[bobbotron]

Received the K3iii two days ago. Loving it! I'm steeping up from the original K3. Still early to give it a long term review, but my initial thoughts, :

• everything is better. I've always loved my K3, and have no qualms with it at all. It's a great camera in every respect. The K3iii is dialed up in every direction
• good ergonomics - it feels a lot like my K3, button placement is still great, the learning curve is very low.
• I LOVE THE FOCUS ADJUSTMENT JOYSTICK - I didn't think I'd use it, I thought this was a silly gimmick. Holy wow I was wrong, it's amazing. Incredibly intuitive and I like that you can reset the focus by pushing it in. Insanely useful.
• Focus is awesome. I had the 100mm DFA (non WR) lens on it today, this was a real eye opener, the focus speed is way faster with this long throw lens.
• Higher FPS is cool. I had no qualms with the high drive mode on the K3, but the K3iii is noticeably snappier. Good stuff!

A lot of reviewers feel the need to also balance their reviews with things they wish the camera could do better. I'm not going to do it, I really think it's awesome. It's a flat out great camera!

[Painter]

I completely agree with your initial assessment. Once I received mine I just started using it with the main thing I needed to reprogram myself with was the playback button otherwise you can go straight into using it from a K3. It’s an amazing camera what else can I say.

[TER-OR]

The trigger is really sensitive! I was triggering rapid fire exposures much too frequently, and had to switch to slower drive. It's really intuitive for focus though I did have a bit of a surprise with that selective focus joystick knocking me off center once. That was confusing.

[suncomp]

Received the K3iii two days ago. Loving it! I'm steeping up from the original K3. Still early to give it a long term review, but my initial thoughts, :

• everything is better. I've always loved my K3, and have no qualms with it at all. It's a great camera in every respect. The K3iii is dialed up in every direction
• good ergonomics - it feels a lot like my K3, button placement is still great, the learning curve is very low.
• I LOVE THE FOCUS ADJUSTMENT JOYSTICK - I didn't think I'd use it, I thought this was a silly gimmick. Holy wow I was wrong, it's amazing. Incredibly intuitive and I like that you can reset the focus by pushing it in. Insanely useful.
• Focus is awesome. I had the 100mm DFA (non WR) lens on it today, this was a real eye opener, the focus speed is way faster with this long throw lens.
• Higher FPS is cool. I had no qualms with the high drive mode on the K3, but the K3iii is noticeably snappier. Good stuff!

A lot of reviewers feel the need to also balance their reviews with things they wish the camera could do better. I'm not going to do it, I really think it's awesome. It's a flat out great camera!

Hello. Tell us about the color reproduction in the new camera. It is very interesting to find out whether the red color has been corrected and whether black is really really black now ??? The Pentax had the worst red color. He was aiming for the crimson. What is the accuracy of the tracking focus ??? What about the video ???

[bobbotron]

The trigger is really sensitive! I was triggering rapid fire exposures much too frequently, and had to switch to slower drive. It's really intuitive for focus though I did have a bit of a surprise with that selective focus joystick knocking me off center once. That was confusing.

I've been digging it. I use back button autofocus, I find it works well together. Ha, I haven't knocked the joystick yet, but good tip to look out for!

---------- Post added 09-02-21 at 04:08 PM ----------

Hello. Tell us about the color reproduction in the new camera. It is very interesting to find out whether the red color has been corrected and whether black is really really black now ??? The Pentax had the worst red color. He was aiming for the crimson. What is the accuracy of the tracking focus ??? What about the video ???

I'm not sure your questions are in good faith.

That said, I am enjoying everything.


Video: I am not a videographer, photography is my hobby. I am not using this as a video camera.
Colours: a poor operator blames their camera on this, it's easy to adjust it in post. That said, seems good to me.
AF: pretty darn good. Honestly I shoot film cameras mostly so I'm easily impressed.
Black is black - again see colour.

[UncleVanya]

I’ve not been happy with red channel in the k50 and k-3 - it seemed to over expose earlier than the other channels. The KP is better in this respect. I learned to underexpose more with red subjects on those earlier cameras. This didn’t happen on the ccd sensor k100d super btw.

As far as blacks… I don’t remember any problem with any of my Pentax cameras with good exposure. But to be fair I do under expose a little more often even without strong reds.

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

I’ve not been happy with red channel in the k50 and k-3 - it seemed to over expose earlier than the other channels. The KP is better in this respect. I learned to underexpose more with red subjects on those earlier cameras. This didn’t happen on the ccd sensor k100d super btw.

Its probably not an overexposure problem unless you are shooting in a light source that will permit this. A lot of the issues I see when people think they are its the profiles, processing and color space issues.

[UncleVanya]

Its probably not an overexposure problem unless you are shooting in a light source that will permit this. A lot of the issues I see when people think they are its the profiles, processing and color space issues.

Useful to know. I use default profiles / color space and these were shot in RAW+JPG - both the raw and jpg showed the issue. To be fair I can’t recall if the histogram showed an over exposure in the red channel or not.

[bobbotron]

Still learning how to best use the AF. It's definitely a huge improvement over the old K3, but still won't perform miracles if you biff it. I should really read the manual or something.


Went out photographing some dog sports yesterday with the 70mm HD. Really poor mid day light but it was fun to get out and try. Curious what AF settings people are using for sports photography.






