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02-22-2023, 10:42 AM - 2 Likes   #31
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QuoteOriginally posted by jimyoung999 Quote
I'd be curious to hear about your thoughts on why you've stuck with the K-30, or is it just financial? The K-50 can be found for very little now (at least around here). I ask because I'm considering going K50-K70.
It's somewhat financial, especially for the last five years, although if my K-30 bites the dust, I'll try to replace it with a K-70 so I get a significant upgrade for the money I'm spending. I have installed K-50 firmware in my K-30, so other than the shape of the nose, there is no difference between my K-30 and a K-50.

My youngest child finished high school a year before I got my K-30, so my raison d'être for shooting sports quit performing. My wife works in a high school, and I like to experiment with my camera, so I have used it to shoot high school basketball and football, but have not put in as much practice time as I should have. Shooting high school sports is how I discovered the auto-focus limitations of the K-30/50/70. All three models use essentially the same 11 point SAFOX system instead of the 27 point system used in the K-3 and KP, but the K-70 uses a 24 MP sensor instead of the 16 MP sensor in the K-30/50, along with an accelerator chip and pixel-shift (and a flippy screen!), so for less dynamic photos, the K-70 is a much more capable camera. When I follow the play with my camera, it has a hard time keeping the focus point in focus. Take enough shots, you will get some keepers, but I'm not impressed with the percentage. A K-3III is definitely out of my price range.

Taken at 1/160 second, nobody has ever complained about the motion blur, in fact in most people's opinion it makes this image more appealing.



Taken at 1/250 and ISO 6400, with adjustments to white balance and moderate noise reduction in Topaz DeNoise. What I try to do is capture a sense of motion along with a clear portrait of one or two players. Unfortunately I can't make the shooter turn his face to me or get the defender to keep his arm down.



The next image is a result of early experimenting. I wasn't trying to get a picture of the basketball suspended in mid-air, I was trying to get a shot of the player receiving the pass and driving to the basket. Shutter timing is something that takes lots of practice. 1/160 second and ISO 6400.



If you click on these images you will be redirected to Flickr and you can zoom in to see some noise and fuzziness, but nothing compared to the original images.

02-22-2023, 02:07 PM - 2 Likes   #32
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Since the KP has unfortunately been discontinued, and you are in Japan where the used camera market is indeed very good, a low-use excellent condition KP would be an awesome advancement for you! I would also advise to get the KP battery grip. The normal battery is quite small, in the interest of the camera's concept of compactness with very high quality construction (the only DSLR design to successfully compete with the high-end compact APS-C mirrorless crowd, and is also a perfect match with the same concept in the Pentax Limited series lenses). The battery grip can take another of these smaller batteries so you get double the ordinary battery life, or- it can take the larger battery of the bigger Pentax cameras like the K-5 series, K-3 series including the current K-3 III, or the big FF body of the K-1 and K-1 II, combined with the usual small battery in camera. That way, it is very unlikely that you'd run out of juice at an inopportune time when shooting an event. It is also better for handling with a large lens (which you might wind up having) especially for handling when not in the shooting position, whereupon I generally switch to the vertical holding position which provides loads of gripping area. The grip also has duplicate shooting controls for a more comfortable hold in the vertical position for shots better done in this manner instead of in the "landscape" position. The K-30 and K-70 class of camera are not designed for use with a battery grip, so none are available.

The KP was also designed for advanced and pro photographers needing a very high quality compact field camera for easy carrying. It makes an ideal APS-C partner for the Pentax K-1 and K-1 II.

It is quite a different animal than you are accustomed to, but very worth adjusting to it! The controls might seem complex at first, but they are a brilliant design, and can make adjustments to quickly address certain needs exceptionally fast and efficient, without having to dive into menus.

---------- Post added 02-22-23 at 02:30 PM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by RGlasel Quote
Taken at 1/160 second, nobody has ever complained about the motion blur, in fact in most people's opinion it makes this image more appealing.
Yep, I agree with this. However, hockey is one of the fastest-moving sports. With the shutter speeds I sometimes employ, I can get some blur of the puck in mid-air, or the swing of a hockey stick. I sometimes shoot at wrestling tournaments, from grade school through college. This sport can sometimes move fast, but is not generally near as fast-moving as basketball, or certainly not hockey! Therefore, I've found 1/125 second to be about right, especially since use of fill-flash is usually allowed and is desirable. Being it is fill-flash and thus an accessory to the main lighting, it does not freeze action the way flash would if it were the main lighting source, so with this shutter speed I can often get some blur of a body part or if one of them is flying through the air. Sometimes I even reduce down to 1/90 sec to get additional motion effects.

