[Pepe Le Pew]

We are so rare....... Even Toronto will win the "World Series"

[formercanuck]

Only 1 Pentax spotted in Lake Louise. Not sure what model, but it had an LCD on top and white lettering on the camera strap (mine has red)

[patarok]

i guess that is partially a psychological thing... like most things are today in a world were billions and billions go down the flush of advertising companies.
When you always see Nikon and Nikon and Canon and Canon in Movies and TV Series, you will see only Canons and Nikons on the street.
Amen. i also think this is also a bit about stupi... ah superstitious people who think god leads their way. Can't you see the joke in it?
PenTAX, Canon, (aN)ikon ... an Icon....
Somehow it seems to me, our mind builds the world, but if you see it the right way, you have to realize that it is the other way around. One will always like to fool himself in the name of security and what we got to learn as kids in our churches or at least on TV-Screen.
But reality takes its toll. -> and so it is a fact, that the K-3 limited edition was sold out in a breeze and so will the K-3 prestige edition and nobody knows how much K-30 already have been sold .... the coolest amateur dslr on this planet.
And as it is... only fighting fire with fire will do the trick.
PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX PENTAX

Besides a very funny fact:
The last big movie where i saw heavy camera product placement was "Femme Fatale" from Brian de Palma and you know what?
That movie "FEMME FATALE" is the only movie where i saw a PENtax in the hands of the main (or if you wish so 2nd main character).
Brian has got to be a huge fan of PENTAX... (a brand that made history, invented the AF, and once was very iconic too when you saw it in the hands of John, Paul, Ringo and who was that again?... and photography overall. Just look at that freakin gorgeous last scenes that take you into the closing credits. BTW: Has anybody got a clue how DePalma realized this massive landscape collage? It would be so cool to do that at home...
So the End is nigh: BUT NOT OURs my brothers. Stay strong!
When all the other photographers go to church and shoot their nephews singing a Canon with an Icon in their hands.
THEN we will do real Photography with our PENtaxes... In the garden in the woods...watching out for birds with an APO Telescope with flattener mounted on our K-5 instead of a mercedes priced super-tele...
Or (partially speaking of my self) kneeling down in front of an ESII - MOTOR DRIVE and looking up to a red or green PENTAX Logo on a black BG and humming OHMMMMM.....
So remember it is on you to not watch the movies and go out and take photos, so we will meet each other.

[anemone]

Today I was in one rather large electronics store which is also pentax dealer store which can order Pentax for you. I was looking for ideas how to connect stuff to my tripod and found another clever way to use cable ties.

Anyway I was just fidling through Canons and Nikons. And poor salesman asked if he could help. Well I asked if he had something with USB3 support and answer was canon 5D and it would work with USB3. I answered that my mp3 player works with usb3 and it is USB1.1 but USB2 is so slow. Then I asked if any camera would be able to take pictures in rain and dust. Answer was that there is no such thing. Cameras should be kept dry all the time.

I told him that actually there is one thing which answers to both of my questions and he should be showing it to me right now. It's Pentax K-3 which has normal weather resistance and USB3. I promised to come back when they have it close enough to touch and take test pictures.

No wonder if Pentax is so rare as even dealers don't know what they sell.

[sherrvonne]

When I take my Pentax out with me, the responses are usually that
A. people standing around will move aside,
B. Tell me I should 'protect the camera.... one lady said "that looks like an important camera, you should put the strap around your neck, what if you drop it?"
C. Lol, the canon people look at me sideways.
D. Anyone that ever owned a Pentax in the past admires it..."That's a good brand!" They will say.
I am rare here in that I own a new Pentax and everyone else around me is using camera phones even though they have a DSLR and multiple lenses, their stuff sits in the bag even when I beg them to get their cameras and go shooting with me.

[kadajawi]

Was Femme Fatale a period piece, i.e. does it play during a time when Pentax was everywhere? That might explain the presence, cause sure as hell Pentax didn't paid them anything for product placement, and DePalma might have had product placement offers.


Just saw a Google ad on a forum for a camera shop in Malaysia. It listed Pentax Nikon Canon Sony. In that order. Pentax first? Hmm... (on their site it's a different order though).


