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10-21-2018, 09:46 AM - 7 Likes   #1
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Mark II image processor impressions

I've had the Mark II since the end of August, and am forming some impressions of how it works and it's benefits. I shoot wildlife, and low light is a constant.

Ignore internet quick impressions. They are ridiculous and worth ignoring, and will likely misinform.

When you get a new camera body rework your post processing. This is why first impressions are useless; your presets and styles that you lovingly massaged for a previous body require the same care and attention for the new one.

My rants out of the way.

The ISO range on my K1 was set to 100-6400. The quality of 3200 iso shots were amazing, and I found that in certain conditions, ie. light colors in low light it was better to shoot iso 6400 1/1000 than iso 1600 1/250. I would get more detail with the higher iso sans movement blur. That was a revelation, my experience up to then was to lower the iso.

The initial setting started with 100-12800 on the Mark II then 51200 as I saw how good the high ISO shots were. The top end gets pretty bad except in unusual conditions. The extreme high ISO shots don't have fine detail but are workable in some cases.

The mid ISO shots are cleaned up nicely. I haven't seen problems with loss of detail, these are out of usable range with the K1, so anything i get is a bonus. The higher, 20,000 and up are noisy, and the processing doesn't smooth out the noise aggressively, but seems to bring out whole photo contrast and color. Zooming in there isn't much there, but zoomed out to full resolution gives a reasonable image. Some images had a definite application of contrast curves that brought the subject forward. This, remember, in low light conditions where the subject is hard to see.

I have also seen the whole thing falling off the edge, returning a muddy mess. Low light dark colors don't work. And oddly, often the image on the camera screen is worse than the raw file.

I'm very pleased. I am getting shots that i couldn't get with the K1, and definitely not with the K3. It is more than good post processing.

I'll post some examples when i get to my laptop.


Last edited by derekkite; 10-21-2018 at 09:52 AM.
10-21-2018, 10:28 AM - 4 Likes   #2
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QuoteOriginally posted by derekkite Quote
When you get a new camera body rework your post processing. This is why first impressions are useless; your presets and styles that you lovingly massaged for a previous body require the same care and attention for the new one
This line should get post of the year award.
10-21-2018, 10:35 AM - 1 Like   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by derekkite Quote
I've had the Mark II since the end of August, and am forming some impressions of how it works and it's benefits. I shoot wildlife, and low light is a constant.

Ignore internet quick impressions. They are ridiculous and worth ignoring, and will likely misinform.

When you get a new camera body rework your post processing. This is why first impressions are useless; your presets and styles that you lovingly massaged for a previous body require the same care and attention for the new one.

My rants out of the way.

The ISO range on my K1 was set to 100-6400. The quality of 3200 iso shots were amazing, and I found that in certain conditions, ie. light colors in low light it was better to shoot iso 6400 1/1000 than iso 1600 1/250. I would get more detail with the higher iso sans movement blur. That was a revelation, my experience up to then was to lower the iso.

The initial setting started with 100-12800 on the Mark II then 51200 as I saw how good the high ISO shots were. The top end gets pretty bad except in unusual conditions. The extreme high ISO shots don't have fine detail but are workable in some cases.

The mid ISO shots are cleaned up nicely. I haven't seen problems with loss of detail, these are out of usable range with the K1, so anything i get is a bonus. The higher, 20,000 and up are noisy, and the processing doesn't smooth out the noise aggressively, but seems to bring out whole photo contrast and color. Zooming in there isn't much there, but zoomed out to full resolution gives a reasonable image. Some images had a definite application of contrast curves that brought the subject forward. This, remember, in low light conditions where the subject is hard to see.

I have also seen the whole thing falling off the edge, returning a muddy mess. Low light dark colors don't work. And oddly, often the image on the camera screen is worse than the raw file.

I'm very pleased. I am getting shots that i couldn't get with the K1, and definitely not with the K3. It is more than good post processing.

I'll post some examples when i get to my laptop.
Thanks, good to get some sensible real-life impressions rather than test charts in studio "truths".

And I would like to re-iterate this:

QuoteOriginally posted by derekkite Quote
When you get a new camera body rework your post processing. This is why first impressions are useless; your presets and styles that you lovingly massaged for a previous body require the same care and attention for the new one.
It can't be said too many times.
10-21-2018, 11:34 AM   #4
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So in essence are you finding that the improved color information (higher ISO) trumps the slight loss of detail?

10-21-2018, 11:49 AM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by HarisF1 Quote
So in essence are you finding that the improved color information (higher ISO) trumps the slight loss of detail?
This is at high iso, higher than 20,000. There isn't much detail to be had.
10-21-2018, 01:12 PM   #6
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Thanks so much for posting this real-life supplement to the half-baked, at times contradictory, and arguably biased treatment that the Mark II output has received on sites like dpreview.com. Your observations may not satisfy scientific-objectivity criteria (and you are not making any such claims, of course), but DPReview has lost so much of its credibility in that department that your comments read pretty uplifting I should say, Derek.
10-21-2018, 02:22 PM   #7
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Derek, thanks for posting this... it's a very useful "real world" user report.

I don't own either the K-1 or the K-1II, but I've spent a great deal of time playing with files from both in Darktable. My conclusions were more-or-less similar to yours.

I think there are some (very) isolated cases (where K-1II files taken at ISO levels just at or above where the noise reduction kicks in) where some extremely fine detail can be slightly "obscured" (rather than lost) at large reproduction sizes, but this is generally recoverable in post-processing. Even if it isn't, I believe the K-1II offers incredible image quality at a wide range of ISO settings, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy one myself

10-22-2018, 12:34 AM   #8
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From analyzing images, K1 colors balance is slightly shifted at high ISO compared to low ISO settings.The K1 II corrects that. High ISO images don't contain much detail anyway, so it doesn't make sense to keep high frequency noise anyway, noise reduction is adapted to ISO setting, which is not a bad thing. However, using low ISO is the best for getting high image quality and the original K1 works well at low ISO, and is now relatively cheap for a 36Mp full frame camera.
10-22-2018, 02:59 PM - 2 Likes   #9
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Here are some high iso examples. Note that most of these shots aren't more than record shots or of interest here.

ISO 25600, F8, 1/1250. Lots of detail and color. This is straight raw to jpeg without any curves applies.



Iso 16000, f8 1/1250. This is where I started to notice how the image processor brings out the subject. A slight application of a base curve makes it pop even more.



Of all these photos, this is the one I wanted, a three toed woodpecker. This has nothing applied, a curve to bring out the colors, and some noise reduction, and some smoothing of the background will make something worthwhile. This is ƒ/8 1/1250 450mm ISO16000.



ƒ/8 1/1250 450mm ISO25600. Nothing to write home about, but a bit of luminence noise reduction would make make a decent record shot.



I didn't expect anything from this, and it doesn't crop to anything reasonable, but I think this is a good example of the noise algorithms in action. The subject and tree details look like a bird, identifiable, and cedar tree. ƒ/8 1/2500 450mm ISO12800



ƒ/8 1/1250 450mm ISO40000. 40000 iso. This is before any noise or sharpening processing.

11-11-2018, 10:06 AM   #10
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I shoot the K1ii both for paid work and leisure and I don't get why anyone gives it hate. The Images are beautiful, sharp and detailed. I shoot up to 6400 because I tend to shoot with flash if it gets really dark. The camera holds up perfectly.
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