Last edited by mikesbike; 02-22-2023 at 02:40 PM.
02-22-2023, 03:20 PM - 2 Likes   #33
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QuoteOriginally posted by pschlute Quote
Ian.....You have to have been a well behaved boy all year if you want Santa to grant you your Christmas wish
I would urge Santa to concentrate on the positives, not the negatives!

Same speech I have saved up for Saint Peter when the time comes.
02-22-2023, 03:25 PM - 2 Likes   #34
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QuoteOriginally posted by RGlasel Quote
Taken at 1/160 second, nobody has ever complained about the motion blur, in fact in most people's opinion it makes this image more appealing.
I think in sports photograpy, motion blur with the limbs is not important, but the face needs to be very clear.

The purchasers of sports photographs will be the players themselves, their commercial sponsors or their families, so really, good sports photography is also portrait photography.

Below is an example of where the motion blur actually aids us with the impression of the activity.




Last edited by clackers; 02-22-2023 at 03:31 PM.
02-22-2023, 03:29 PM - 1 Like   #35
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QuoteOriginally posted by pschlute Quote
Noise reduction and sharpening are the opposite ends of the same bit of string
Great phrase, Peter, I'll remember that one ...
02-22-2023, 04:48 PM - 1 Like   #36
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The k-70 or KF would offer both improved low light and higher pixel density 24mp vs 16mp). This makes cropping without losing a lot of detail much easier.
02-22-2023, 05:03 PM - 1 Like   #37
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I will start by admitting that I have not read all the posts.

In the OPs opening post, the first image will never be as sharp as he wants if only for one specific reason. It appears , at least in the post, that the image is so enlarged (cropped in) that the detail is the same level of size as each individual pixel. Look at the players mask. It seems that the mask wires are about 1 pixel thick. To get any sharpness you need multiple pixels in any detail to properly define an edge. There will never be at any iso, a useable image at this magnification.

The k50 uses the same basic sensor as the original K5D. With reasonable subject size and detail, on the K5D I had acceptable images at ISO6400 shooting JPEG.

See below full frame shot at ISO 6400 on a K5




Last edited by Lowell Goudge; 02-22-2023 at 05:13 PM.
02-22-2023, 07:11 PM - 2 Likes   #38
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QuoteOriginally posted by syyrmb Quote
As my understanding to the issue, you're not sure what is the cause of the haloing and zippering artifacts (especially around the edges), right? Being a fellow Rawtherapee user, I know there are at least 2 factors that could be the cause of the problem:

1. Demosacing Algorithm. (...)
2. Sharpening artifacts. (...)
It would be preferred if you could provide the .pp3 profile that should be alongside with your raw file that Rawtherapee uses so people could find the real cause of it. I tried using Neutral profile and also my customized profile but couldn't really reproduce the noises. If you have any questions though, feel free to ask!
I second the above. In fact, Rawtherapee is for sure able to produce a lot better results. Below is a quick edit in Ratherapee 5.9 - not sure what @pschlute used above. At ISO4000 + 1.25EV correction for a total of effectively ISO10000, the K50 is doing fairly well. While the K70 might feel a bit better out of the camera (by about 1EV), part of it is a more sophisticated pre-processing of the RAW data at the expense of detail, the actual sensor improvement may not be all that high, more like 0.5EV. So the lens is indeed the key. Beside the Tamron, the Sigma 70-200/2.8 HSM series is another "budget" recommendation, the OS variant being the last/newest/best design and at least here offered at not much more than the Tamron. The HSM motor is a lot more responsive and tracking is more accurate, which will come handy with the shallower depth of field.

Things of importance in the edit in Rawtherapee: A explained above, one of the high-ISO oriented demosaicing algorithms will fare better, I used LMMSE, all sharpening turned off. Tweaked the denoising luminance curve a bit, detail recovery at 22% - in hindsight likely nonsense in conjunction with the 3x3soft median on luminosity. Instead of global contrast (left at 0), I used the contrast by detail, reducing the finest level (0.6) and increased the middle ones (level 2 and 3) by 2.5, tapering off to the coarsest ones(1.6). This gives a nice boost to the perceived detail without amplification of fine noise. Color-wise, I used the WB picker on the rink and bumped saturation, enabled auto-CA correction in RAW and turned on Defringe in details, all with defaults.

