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04-30-2018, 06:59 PM - 5 Likes   #1
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Why I have decided not to upgrade.

I was seriously thinking about upgrading, but decided against it.

1. The camera will still be a first generation full frame for Pentax, so even with the improvements it is still a K-1. It will still have 33 focus points.

2. I shoot at ISO 100 more than 99 percent of the time. I have only changed the ISO for about 6 pictures out of the 1,600 or so that I have shot, so the extremely high ISO is not a selling point for me. I will keep using 100 ISO for my railway, truck and landscape photography. I was happy with Kodachrome 64 when I used my LX so if 64 was good for all the years I used SLR's then ISO 100 fine for me now.

3. The cost. It will cost me around $820 CDN once the tax and shipping is factored in, so it means I am paying one third more than the price of a new mark ii. I feel I would rather save that money for a second generation Pentax full frame camera. We don't know how much a second generation camera will cost, but being retired I feel its best for me to try to save as much as I can for the next generation full frame camera.

4. The inconvenience. The upgrade window is at the wrong time of the year.

5. The find the K-1 focus acquisition is faster in the warmer weather. I have not had any focus issues since the temperatures have become warmer. I am going to try to make some kind of a cover for the winter that will cover both the camera and lens, and more than likely design it so I can use a chemical hand warmer with it.

6. I am more than satisfied with the colour. I find that many of my RAW pictures need little to no adjustment. I like the Pentax RAW files better than the Nikon RAW files. I had to do so much adjustment with my Nikon RAW files that I always shot RAW and JPG, and just used the JPG when I shared or printed pictures. I only shoot RAW with the K-1, and am extremely satisfied with the quality.

04-30-2018, 07:22 PM - 2 Likes   #2
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Reason #2 certainly eliminates one of the biggest reasons for you to upgrade.

I'm the opposite of you on ISO. I was always going for high-ISO films despite the gravelly grain. Currently, about 30% of the images I take are at ISO 3200 or higher.

For me, a boost in high-ISO is like getting a brand new camera (for 2/3rds less than a brand new camera).
04-30-2018, 07:54 PM   #3
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I think I'll be sticking with my K-1, as is. I've been happy with it's performance.
04-30-2018, 08:54 PM - 1 Like   #4
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"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Seems to be good motto, and one I'll most likely be sticking with. Like Gmounk, I tend to be a low ISO shooter, and RAW shooter. And looking at the most recent post "Pentax K-1 II vs K-1 Noise Performance" I didn't see a significant enough difference to make me want to jump at the upgrade. Now that's not to say I won't. I know there's more PF testing results to come. I'll be curious to see if there's any significant changes (hopefully on the improvement side of the scale) to the AF. Not that I really have any complaints about the K-1's current AF but we always want more. And I do a lot of MF work, so the AF improvement would have to be significant to sway me.

And like Gmounk, I'm not quite ready to part with my $500+ (shipping, tax, etc) just yet. If, ultimately, the differences are subtitle enough, then I'll save my money for putting towards the next generation FF body. And, ultimately, there is no doubt that Ricoh/Pentax will be getting my money. But it's more a question of when.

04-30-2018, 09:10 PM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by GMounk Quote
4. The inconvenience. The upgrade window is at the wrong time of the year.
Down here in the U.S., it falls right at tax refund time when many people are in the buying mood.

That being said, your reasons bear weight for your situation and NOT buying is a wise decision. I also have my reasons for not buying a K-1. They are different from yours with little overlap, but similarly important to me.


Steve
04-30-2018, 10:33 PM - 1 Like   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by lesmore49 Quote
I think I'll be sticking with my K-1, as is. I've been happy with it's performance.
QuoteOriginally posted by GMounk Quote
The cost.
QuoteOriginally posted by GMounk Quote
The inconvenience
QuoteOriginally posted by GMounk Quote
I shoot at ISO 100 more than 99 percent of the time.
QuoteOriginally posted by david94903 Quote
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
I'm with you guys!
04-30-2018, 11:30 PM   #7
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So far I'm a little bit (just a little bit) concerned about color rendition from my K1, compared to Nikon. The colors from Nikon (the greens [grass and vegetation in general] and blues [skies]) in landscapes are "crisper" in some circunstances, especially with little sun / in cloudy days.

Pentax claims an improvement in color rendition on its new K1-II, mentioning especifically those two colors for landscape photography.

Has anyone compared both models with regards to color rendition? That's my main doubt whether considering or not to jump for the K1-II. The other considerations / specifications on the new model are irrelevant for me, as I don't shoot above ISO 400 (I shoot 99.9% of times at ISO 100) and I never use Pixel Shift (I never use tripod and I don't trust in the announced "hand held Pixel Shift", as it's physically impossible to get perfect images without artifacts and some blur objects and, besides, if any improvement, this will only be noticeable zooming-in and with a loop).


