[richmondthefish]

Does anyone know of any good comparison shots between 645D/645Z and K1? I was wondering if there was anything out there. I've heard the K1 got close to the 645D/645Z but didn't quite match it.

[Medex]

You can try this Comparometer. Just pick up the right camera from the list
Imaging Resource "Comparometer" â„¢ Digital Camera Image Comparison Page

[mikeSF]

You can try this Comparometer. Just pick up the right camera from the list
Imaging Resource "Comparometer" â„¢ Digital Camera Image Comparison Page

Thanks for sharing this!

obviously many variables, such as lenses, but in the 1st mannequin image I just studied at low ISO, K-1 (without pixelshift) looks better than the D750, about even with the D810 and well behind the 645Z.

The test target image shows same, and on that one, the K-3II image (though smaller in the frame) appears sharper than the K-1.

[tomO2013]

Only real difference that I can see between the 645Z and K1 is the white balance. White blouse looks better on the K1 and more detail retained in her blouse. Overall WB with respect to skin tones looked better on the 645Z.
Apart from that not much to see - quite incredible that FF 36mp is almost identical to a digital medium format without pixel shift. That could also be on account of lenses used....

[mikeSF]

Only real difference that I can see between the 645Z and K1 is the white balance. White blouse looks better on the K1 and more detail retained in her blouse. Overall WB with respect to skin tones looked better on the 645Z.
Apart from that not much to see - quite incredible that FF 36mp is almost identical to a digital medium format without pixel shift. That could also be on account of lenses used....

Wow, I see just the opposite. The white blouse stitching is getting lost on the K1 and has tremendous detail on the 645.

[normhead]

With all due respect to whoever suggested the K-1 was close to the 645z...

Not in my book, absolutely no comparison.

[Pioneer]

I do believe that the K-1 is providing an awfully nice photo. but from a strictly technical perspective I do have to agree with MikeSF on this one. Among other details, the X stitching in the blouse coming off her right shoulder under the WhiBal card is visibly clearer in the 645Z file. More megapickels still win but I doubt that I will ever print something so large that people will be concerned over that level of clarity.

In fact, to be honest, if I ever have a masterpiece photo I hope no one even cares about the detail in the stitching.

I know I have never looked that closely at Migrant Mother's blouse or any of the kids clothing.

[tomO2013]

You know what - looking at 100% I stand completely corrected, there IS more detail in the stitching on the 645z.
However comparing against the D810 in fine detail it also is producing more detail.... in fact detail wise with respect to the blouse it's rendering slighly more than say a 24megapixel fuji.

So I did some digging....

Camera: Ricoh IMAGING COMPANY, LTD. PENTAX K-1
Lens: Sigma 70 mm
(Max aperture f/2.8)
Exposure: Auto exposure, Aperture-priority AE, 1/25 sec, f/8, ISO 100
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Focus: Manual


On a D810 the SIgma 70mm F2,8 yields a perceptive megapixel rating of 16mp Sigma 70mm F2.8 EX DG Macro Nikon mounted on Nikon D810 : Tests and Reviews

The D810 was tested as follows:
Nikon D810
Lens: AF-S Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G ED
Shot at 60 mm
Exposure: Auto exposure, Aperture-priority AE, 1/20 sec, f/8, ISO 64, Compensation: +1/3
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Focus: AF-S, at 1.3m, with a depth of field of about 23cm, (from about 10cm before the focus point to about 12cm after)
AF Area Mode: Single Area

Nikon AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED mounted on Nikon D810 : Tests and Reviews with a 20 megapixel perceptual mp on a D810.

Two things struck me though....

Firstly, look at the exposure differences, the K1 looks to be slightly overexposed and losing detail on an account. Exposure has been dialed in with manual exposure compensation on the D810.
Glass differences can and do account for a LOT .... the 70mm Sigma has the least resolving power.

I would expect that had they used the newer DFA * 70-200 or DFA 24-70 they would have produced a much better result Tamron SP 24-70mm F2.8 Di VC USD Nikon mounted on Nikon D810 : Tests and Reviews

The devil is in the details

---------- Post added 07-13-16 at 03:47 PM ----------

And finally for fun....
Camera: Ricoh IMAGING COMPANY, LTD. PENTAX 645Z
Lens: smc PENTAX-D FA 645 55mm F2.8 AL [IF] SDM AW
Shot at 55 mm
Exposure: Manual exposure, Aperture-priority AE, 1/25 sec, f/8, ISO 100, Compensation: +0.3
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Focus: AF-S (Focus-priority)

Again exposure looks to be set a littler differently with compensation dialed in a little. As it stands the K1 image could probably have done with a -3 compensation adjust to align the exposure values perceptively anyway.

I'm unable to find DXO results on perceptive megapixel counts for the Pentax 645 55mm 2.8 although as a lens it doesn't get the best review diglloyd: Pentax 55mm f/2.8 for Pentax 645D != 40MP images

My takeaway is that neither Pentax have been setup with anywhere near the sharpest glass available to them to get a closer apples to apples.

As a result, pretty hard to draw any concrete conclusions .

[officiousbystander]

I know I have never looked that closely at Migrant Mother's blouse or any of the kids clothing.

Because of the comment I just did. You can download a 56MB tiff from here:
Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California
When you pixel peep you can see further detail in the threadbare clothes which makes the photo more deeply moving. You'll also notice that the subject's face is just slightly out of focus.
Thanks to the Library of Congress site you can apply current standards and technical aspirations to older photos. But I'm not sure if Dorothea Lange would have made a better photo if she'd had access to a K1 or a 645Z.
This is the camera she used:
Crown Graphic 4x5 as a Field Camera

[richmondthefish]

Thanks for sharing this!

obviously many variables, such as lenses, but in the 1st mannequin image I just studied at low ISO, K-1 (without pixelshift) looks better than the D750, about even with the D810 and well behind the 645Z.