Full image and 100% crop - completely usable in my books for all but large printing already without AI-based denoising software that guesses the detail. You basically end up with about a ~4MP equivalent image still good to view or print at least up to 4"x6". Your lens is anyway not much sharper wide open at the long end. With a bit more care and/or use of the wavelet tab, the result could further be improved, e.g. the larger blobs on the black shirt be avoided, but my RT skill are a bit rusty since I do most of my editing in Darktable.

QuoteOriginally posted by jimyoung999 Quote
I'm still trying to learn how to best balance more open (less zoom) so better light, then crop, vs. more pixels and less crop, but darker due to the closed aperture. I guess there's a bit of magic and alchemy there, along with style.
Instead of deep crops, zooming in close to the desired crop should give better quality. Cropping 1/2 by area (using 70% of the width) is discarding as much light as stopping down 1EV and your lens' maximum aperture doesn't drop as dramatically over much of its range.
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02-22-2023, 07:54 PM - 2 Likes   #39
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Lots of good information. I'd suggest a used Tamron 70-200 2.8. They can often be had for very good prices and it's as good as almost anyone's 70-200. The build quality is it's failing grade, but take care of it and it should be good, as long as it's good when you buy it.
02-23-2023, 01:01 AM - 1 Like   #40
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Throwing this in there: What about an old Pentax FA (or F series) 135mm F2.8? They're pretty cheap and they're auto focus. Anyone tried one of these for indoor sports?
02-23-2023, 01:40 AM - 1 Like   #41
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An argument that doesn’t get mentioned often enough in my opinion in the lens vs body upgrade debate : a faster lens will allow more light to get both to the viewfinder, providing a clearer view for the user, and to the autofocus sensor, theoretically improving AF performance.
When you stop down, the AF operation is still happening with the lens wide open, which also helps, as the focus is acquired with a shallower depth of field than the depth that will show in the final picture.
02-23-2023, 02:00 AM   #42
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QuoteOriginally posted by mikesbike Quote
Since the KP has unfortunately been discontinued, and you are in Japan where the used camera market is indeed very good, a low-use excellent condition KP would be an awesome advancement for you! I would also advise to get the KP battery grip. The normal battery is quite small, in the interest of the camera's concept of compactness with very high quality construction (the only DSLR design to successfully compete with the high-end compact APS-C mirrorless crowd, and is also a perfect match with the same concept in the Pentax Limited series lenses). The battery grip can take another of these smaller batteries so you get double the ordinary battery life, or- it can take the larger battery of the bigger Pentax cameras like the K-5 series, K-3 series including the current K-3 III, or the big FF body of the K-1 and K-1 II, combined with the usual small battery in camera. That way, it is very unlikely that you'd run out of juice at an inopportune time when shooting an event. It is also better for handling with a large lens (which you might wind up having) especially for handling when not in the shooting position, whereupon I generally switch to the vertical holding position which provides loads of gripping area. The grip also has duplicate shooting controls for a more comfortable hold in the vertical position for shots better done in this manner instead of in the "landscape" position. The K-30 and K-70 class of camera are not designed for use with a battery grip, so none are available.

The KP was also designed for advanced and pro photographers needing a very high quality compact field camera for easy carrying. It makes an ideal APS-C partner for the Pentax K-1 and K-1 II.

It is quite a different animal than you are accustomed to, but very worth adjusting to it! The controls might seem complex at first, but they are a brilliant design, and can make adjustments to quickly address certain needs exceptionally fast and efficient, without having to dive into menus.[COLOR="Silver"]
So now I spent half the day reading reviews and comparisons between the K-70 and KP.

Looks like I can get a KP for a few hundred more than a K-70. They range from 57,000 - 80,000 yen ($420-$600) used. A used K-70 with 1044 shots only was just under that at $410USD. It seems that the KP would have superior AF.C, but it is more expensive. Also, for some reason (despite several phone calls...) none of the sellers seem to know the shot count. They all just say the cameras have been professionally inspected, cleaned, and serviced. So, it's hard to compare beyond cosmetics.
02-23-2023, 02:42 AM - 1 Like   #43
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QuoteOriginally posted by calsan Quote
Throwing this in there: What about an old Pentax FA (or F series) 135mm F2.8? They're pretty cheap and they're auto focus. Anyone tried one of these for indoor sports?
I have used primes for indoor field hockey - fast, but not quite as fast as ice hockey - using primes, directly from the sideline, for a while due to lack of a wide aperture zoom lens. My main lenses were F50/1.7, DA70/2.4 and DFA100WR, on APS-C. That produced a lot of good shots, but each lens covered only a limited range of situations on the field well, because distances vary widely. So you end up cropping a lot, resulting in noisy lower resolution images again, as explained above. Or your game coverage will be limited. The later is indeed an option and I do that from time to time even today, but you have to be prepared to get anything from a series of outstanding shots to none at all for the rather short duration of a game for kids.

