[reh321]

During the past week I have discovered that many PF regulars have spent the past year ignoring the KP - in particular, ignoring the existence of the "accelerator" chip included in the KP. Now, all of a sudden, they have come to understand that the KP has been preparation for the future of Pentax, because that "accelerator" will be included in the K-1ii, and some are close to freaking out about how that chip affects "raw" files. I do not own a KP, and once I get one, most likely I will accept JPEGs from the camera, but for the sake of these nervous folk, I'm here to ask questions:


What issues have you had in processing 'raw' files from the KP?


Have you noticed any differences between 'raw' files from the KP and any other 'raw' files you may have processed in the past?






And if its still OPEN, you might contribute to this thread
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/16-pentax-news-rumors/360628-pentax-k-1-...ns-leaked.html
because the number of people with KP experience seems to be really low.

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Last edited by reh321; 02-18-2018 at 06:00 PM. Reason: add link to K-1 mark ii thread

[jatrax]

Interesting question. And you are right, the KP has been largely ignored, maybe because no one could find a logical niche to stick it in. Not a continuation of either the K-3 line or the k-30 line, so what is it? Oh, just ignore it.

But you just might have nailed it, a technology preview / test for future development. Sometime back someone from Ricoh said that they would eventually be #1 in autofocus. Many thought that would happen in a couple months but it looks to me as if they are building and testing all of the pieces for that over a much longer time frame.

Sorry, that has little to do with the KP RAWs.

[sqrrl]

It works fine, lightroom doesn't like pentax in general due to market share I guess, but after a year of using a kp I kinda think everything else apsc sorta sucks for still images, I shoot dng btw, I've never shot pef
I generally only shoot raw, but the jpg's from the Kp are fine in you nail the colour balance and exposure.

Short version - for still images, it's pretty good.

[bkpix]

Been shooting with a KP since early October. Got it in large part because of its high-ISO abilities, and after some struggles, I love it.

I've wondered myself about the idea of baked-in RAW manipulations. When I go back and look at my RAW files shot at 20000 or more in DarkTable, I don't find anything to object to. Not every photo is perfect, but for the most part the KP files at high ISO are about as good as what I get from a FF Canon 6D, though some are better and some are worse. I don't find any weird artifacts or other problems that might indicate clumsy processing in the camera.

So whatever the accelerator unit is doing, I approve. My personal opinion is the objection to extra processing is overblown. ALL digital images are processed to some degree by the time they become a RAW file. Pentax has apparently figured out how to do that better. That's fine with me.

I think the KP has, in fact, been somewhat ignored by the market, largely because it goes off in an unexpected direction, trying to capture a bit of mirrorless vibe and not addressing the big, in many minds, Pentax flaw -- its relaxed autofocus system. I didn't like the KP at first when I rented it for a week last spring. It's a bit weird and different from the K-5, and the battery life is ridiculous. (The battery on my rental went dead on me after about 200 shots.) But after the camera had gone back to LensRentals.com and some time had passed and I had looked back again and again at the pictures I had made with it, I decided to buy one.

The RAW files, cooked or not, sold the camera. (The camera JPGs, by the way, are pretty excellent, too -- they do a good job of cleaning up hi-ISO noise that's still in the RAW files.)

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Last edited by bkpix; 02-18-2018 at 10:48 PM. Reason: one more thought

[k5astro]

I don't think they should be messing with RAW. in the Astrophotography crowd, one of the Sony camera's (maybe more) has the reputation as a "Star Eater" - apparently because the preprocess the raw image. They shouldn't call it raw if its not raw, and if its not raw then it should be a 3rd option on top of raw and jpeg

[UncleVanya]

Do we know for certain that the raw files are preprocessed?

Has anyone had the star eater problems that Sony had?

[MJKoski]

Long exposures have Sony like waxiness all over when looking at small details.