Met a cousin today who was surprised that I have recommended a Sony DSLT to an uncle. Why not Pentax. Well, Pentax, apart from the K-5, sucks for video. And he needs a camera that does video in a convenient way, with continuous AF etc. (not that I want Pentax to do such a camera... IMHO it should be more of a professional tool in terms of video. Easier to realize anyway).

[patarok]

Was Femme Fatale a period piece, i.e. does it play during a time when Pentax was everywhere? That might explain the presence, cause sure as hell Pentax didn't paid them anything for product placement, and DePalma might have had product placement offers.


Just saw a Google ad on a forum for a camera shop in Malaysia. It listed Pentax Nikon Canon Sony. In that order. Pentax first? Hmm... (on their site it's a different order though).


Met a cousin today who was surprised that I have recommended a Sony DSLT to an uncle. Why not Pentax. Well, Pentax, apart from the K-5, sucks for video. And he needs a camera that does video in a convenient way, with continuous AF etc. (not that I want Pentax to do such a camera... IMHO it should be more of a professional tool in terms of video. Easier to realize anyway).

The K-3 should be a real winner in the video sector. and femme fatale was in cinemas around 2002 a.d.
and about that Malaysia thing. You would not believe it, but country boarders are kind o magic...
I once had a talk with a very old photography shop owner and he told me that PENTAX never paid kickbacks... only Canon and Nikon do that.
And they allegedly never did that much advertising in german speaking europe as they did?do in the U.K....???

[kadajawi]

The K-3 should be a real winner in the video sector. and femme fatale was in cinemas around 2002 a.d.
and about that Malaysia thing. You would not believe it, but country boarders are kind o magic...
I once had a talk with a very old photography shop owner and he told me that PENTAX never paid kickbacks... only Canon and Nikon do that.
And they allegedly never did that much advertising in german speaking europe as they did?do in the U.K....???

The K-3 offers better manual controls for video, but the video quality isn't as good as with the K-5. It can't handle movement and detail as good. The stabilization, which made the K-5 actually great for video is missing, being replaced by junk that is worse than no stabilization at all.

In many ways the K-3 is a big step back, it sucks. There is nothing the K-3 can do for video that any competitor couldn't do better, unlike the K-5 which had some advantages over competitors.

[formercanuck]

Banff Photography 'in' Banff stocks some Pentax lenses, including 168-50 f/2.8 , and some of the limited lenses, but no 18-135mm. i'm checking Cranbrook tomorrow

[stevebrot]

Met a cousin today who was surprised that I have recommended a Sony DSLT to an uncle. Why not Pentax. Well, Pentax, apart from the K-5, sucks for video. And he needs a camera that does video in a convenient way, with continuous AF etc. (not that I want Pentax to do such a camera... IMHO it should be more of a professional tool in terms of video. Easier to realize anyway).

Sounds like you gave excellent advice if AF has to be part of the equation.

In many ways the K-3 is a big step back, it sucks. There is nothing the K-3 can do for video that any competitor couldn't do better, unlike the K-5 which had some advantages over competitors.

Nothing? Any?

I guess it is a cinch that people don't buy Pentax cameras for their video capabilities. This is a tradition that started with the K-7 and continued through the K-5 and all subsequent models. The same is true for buyers of Leica and Sigma, both of whom sell high end cameras with retrograde video similar to (or worse than) current Pentax product.


Steve

[patarok]

Sounds like you gave excellent advice if AF has to be part of the equation.



Nothing? Any?

I guess it is a cinch that people don't buy Pentax cameras for their video capabilities. This is a tradition that started with the K-7 and continued through the K-5 and all subsequent models. The same is true for buyers of Leica and Sigma, both of whom sell high end cameras with retrograde video similar to (or worse than) current Pentax product.

Canon 7D vs. Pentax K-5 - Video Quality - In-Depth Reviews


Steve

AFAIK the K-3 has AF in Video Mode... (That feature that was asked for in first place?) And what do you actually mean by no stabilization? Why should it be bad ad details? It has a "selectable" low pass filter, so in video mode there is no low pass filter, what should make it more detail-rich then any predecessor...
explain the technical details... i want to understand that...