Given that even the DFA100WR macro worked well for me (pre-focus remarks relate to top of the world men's teams, K-5 AF-C worked well for kids) I'm sure the FA135 would be excellent within the constraints of a prime. I have not seen any offered cheap here though - any of them (or the F135) in decent condition had a rather steep price.

Last edited by JensE; 02-23-2023 at 03:16 AM.
02-23-2023, 03:03 AM   #44
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QuoteOriginally posted by JensE Quote
I second the above. In fact, Rawtherapee is for sure able to produce a lot better results. Below is a quick edit in Ratherapee 5.9 - not sure what @pschlute used above. At ISO4000 + 1.25EV correction for a total of effectively ISO10000, the K50 is doing fairly well. While the K70 might feel a bit better out of the camera (by about 1EV), part of it is a more sophisticated pre-processing of the RAW data at the expense of detail, the actual sensor improvement may not be all that high, more like 0.5EV. So the lens is indeed the key. Beside the Tamron, the Sigma 70-200/2.8 HSM series is another "budget" recommendation, the OS variant being the last/newest/best design and at least here offered at not much more than the Tamron. The HSM motor is a lot more responsive and tracking is more accurate, which will come handy with the shallower depth of field.

Things of importance in the edit in Rawtherapee: A explained above, one of the high-ISO oriented demosaicing algorithms will fare better, I used LMMSE, all sharpening turned off. Tweaked the denoising luminance curve a bit, detail recovery at 22% - in hindsight likely nonsense in conjunction with the 3x3soft median on luminosity. Instead of global contrast (left at 0), I used the contrast by detail, reducing the finest level (0.6) and increased the middle ones (level 2 and 3) by 2.5, tapering off to the coarsest ones(1.6). This gives a nice boost to the perceived detail without amplification of fine noise. Color-wise, I used the WB picker on the rink and bumped saturation, enabled auto-CA correction in RAW and turned on Defringe in details, all with defaults.

Full image and 100% crop - completely usable in my books for all but large printing already without AI-based denoising software that guesses the detail. You basically end up with about a ~4MP equivalent image still good to view or print at least up to 4"x6". Your lens is anyway not much sharper wide open at the long end. With a bit more care and/or use of the wavelet tab, the result could further be improved, e.g. the larger blobs on the black shirt be avoided, but my RT skill are a bit rusty since I do most of my editing in Darktable.


Instead of deep crops, zooming in close to the desired crop should give better quality. Cropping 1/2 by area (using 70% of the width) is discarding as much light as stopping down 1EV and your lens' maximum aperture doesn't drop as dramatically over much of its range.
Wow. I really appreciate the RawTherapee lesson. I hadn't used the contrast by detail level tool, or the wavelet tool, before. I'm familiar with frequency analysis from my day job, so conceptually I understand what's going on. Adjusting contrast at different frequencies... wow! Thanks!

---------- Post added 02-23-23 at 03:06 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by calsan Quote
Throwing this in there: What about an old Pentax FA (or F series) 135mm F2.8? They're pretty cheap and they're auto focus. Anyone tried one of these for indoor sports?
Thanks. I'll add this to my search list. A quick search I found a SMC Pentax-A 135mm 2.8 for about $80, an -A version (??) for about $100. A T series.. oh, and a Samuyan (?) verion for $600.
02-23-2023, 06:52 AM   #45
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QuoteOriginally posted by jimyoung999 Quote
So now I spent half the day reading reviews and comparisons between the K-70 and KP.

Looks like I can get a KP for a few hundred more than a K-70. They range from 57,000 - 80,000 yen ($420-$600) used. A used K-70 with 1044 shots only was just under that at $410USD. It seems that the KP would have superior AF.C, but it is more expensive. Also, for some reason (despite several phone calls...) none of the sellers seem to know the shot count. They all just say the cameras have been professionally inspected, cleaned, and serviced. So, it's hard to compare beyond cosmetics.
KP has no aperture block failure potential. It’s slightly better at high iso per photons to photos data, and its third control dial is a dream to use. If available and within budget I’d consider it an upgrade over the k70 albeit a small one. Take the time to go see one, take a shot, use the image transfer over WiFi, then upload a sample pic to a shutter calculator to get the count. Be prepared to be confused by the grip. I bought mine sight unseen and new - and thought at first I’d made a mistake as getting used to the grip was a week long process. Now it’s second Nature and I don’t notice the grip.
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