Last edited by alvaro_garcia; 05-01-2018 at 07:01 AM.
05-01-2018, 02:48 AM - 2 Likes   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by alvaro_garcia Quote
So far I'm a little bit (just a little bit) concerned about color rendition from my K1, compared to Nikon. The colors from Nikon (the greens [grass and vegetation in general] and blues [skies]) in landscapes are "crisper" in some circunstances, especially with little sun / in cloudy days.
If you're shooting JPEG, this is down to the in-camera colour profiling, plus the adjustable settings for contrast and saturation.

If you shoot RAW and post-process in something like Lightroom or Darktable, the colours are down to the camera profile selected (either the camera's embedded profile, or one of those supplied by the software). But, you can tweak the colour, contrast, clarity, tone curve and hue / saturation / luminance of each colour to your taste. It only needs to be done once, then saved as a preset, to give you exactly the colour reproduction you want every time
05-01-2018, 05:42 AM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by surfar Quote
I'm with you guys!
Hardly a surprising post from you. Surfar.
If I had the money I. Would upgrade to Pentax full frame.

I am not even considering something like a fuji x-h1

Regards
05-01-2018, 05:59 AM - 2 Likes   #10
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I'm still back and forth on this. Even though the accelerator chip is good for high ISO images, the lowest possible ISO image is still the best. I typically want to shoot high ISO for fast FPS settings. The K-1 simply doesn't have much of burst rate, especially if you ask it to check focus before each image in a burst, so I'm not sure how useful it would be.

Someday's I think I'm going to get it, someday's I think I should put money away for a really good landscape lens instead.
05-01-2018, 06:11 AM - 1 Like   #11
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I have the luxury of having two K-1 bodies, so there goes argument 1 and 4 already.
I use higher ISO's all the time, so argument 2 doesn't count for me either.
It doesn't get particularly cold in Australia, but I still don't think argument 5 is valid until the two bodies are compared side by side. I certainly intend to do that. I'll be going skiing in August.
I also don't think argument 6 holds water for the same reason.

As soon as C.R.Kennedy open the service in Australia I'm up for it.
05-01-2018, 06:37 AM - 3 Likes   #12
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Firmware upgrades are likely to be delivered only for the mk2 model from now on, at least new features should there be such on the list.
05-01-2018, 07:02 AM - 1 Like   #13
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It would be good, if Ricoh provided a camera menu option in Mk II where you could just switch the accelerator unit off or bypass it when the noise reduction is not desired. Otherwise, Mk II is like a Subaru car, with a permanent four-wheel drive whether you need it or not.
05-01-2018, 07:30 AM - 3 Likes   #14
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I think people can justify both ways . If you are a high iso user and and you can get a 1/2 or full stop gain with the mk II and an AF improvement its justifiable. If you are a low iso user and AF isn't that important probably no reason to upgrade.

Each to there own
05-01-2018, 07:38 AM   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
If you're shooting JPEG, this is down to the in-camera colour profiling, plus the adjustable settings for contrast and saturation.

If you shoot RAW and post-process in something like Lightroom or Darktable, the colours are down to the camera profile selected (either the camera's embedded profile, or one of those supplied by the software). But, you can tweak the colour, contrast, clarity, tone curve and hue / saturation / luminance of each colour to your taste. It only needs to be done once, then saved as a preset, to give you exactly the colour reproduction you want every time
I'm shooting essentially in JPG (finest / highest quality) because I hate "wasting" (spending) time in PP, unless it's really necessary to dramatically improve the dynamic range on shadows in low light / strong backlighting conditions.

At the beginning I noticed the JPGs to be quite flat, dull, weak, lifeless... right out of the camera and playing intensively with the contrast and brightness wasn't the right result to obtain good JPGs. But after several hundreds os test shots with the K1 I discovered that increasing the clarity to +4 (the writing speed slows down a lot though) the images came to life, the change was night and day, with much more sense of natural (not forced) contrast, colour saturation and "sharpness". The trick for getting quality JPGs is then setting the clarity to +4, nothing else.

However I still find the greens (vegetation) and blues (skies) a bit weak in certain conditions compared to Nikon. If I increase the colour saturation, the result is quite forced for all the other colours and if I play with the hue the whole colour chart "rotates" (changes) in one or other direction and I don't like that, I like the hue (tone) at 0.

I didn't know that I can save different image settings (contrast, clarity, tone curve -hue-, saturation, luminance) for each colour individually to my taste. How can I do that? (I'm going to look that at the owners manual once at home, but in the mean time you might help me on that).

Thanks!

Last edited by alvaro_garcia; 05-01-2018 at 07:50 AM.
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