The test target image shows same, and on that one, the K-3II image (though smaller in the frame) appears sharper than the K-1.

Just looking at the 1st mannequin image Id rank 645Z the best easily. A7R2 is the best 35mm that I viewed. It's difficult to articulate but the A7R2 sort of has that 645Z feel to it but doesn't match it. The D810 and K1 are very similar. Canon 5DSR is also similar to the D810 and K1(they have different characteristics and I know the Canon's dynamic range doesn't match the Sony, but in a basic test the file reveals a lot of detail)

[PhilRich]

After seeing this post earlier in the day I decided to compare my 645Z to my K-1. I used the DFA 55 on the Z and the DFA24-70 on the K-l set at about 55 mm. Lately my test scene is from the front porch with a lot of power poles and wire, trees all the way to furthest distance and houses and car. I used the same settings and focal point for both cameras mounted on a tripod using the 2 sec time delay. My understanding that the sensors on these two camera are very much alike except for the size and total number of photo sites.

I cropped the results to provide very close to the same portion of the scene. This resulted in throwing away more mega pixels for the Z. As I expected the resulting crops produce essentially the same resolving power. One could argue that one shot is better than the other - but that is primarily due to slight differences in contrast. The cropped images ended up with the same file size within .1 megapixel.

Here's the point I'm making - the "Comparator" pictures do not necessarily provide the true comparison since the resulting pictures are the same size. In the comparison between the Z and the K-1 or the D810 isn't a true comparison of the comparative performance of because of the different sensor sizes. A good comparison would require using the lens that uses, as close as possible, that utilizes the full sensor with a minimum of cropping for each camera and lens combination.

Thus the larger sensor using very similar technology will blow away the smaller sensor every time unless there is a significant difference in the resolving power of the lens used.

[richmondthefish]

Thus the larger sensor using very similar technology will blow away the smaller sensor every time unless there is a significant difference in the resolving power of the lens used.

So I guess the next question is how close does Pixel Shift K1 get to the 645Z?

[mikeSF]

With all due respect to whoever suggested the K-1 was close to the 645z...

Not in my book, absolutely no comparison.

i'm a little late returning, but here is another comparison, K-1 on left, 645Z on right. the white stitching is rendered quite differently between the two

[tomO2013]

Hi, that was me that made that comment originally - however I completely put my hand up about 5 mins later to say I was wrong and that clearly there is a difference (check up a few posts). I had not downloaded the images to inspect locally. I took an initial cursory glance and formed an opinion

HOWEVER - to say one is technically better than the other is going to be very hard without equalizing all systems a little better.

The imaging resource comparometer is not using the same exposures, quite obvious in the detail in the fabric above where some tonal information (nevermind detail) is blown out on the K1 and similarly on the A7rii.

I've posted EXIF information to corroborate that theory a few posts up.

I also think that the comparison is somewhat meaningless as the lens used for the K1 is particularly weak relative to its resolving potential on a 36mp sensor without AA filter and a much smaller pixel pitch. To that end the lens used on the 645z isn't exactly pushing that sensor either.
In both cases I feel the glass is the severe limiting factor in making a good comparison and quite probably the K1 is more crippled in this regard relative to what the D810 comparometer shows.....

As a side note, I don't find the A7rii to be any better than the K1 or D810. Actually I don't find it as good. Look closely at the stitching near the models pendant and it isn't resolving as much detail. This is funny because in this situation the A7rii has been mated with the Zeiss 55mm 1.8 which is effectively like a mini Otus with very high perceptive MP resolving potential as per DXO.
Again, I suspect that exposures aren't quite the same as the A7rii looks to have a little blown highlight too...

For fun here is the A7rii EXIF...
Camera: Sony ILCE-7RM2
Lens: E-Mount, T-Mount, Other Lens or no lens 55 mm
(Max aperture f/1.8)
Exposure: Auto exposure, Aperture-priority AE, 1/30 sec, f/8, ISO 100, Compensation: +0.3
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Focus: Manual
AF Area Mode: Manual
Faces: One face detected [ click to hide ]
Note: the marked location may be wrong if the photo has been rotated, cropped, or edited. Also, it's the location when focus was locked, not when the photo was actually taken, so the camera or subject may have moved in the intervening time.
Date: August 17, 2015 9:04:03AM (timezone not specified)
(10 months, 27 days, 13 hours, 32 minutes, 7 seconds ago, assuming image timezone of US Pacific)
File: 5,304 × 7,952 JPEG (42.2 megapixels)
24,748,955 bytes (23.6 megabytes)

[2351HD]

i'm a little late returning, but here is another comparison, K-1 on left, 645Z on right. the white stitching is rendered quite differently between the two

Wow Mike, huge difference.

When I had the K1, I found that the difference in landscape fine detail was quite significant between it and the 645z and also the top results were much easier to achieve with the 645 handheld over the K-1 handheld, enough so that I sold the K1. On tripod the K1 was closer but still not as good.

---------- Post added 07-14-16 at 06:54 PM ----------

With all due respect to whoever suggested the K-1 was close to the 645z...

Not in my book, absolutely no comparison.

That difference is not all just resolution either, there is a ton of detail rendered in the Z image that would be there even if it were say 40mp like the 645D. A much better image.