K-1II review... Opportunity to get banned on DPR

reh321 · 05-11-2018, 10:48 AM - **2 Likes**

Originally posted by photoptimist

That's a good point. Yet I can understand why Ricoh did what they did for the following reasons:

1. the use of NR on K-3 RAWs did not seem to prompt any outrage.
2. the use of the accelerator NR on K-70 RAWs did not seem to prompt any outrage.
3. the use of the accelerator NR on KP RAWs did not seem to prompt any outrage.

I made the same mistake. I was flabbergasted when the initial response to the Mark ii was "so what?", when few respondents even noticed the 'accelerator' in the list of new features.

Although the KP had been out for a year, K-1 users had apparently paid little attention to it. Apparently there is a big gap between KP users and K-1 users. Perhaps the queue issues prevented K-3 users from looking further. In retrospect, perhaps releasing a K-3iii with the 'accelerator' would have made more sense.

Personally, I believe the 'accelerator' is revolutionary, but it may make more sense at the K-70 end than at the K-1 end. Every year I see inquires from parents / grandparents wanting to improve the pictures they take of indoor sports, and every year I see them creep sadly away when person after person sings praise to long f/2.8 lenses, because it is hard to justify spending $$$$ for that single purpose. But put a regular 55-300mm lens on a K-70 in TAv mode, and you have a sub-thousand-dollar purchase that can meet that need .... and a camera upgrade was going to be needed fairly soon anyway. This is a use case that justifies the 'accelerator', involving people who aren't interested in accurately recording pimples nor in spending time with LightRoom. A camera which provides good looking JPEGs is just what they need .... but I'm not sure Pentax marketing caught many people's attention this past year.

I'm not a K-1 user, so I don't know if there are similar use cases justifying implementing the 'accelerator' in the K-1 .... especially if most K-1users enjoy LightRoom time.

swanlefitte · 05-11-2018, 11:03 AM - **5 Likes**

A Rishi quote showing how indignant he becomes if you question the methodology.
"We did check it carefully. You think we'd have asked Pentax officially for a firmware update to turn off Raw NR if simply setting 'NR' to 'off' remedied the issue?

If that's your level of confidence in us as reviewers, why are you here?"

It seems that these questions reveal exactly what our confidence level should be. How does he think confidence comes about?
I am there specifically to evaluate the integrity due to it being a main source of reference on other sites.

Kunzite · 05-11-2018, 11:58 AM - **2 Likes**

Confidence is built by banning people if deemed too critical. Definitely not by addressing valid criticism.

---------- Post added 11-05-18 at 09:59 PM ----------

Originally posted by reh321

Although the KP had been out for a year, K-1 users had apparently paid little attention to it. Apparently there is a big gap between KP users and K-1 users. Perhaps the queue issues prevented K-3 users from looking further. In retrospect, perhaps releasing a K-3iii with the 'accelerator' would have made more sense.

My theory is that people paid little attention to the accelerator in the K-70 and KP because the results could only be interpreted as excellent.
Once we had an excuse to say the accelerator is bad...

**RGlasel** · 05-11-2018, 12:19 PM - **3 Likes**

Originally posted by reh321

I was flabbergasted when the initial response to the Mark ii was "so what?",

It's not logical, that's for sure. I'm overwhelmed with all the tangents in this thread that don't correlate to what people see in photographs they didn't take. Which is the most important thing, the day my own mother doesn't want to look at my photographs is the day my equipment goes on Kijijii. (My wife and kids have already stopped pretending to be interested).

1. I know what a fast Fourier transform is used for but calculus intimidates me, so I don't pretend to know how to demux a RAW file. I know for a fact that if you separate an image into individual wavelengths and plot it on a 2-D graph, the human brain no longer sees the image. Maybe a FFT will help decipher how the Pentax accelerator chip does noise reduction, but that has zero correlation to image quality. The only thing that should matter if you want other people to look at your photographs is how well the colour tone, brightness, contrast and composition of the image produce favorable reactions in the people looking at your photographs. Finer resolution helps, sometimes, but only if the photographer and his/her equipment didn't screw up the other four aspects.

