to find 5 User modes not nearly enough, and when I know I'm going out the door to shoot in a very specific venue (rock concert) I have to adjust my User Modes, and in doing so can lose other scene settings that work well. By having this spreadsheet I can more accurately record those settings so after that gig I can revert back to what works well for 99% of the time etc.

So yeah, look out, should have it done in awhile

[alvaro_garcia]

Details for uploading photos can be found here mate: How to upload photos - BEGINNERS START HERE - PentaxForums.com

Ok, here we go.

I remind you that after adjusting the in-camera settings (increasing the "clarity" to +4 and lowering the "contrast" to 0), the look of the JPG images improved drastically.

These attachments only serve to show the resolution (detail) coming from the lenses on these two cameras:
- Fixed 28mm equiv. Nikkor prime on the Nikon Coolpix A
- 24-70mm Pentax zoom on the K1
- 35mm Zeiss prime on the K1

I do have dozens of test shots and I took what I saw amongst the best samples from every lens.

My final conclusion is that the 28mm equiv. Nikkor lens on the Coolpix A matches (and possibly outresolves) the resolution of its 16 Mp sensor. The 24-70mm Pentax zoom lens don't quite match the resolution of K1's 36 Mp sensor, being even behind of the Nikkor (it offers less detail). Finally, the 35mm Zeiss prime clearly outresolves the Pentax zoom lens, extracting much more detail resolution from K1's sensor.

The Nikkor is a killer, but the Coolpix camera is limited to 16 Mp.
The 24-70 does not deliver the required resolution for such sensor, it falls behind (it is a zoom ok, but it delivers less detail than the Nikkor!).
Finally the Zeiss is on line with the K1's resolution, delivering as much detail as it can.

---------- Post added 02-25-18 at 03:27 AM ----------

All cropped images from out of camera JPGs (at finest quality) without any post processing.

I named each photo with the camera model (Nikon Coolpix A or Pentax K1) and mentioning which lens on the K1 samples.

---------- Post added 02-25-18 at 04:15 AM ----------

The Coolpix A was shot at its fixed focal length (28mm equiv.)
The K1 + Pentax 24-70 was shot at 35mm focal length.
The K1 + Zeiss Distagon 35 was shot at its fixed focal length (35mm).

[BruceBanner]

I noted this camera to be prone for overexposure metering and initially very soft JPGs out of camera and therefore had to decrease the EV by -0.3 with the Pentax 2.8/24-70 lens and by -0.7 with the Zeiss lenses, as well as increasing the contrast.

However after many test shots I discovered the setting "clarity" and by increasing it to its maximum value +4 it gives the transparence and tridimensional look missing in the default settings.

So, after many test shots, these below are my personal settings (I find the "Bright" image mode the most realistic one in terms of color):

With Zeiss Distagon T* 2/35:
----------------------------------------------

- GENERIC SETTINGS:
EV: -0.7
Highlight Correction: Auto
Shadow Correction: Auto
Shake Reduction: Off
Clarity: +4

- BRIGHT:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- NATURAL:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- LANDSCAPE:
Satur: -1
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

With Pentax DFA 2.8/24-70:
--------------------------------------------

- GENERIC SETTINGS:
EV: -0.3
Highlight Correction: Auto
Shadow Correction: Auto
Shake Reduction: Off
Clarity: +4

- BRIGHT:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- NATURAL:
Satur: 0
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

- LANDSCAPE:
Satur: -1
Hue: 0
High/Low: 0
Contr: 0
Highlight: 0
Shadow: 0
Fine Sharp: +4

---------- Post added 02-24-18 at 04:35 PM ----------

By the way, the Pentax lens does not reach the necessary level to match the K-1's sensor. The Zeiss does: its sharpness and micro-contrast reaches far superior level and outresolves this resolution, whereas the Pentax lens does not.

I just tried these settings, what I will say is wow... talk about 'Data being processed' being a drawn out 'process', takes ages... a sec or two before you can shoot again! I dunno, I think you're prolly best to just shoot RAW (way quicker) and leave all the JPG processing stuff off, that way you can at least not be slowed down 'on the job' and retrieve any Clarity or Sharpness that you want Post Processing (even set up automatic import presets to apply that for you.

Just my 2 cents.