---------- Post added 09-05-21 at 09:13 AM ----------

Reds... honestly I don't really give it much thought, I'll adjust and review as needed. In the shot above the chair really is that red, and I tweaked that photo quite a bit for extra atmosphere. I have to remember to check exposure photographing that dog, in bright weather it's so easy for his fur highlights to get blown out.

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

Useful to know. I use default profiles / color space and these were shot in RAW+JPG - both the raw and jpg showed the issue. To be fair I can’t recall if the histogram showed an over exposure in the red channel or not.

Using a histogram really does not tell you much about exposure.
Take this generated image whos red values represent from 255,0,0 to 255,255,255 now if I was to believe this histogram it would be telling me that its is blown


What is the different between this histogram and the first


It is made using the very same color red as you can see that very few of the pixels are even found at the far right.

Lets find out which pixels are at the far right, here I have select the reds midway and all the way to the bottom


Well none of those are even close to the right of the histogram, so how can I use the first histogram for those red that are selected to decide if my exposure is what caused them to be blown?

Lets look at the mid to the very top


Well look at that its only the very top that are found to the right and more importantly its only the very white that is found there.

So what is the histogram showing me with regard to the exposure and more importantly do I trust it?
Or is the histogram showing me the distribution of values of a processed image within a color space

[ThorSanchez]

Curious what AF settings people are using for sports photography.

Here's a thread I started shortly after getting the Mark III. I've shot several thousand photos of U15 and U14 soccer since then, and I mostly use the same settings. Going through the menus with my sports setting now... AF-C, Expanded Area (S), focus priority, shake reduction Panning, Hold Off, AF area restriction Off, AF Point Tracking in AF-C Type 1, Subject Recognition On. When I'm shooting daylight games I almost always use Highlight Weighted Metering, because a lot of games are in bight, direct sunlight with one team wearing predominantly white uniforms. Sometimes I'll change the expanded area to (M), but I find (S) allows me to pick out the player I want more accurately. (M) gets something in focus and tracks well, but not always the right player.

[Lloyd_Christmas]

I love my new mk III and feel I will be learning how to use it for a very long time.
it seemed my now-old K-3 was still ahead of me at times...

[bobbotron]

Here's a thread I started shortly after getting the Mark III. I've shot several thousand photos of U15 and U14 soccer since then, and I mostly use the same settings. Going through the menus with my sports setting now... AF-C, Expanded Area (S), focus priority, shake reduction Panning, Hold Off, AF area restriction Off, AF Point Tracking in AF-C Type 1, Subject Recognition On. When I'm shooting daylight games I almost always use Highlight Weighted Metering, because a lot of games are in bight, direct sunlight with one team wearing predominantly white uniforms. Sometimes I'll change the expanded area to (M), but I find (S) allows me to pick out the player I want more accurately. (M) gets something in focus and tracks well, but not always the right player.

This is great info, I'll try this out soon!

I've turned off SR for my photos in these situations. Generally I'm shooting at 1/1250 or faster, turning SR off == one less variable.

---

Last night I noticed you can dial up a M mode exposure longer than 30 seconds. MADNESS! (This is wonderful for star trail work, makes it easier to get some easily repeated dark frames.)

[normhead]

I’ve not been happy with red channel in the k50 and k-3 - it seemed to over expose earlier than the other channels. The KP is better in this respect. I learned to underexpose more with red subjects on those earlier cameras. This didn’t happen on the ccd sensor k100d super btw.

As far as blacks… I don’t remember any problem with any of my Pentax cameras with good exposure. But to be fair I do under expose a little more often even without strong reds.

This probably has to do with the rather long large wavelength of red light. The smaller the pixel, the more cross talk from the red channel. Somehow many other manufacturers handle this better than Pentax, especially the older Pentax's.

Reds... honestly I don't really give it much thought, I'll adjust and review as needed. In the shot above the chair really is that red, and I tweaked that photo quite a bit for extra atmosphere. I have to remember to check exposure photographing that dog, in bright weather it's so easy for his fur highlights to get blown out.

Read more at: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/210-pentax-k-3-iii/430713-first-impressi...#ixzz75yU3RlV4

That chair has some nice detail. Maybe Pentax has finally muddled it's way through the "detail in reds" issue. In the past I've found that detail in reds on Pentax depended on different coloured accents in the reds to provide detail. That issue was clearly visible looking through images compared to the images of other brands on IR. That was true to the point where I actually go straight to a part of the image with reds in IR when comparing cameras. If any camera is going to be better than a Pentax for IQ, it's going to show up in the reds.

That being said, my only Explored Flickr photograph was a red rose with great detail. Noticeable differences are not always meaningful differences.

[UncleVanya]

This probably has to do with the rather long large wavelength of red light. The smaller the pixel, the more cross talk from the red channel. Somehow many other manufacturers handle this better than Pentax, especially the older Pentax's.

So are the micro lenses on sensor stacks specific to each camera type or do all versions of a given sensor is more or less the same micro lenses when the flashes focal length is similar? My impression is that the micro lenses are part of the custom implantation. But I’m unclear. In my mind only this could differ if this is wavelength dependent. Other factors like amplification and demosaicing would also factor into why different brands render default colors differently but it seems to me this would t be based on the physical wavelength but the sensor bits which at that stage are just proxies for color.