2. If anyone wants a real world, carefully thought out and executed (maybe not perfect, but definitely better than DPR's poor effort) comparison, there is a home page article at Pentax Forums that does an excellent job of comparing noisy images produced by K-1 and K-1 II. We can certainly argue about whether or not tiny pieces of the K-1 image that have different colours than surrounding tiny bits are real dust particles or random bits of noise, but there can be no argument that the accelerator chip produces better colour in noisy images. Being able to get close to the same results using external noise reduction software just shows that the designers of the accelerator chip knew what they were doing. What the accelerator chip does is give the photographer a full stop of high quality noise reduction without any extra effort or time. It might also be worthwhile looking at a work of art at high magnification, so you can get a better appreciation for how lumpy the ink or paint is and how rough and dirty the paper or canvas is.

3. If DPR is relying on clicks from current or potential Pentax users to pay their bills, they are truly lost. On the other hand, Sony, Nikon and Canon users are just as neurotic as Pentax users, so if DPR can convince those people (who greatly outnumber Pentax users) to click on DPR's Pentax reviews, the great expense spent to produce these high quality reviews might pay for itself. The review this thread revolves around is designed to calm the fears of people who don't own Pentax cameras, so they can convince themselves that they have made a good choice in the equipment they either own or wish they owned. If DPR reviews have the power to kill sales for Pentax cameras, Ricoh would have had no choice but to pull the plug on the Pentax line a long time ago (a couple of years ago is almost forever in Internet years). Aliens don't land in the middle of camera stores with valid credit cards; everyone who buys any brand of camera has pre-existing preferences and will measure any review against how it addresses those preferences, deducing for themselves whether the review is clean or noisy. The #1 problem with reviews is that the reviewer believes they know more than their readers.

4. It is obvious to me that Pentax cameras are designed by engineers, not marketers. Any marketer worth her salt knows that you can't force users to do something because it is good for them, you have to offer a choice so the user believes they are making the best choice, even if the choices provided are constructed so the best choice is painfully obvious. After all, why have an "M" mode on cameras with 86,000 segment metering? I'm a marketer, not an engineer, if I had designed the K-1 II, not only would you be able to switch off the accelerator chip, I would have told the engineers to program A/B comparisons in LiveView that make non-accelerated photography look like the worst crap ever to come out of a Polaroid camera.

mohb · 05-11-2018, 01:23 PM - **2 Likes**

Originally posted by Kunzite

My theory is that people paid little attention to the accelerator in the K-70 and KP because the results could only be interpreted as excellent.
Once we had an excuse to say the accelerator is bad...

Originally posted by RGlasel

I would have told the engineers to program A/B comparisons in LiveView that make non-accelerated photography look like the worst crap ever to come out of a Polaroid camera.

It's surprising how much noise the 300%ers make.

Not a Number · 05-11-2018, 01:58 PM - **2 Likes**

Originally posted by RGlasel

The only thing that should matter if you want other people to look at your photographs is how well the colour tone, brightness, contrast and composition of the image produce favorable reactions in the people looking at your photographs. Finer resolution helps, sometimes, but only if the photographer and his/her equipment didn't screw up the other four aspects.

As I like to say: people should more concerned about quality images rather than image quality.

**monochrome** · 05-11-2018, 02:13 PM

Originally posted by mohb

It's surprising how much noise the 300%ers make.

And I thought the 100%’ers were the noisy ones

swanlefitte · 05-11-2018, 02:34 PM - **4 Likes**

Just to inject a little humor:
I think I found out whats really going on by running some filters on the upper right quadrant.

SSGGeezer · 05-11-2018, 02:41 PM

Originally posted by swanlefitte

I think I found out whats really going on by running some filters on the upper right quadrant.

What are you doing with my Anteater?

**monochrome** · 05-11-2018, 02:53 PM - **2 Likes**

Originally posted by swanlefitte

Just to inject a little humor:
I think I found out whats really going on by running some filters on the upper right quadrant.

