[Henrico]

Last week I got my new KP as a replacement of my good old K-01 that passed away with a shutter stuck...

This Saturday I went out with it early in the morning on a dull winter day . I took some old light weight M lenses with me and took some shots with them most of the time two stops down. I shot RAW and developed those to JPG's trying to recover as much as possible that was caught in the dynamic range. So where the out of camera JPG's showed bright skies I stretched the capture range to get some texture in the bright clouds and dark fields. That results in paint-style pictures that I really like.

I was surprised that even at a 24 MP cropped sensor these old cheap lenses deliver enough sharpness stopped two clicks down. Even my M28 delivers very crispy and contrasty pictures at the 5.6 - 8 range.

I think my KP and I will become good friends when I want to travel light. Manual focusing feels even more spot on than on my K1ii.

Some shots I took can be found here: Henrico's Album: New KP with M-lenses - PentaxForums.com

Enjoy!

[stevebrot]

I was surprised that even at a 24 MP cropped sensor these old cheap lenses deliver enough sharpness stopped two clicks down. Even my M28 delivers very crispy and contrasty pictures at the 5.6 - 8 range.

That has been my experience as well, though with the note that performance wide open is about the same as my more modern lenses. Good lenses tend to get better when provided the headroom that a higher resolution sensor offers.


Steve

[Ole]

You created some nice results with these old lenses! Thanks for posting!

[shyrsio]

The KP is holding on strong even after almost 4 years in the market, punching well above its category.

[mikesbike]

I think my KP and I will become good friends when I want to travel light. Manual focusing feels even more spot on than on my K1ii.

I have a similar experience and as others have noted also, who have both cameras. I recently acquired the K-1 II, but have had the KP for about 3 years. I am very impressed with the K-1 II, and using the excellent FF lenses I bought years back of shooting film. Though I am now very fond of my new FF setup, I still love my KP! Pentax hit a winner with this design.

[ramseybuckeye]

Old lenses + new camera = great results, as long as it is in the right hands. Well done!

[simsburyphoto]

The KP really seems to be made for small prime lenses.

[Michail_P]

Some interesting results from the combo. I especially like the windmill photo.

[iheiramo]

Congrats on KP. From what I've seen it's capeable camera. From my experience I would expect sharper, or clearer, results from that combo, so some of the potential of your gear is lost somewhere. I looked thru the exif of several shots and you have kept exposure fast enough that it can't be due to motion blur. Therefore I suspect software issue and quality of conversion. Maybe there is something where you could easily and cheaply upgrade the output of your gear.

For example this is K5 and M28/2.8 shot in RAW and edited tp jpg in Capture One:

[Henrico]

@iheiramo, all, thnx for your replies.

Pictures shown here on the forum are just 1280 x 850...

As mentioned I used the entire dynamic range (DR) of the histogram to develop the shots. That logically results in lower contrast that I push up a bit in post. I also set sharpening and noise reduction in Adobe RAW on zero to achieve a clean16 bit basis in post. In PS I only use low sharpening (500% / 0.2 / 2) in unsharpening mask to avoid artifacts. So I avoid unreal sharpness as much as possible. That is the paint-style of those images.

By using the entire DR in back-light situations there always are some "DR artifacts" in harsh situations (black tacks against a bright sky). But I was surprised how much even my cheapest M28 could resolve in such challenging scenery.

I put a 100% crop of the back light shot that shows the true sharpness that little lens delivers...

[EnglishBob]

Thanks for sharing your album.

[Jonathan Mac]

Old Pentax lenses are generally extremely capable and almost any lens worth it's salt should perform well, at least in terms of sharpness and contrast, at f/5.6