Actually, that’s Otis, not an Anteater - proof positive that the Accelerator messes with the RAW detail.

swanlefitte · 05-11-2018, 02:58 PM - **1 Like**

In case anyone doesn't get it, its a reference to this.
Busted! - PentaxForums.com

**clackers** · 05-11-2018, 03:09 PM

Originally posted by photoptimist

There's zero evidence of "smoothing" in bclaff's analysis because bclaff's analysis does not look at an image with any signal in it. There's only evidence of noise reduction. There's an assumption that noise reduction requires smoothing but that is unproven and may be false.

What's your best bet on what the accelerator chip does, PO?

Some kind of frequency dependent NR like Dolby for audio?

Shivaess · 05-11-2018, 05:27 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by clackers

What's your best bet on what the accelerator chip does, PO?

Some kind of frequency dependent NR like Dolby for audio?

It would be really interesting if it did something with data that isn’t available when we get to the post processing step. Then it would legitimately be another different alternative to the normal workflow. New choices make for advantages!

rawr · 05-11-2018, 06:16 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by clackers

What's your best bet on what the accelerator chip does

I'm keen to hear this too.

Note that the current batch of K-1 II test images look a lot better than the original ones posted by DPR, particularly at ISO 6400/ low-light and above.

**clackers** · 05-11-2018, 06:55 PM - **4 Likes**

Originally posted by rawr

I'm keen to hear this too.

Note that the current batch of K-1 II test images look a lot better than the original ones posted by DPR, particularly at ISO 6400/ low-light and above.

Yes, but the damage has already been done by Rishi and the rest of the DPR crew, right?

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05-11-2018, 10:48 AM - 2 Likes	#226
reh321 Pentaxian Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: South Bend, IN, USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 23,177	Originally posted by photoptimist That's a good point. Yet I can understand why Ricoh did what they did for the following reasons: 1. the use of NR on K-3 RAWs did not seem to prompt any outrage. 2. the use of the accelerator NR on K-70 RAWs did not seem to prompt any outrage. 3. the use of the accelerator NR on KP RAWs did not seem to prompt any outrage. I made the same mistake. I was flabbergasted when the initial response to the Mark ii was "so what?", when few respondents even noticed the 'accelerator' in the list of new features. Although the KP had been out for a year, K-1 users had apparently paid little attention to it. Apparently there is a big gap between KP users and K-1 users. Perhaps the queue issues prevented K-3 users from looking further. In retrospect, perhaps releasing a K-3iii with the 'accelerator' would have made more sense. Personally, I believe the 'accelerator' is revolutionary, but it may make more sense at the K-70 end than at the K-1 end. Every year I see inquires from parents / grandparents wanting to improve the pictures they take of indoor sports, and every year I see them creep sadly away when person after person sings praise to long f/2.8 lenses, because it is hard to justify spending $$$$ for that single purpose. But put a regular 55-300mm lens on a K-70 in TAv mode, and you have a sub-thousand-dollar purchase that can meet that need .... and a camera upgrade was going to be needed fairly soon anyway. This is a use case that justifies the 'accelerator', involving people who aren't interested in accurately recording pimples nor in spending time with LightRoom. A camera which provides good looking JPEGs is just what they need .... but I'm not sure Pentax marketing caught many people's attention this past year. I'm not a K-1 user, so I don't know if there are similar use cases justifying implementing the 'accelerator' in the K-1 .... especially if most K-1users enjoy LightRoom time.

05-11-2018, 11:03 AM - 5 Likes	#227
swanlefitte Pentaxian Join Date: May 2015 Location: Minneapolis Photos: Gallery Posts: 4,068	A Rishi quote showing how indignant he becomes if you question the methodology. "We did check it carefully. You think we'd have asked Pentax officially for a firmware update to turn off Raw NR if simply setting 'NR' to 'off' remedied the issue? If that's your level of confidence in us as reviewers, why are you here?" It seems that these questions reveal exactly what our confidence level should be. How does he think confidence comes about? I am there specifically to evaluate the integrity due to it being a main source of reference on other sites.

05-11-2018, 11:58 AM - 2 Likes	#228
Kunzite Pentaxian Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Romania Posts: 15,132	Confidence is built by banning people if deemed too critical. Definitely not by addressing valid criticism. ---------- Post added 11-05-18 at 09:59 PM ---------- Originally posted by reh321 Although the KP had been out for a year, K-1 users had apparently paid little attention to it. Apparently there is a big gap between KP users and K-1 users. Perhaps the queue issues prevented K-3 users from looking further. In retrospect, perhaps releasing a K-3iii with the 'accelerator' would have made more sense. My theory is that people paid little attention to the accelerator in the K-70 and KP because the results could only be interpreted as excellent. Once we had an excuse to say the accelerator is bad...

05-11-2018, 12:19 PM - 3 Likes	#229
RGlasel Site Supporter Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Saskatoon Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,228	Originally posted by reh321 I was flabbergasted when the initial response to the Mark ii was "so what?", It's not logical, that's for sure. I'm overwhelmed with all the tangents in this thread that don't correlate to what people see in photographs they didn't take. Which is the most important thing, the day my own mother doesn't want to look at my photographs is the day my equipment goes on Kijijii. (My wife and kids have already stopped pretending to be interested). 1. I know what a fast Fourier transform is used for but calculus intimidates me, so I don't pretend to know how to demux a RAW file. I know for a fact that if you separate an image into individual wavelengths and plot it on a 2-D graph, the human brain no longer sees the image. Maybe a FFT will help decipher how the Pentax accelerator chip does noise reduction, but that has zero correlation to image quality. The only thing that should matter if you want other people to look at your photographs is how well the colour tone, brightness, contrast and composition of the image produce favorable reactions in the people looking at your photographs. Finer resolution helps, sometimes, but only if the photographer and his/her equipment didn't screw up the other four aspects. 2. If anyone wants a real world, carefully thought out and executed (maybe not perfect, but definitely better than DPR's poor effort) comparison, there is a home page article at Pentax Forums that does an excellent job of comparing noisy images produced by K-1 and K-1 II. We can certainly argue about whether or not tiny pieces of the K-1 image that have different colours than surrounding tiny bits are real dust particles or random bits of noise, but there can be no argument that the accelerator chip produces better colour in noisy images. Being able to get close to the same results using external noise reduction software just shows that the designers of the accelerator chip knew what they were doing. What the accelerator chip does is give the photographer a full stop of high quality noise reduction without any extra effort or time. It might also be worthwhile looking at a work of art at high magnification, so you can get a better appreciation for how lumpy the ink or paint is and how rough and dirty the paper or canvas is. 3. If DPR is relying on clicks from current or potential Pentax users to pay their bills, they are truly lost. On the other hand, Sony, Nikon and Canon users are just as neurotic as Pentax users, so if DPR can convince those people (who greatly outnumber Pentax users) to click on DPR's Pentax reviews, the great expense spent to produce these high quality reviews might pay for itself. The review this thread revolves around is designed to calm the fears of people who don't own Pentax cameras, so they can convince themselves that they have made a good choice in the equipment they either own or wish they owned. If DPR reviews have the power to kill sales for Pentax cameras, Ricoh would have had no choice but to pull the plug on the Pentax line a long time ago (a couple of years ago is almost forever in Internet years). Aliens don't land in the middle of camera stores with valid credit cards; everyone who buys any brand of camera has pre-existing preferences and will measure any review against how it addresses those preferences, deducing for themselves whether the review is clean or noisy. The #1 problem with reviews is that the reviewer believes they know more than their readers. 4. It is obvious to me that Pentax cameras are designed by engineers, not marketers. Any marketer worth her salt knows that you can't force users to do something because it is good for them, you have to offer a choice so the user believes they are making the best choice, even if the choices provided are constructed so the best choice is painfully obvious. After all, why have an "M" mode on cameras with 86,000 segment metering? I'm a marketer, not an engineer, if I had designed the K-1 II, not only would you be able to switch off the accelerator chip, I would have told the engineers to program A/B comparisons in LiveView that make non-accelerated photography look like the worst crap ever to come out of a Polaroid camera.

05-11-2018, 01:23 PM - 2 Likes	#230
mohb Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Photos: Albums Posts: 1,912	Originally posted by Kunzite My theory is that people paid little attention to the accelerator in the K-70 and KP because the results could only be interpreted as excellent. Once we had an excuse to say the accelerator is bad... Originally posted by RGlasel I would have told the engineers to program A/B comparisons in LiveView that make non-accelerated photography look like the worst crap ever to come out of a Polaroid camera. It's surprising how much noise the 300%ers make.

05-11-2018, 01:58 PM - 2 Likes	#231
Not a Number Moderator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Venice, CA Posts: 10,526	Originally posted by RGlasel The only thing that should matter if you want other people to look at your photographs is how well the colour tone, brightness, contrast and composition of the image produce favorable reactions in the people looking at your photographs. Finer resolution helps, sometimes, but only if the photographer and his/her equipment didn't screw up the other four aspects. As I like to say: people should more concerned about quality images rather than image quality.

05-11-2018, 02:13 PM	#232
monochrome Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Working From Home Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,276	Originally posted by mohb It's surprising how much noise the 300%ers make. And I thought the 100%’ers were the noisy ones

05-11-2018, 02:34 PM - 4 Likes	#233
swanlefitte Pentaxian Join Date: May 2015 Location: Minneapolis Photos: Gallery Posts: 4,068	Just to inject a little humor: I think I found out whats really going on by running some filters on the upper right quadrant.

05-11-2018, 02:41 PM	#234
SSGGeezer Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Indiana, U.S. Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,845	Originally posted by swanlefitte I think I found out whats really going on by running some filters on the upper right quadrant. What are you doing with my Anteater?

05-11-2018, 02:53 PM - 2 Likes	#235
monochrome Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Working From Home Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,276	Originally posted by swanlefitte Just to inject a little humor: I think I found out whats really going on by running some filters on the upper right quadrant. Actually, that’s Otis, not an Anteater - proof positive that the Accelerator messes with the RAW detail.

05-11-2018, 02:58 PM - 1 Like	#236
swanlefitte Pentaxian Join Date: May 2015 Location: Minneapolis Photos: Gallery Posts: 4,068	In case anyone doesn't get it, its a reference to this. Busted! - PentaxForums.com

05-11-2018, 03:09 PM	#237
clackers Otis Memorial Pentaxian Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Melbourne Photos: Albums Posts: 16,397	Originally posted by photoptimist There's zero evidence of "smoothing" in bclaff's analysis because bclaff's analysis does not look at an image with any signal in it. There's only evidence of noise reduction. There's an assumption that noise reduction requires smoothing but that is unproven and may be false. What's your best bet on what the accelerator chip does, PO? Some kind of frequency dependent NR like Dolby for audio?

05-11-2018, 05:27 PM - 1 Like	#238
Shivaess Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: VA Posts: 28	Originally posted by clackers What's your best bet on what the accelerator chip does, PO? Some kind of frequency dependent NR like Dolby for audio? It would be really interesting if it did something with data that isn’t available when we get to the post processing step. Then it would legitimately be another different alternative to the normal workflow. New choices make for advantages!

05-11-2018, 06:16 PM - 1 Like	#239
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	Originally posted by clackers What's your best bet on what the accelerator chip does I'm keen to hear this too. Note that the current batch of K-1 II test images look a lot better than the original ones posted by DPR, particularly at ISO 6400/ low-light and above.

05-11-2018, 06:55 PM - 4 Likes	#240
clackers Otis Memorial Pentaxian Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Melbourne Photos: Albums Posts: 16,397	Originally posted by rawr I'm keen to hear this too. Note that the current batch of K-1 II test images look a lot better than the original ones posted by DPR, particularly at ISO 6400/ low-light and above. Yes, but the damage has already been done by Rishi and the rest of the DPR crew, right?