[stevebrot]

AFAIK the K-3 has AF in Video Mode

Yes, sort of. You have to hold down the AF button and it is very slow.


Steve

[kadajawi]

@stevebrot: I tend to exaggerate, but more or less, yes (Lauren disagrees with me, and I can understand her reasoning, but she is using her cameras under specific and controlled circumstances, and wants to use _one_ oddball feature the others don't have). There's weather sealing, but competitors offer that too, though to a lesser degree (and the question is if, with the problems the camera has, it would ever be used in a way where the weather sealing comes in handy). There is no stabilization whatsoever that could be used. Sony uses a similar system, but much better implemented. It does not show rolling shutter effects. Canon, Nikon and Panasonic have stabilization with stabilized lenses. Olympus has a great in camera system. Other brands take better video (for example by having a better encoder or a clean HDMI output). Other brands/models have a more usable video AF or are as bad, but offer other advantages.


A camera that offers pretty much what the K-3 has to offer, but with better video quality, and with a tiltable screen, is the Nikon D3200. Which costs a fraction of the K-3 (yes, no weather sealing... but I'd argue that the K-3 is mostly at home in very controlled environments, with little movement and detail in the background/foreground. Doesn't sound like a wet place to me...). Or, if you're willing to go for Magic Lantern, any Canon will be great. The 70D even offers GOOD video AF!

AFAIK the K-3 has AF in Video Mode... (That feature that was asked for in first place?) And what do you actually mean by no stabilization? Why should it be bad ad details? It has a "selectable" low pass filter, so in video mode there is no low pass filter, what should make it more detail-rich then any predecessor...
explain the technical details... i want to understand that...

Ok, in comparison to the Sony a57 that was eventually bought you need to press a button to AF. Then it will noisily hunt back and forth for a couple of seconds until it hits the focus. Then it stops. This of course looks and sounds very irritating. In contrast the Sony has continuous AF using the phase detect sensors used for stills too instead of contrast detection, so it exactly knows what has to be in focus. It doesn't have enough focus points, so it may not always chose the spot you'll want, but it's miles ahead of Pentax. The K-3 AF is good enough to be on the spec sheet, but in real life you'd probably only want to use it in moments where you'd cut... it saves you a few seconds by not having to stop recording, focus, and start recording again. In contrast, apart from being too fast/not smooth enough, the Sony AF is quite close to a camcorder. Canon has good video AF in the 70D (thousands of phase detect sensors on most of the sensor), Panasonic and Olympus are decent too. Some cameras also offer focus peaking, which assists greatly to get the right focus. It exists on the K-3... but doesn't work during video recording, only before that.


I've mentioned stabilization before... Sony has the worst stabilization apart from Pentax, cause it's electronic too, but at least it only introduces one sort of artefacts that is irritating... the Pentax adds another one on top that is even worse. A picture that blurs occasionally in different direction (motion blur) despite being stable (Sony has that too), and then additionally wobbles around even though the picture (at least the top part of it) is stable. Canon and Nikon charge extra for stabilization, and you can't use any lens, but the option is there should you need it. The K-5 had a better system that also worked all the time (and the hardware is in the K-3... it's just they didn't activate it in the firmware!). Even better is what Olympus has... same system, but even better implementation. It is outright ridiculous. Pentax could fix it easily, by adding an option in the menu asking customers which stabilizer they want to use, if any. Btw. what the K-3 uses also leads to a crop of the frame, you'll probably get something like a 1.8-1.9x crop rather than 1.5x. Might as well shoot mFT... at least they've got the wide angle lenses to counter that!


It is bad at details because of the encoder. The K-5 had MJPEG... not exactly advanced, but with the bitrates offered it actually works really well. You'll run through memory cards really fast, but the quality is there. Details are preserved, grain is preserved, movements do not trouble it at all. The K-3 uses h264, which is a vastly superior codec, but needs a ton of processing power (for example to be really efficient and good quality I've set my encoder to some rather high settings on my computer. It results in 0.6-1 fps. On a quadcore Intel i5 with 4.5 GHz. There aren't 30 quadcore Intel i5 inside the K-3). The encoder in the K-3 is a particularly... meh variant, with some bugs (though later firmware versions may have fixed that, it seems?). Movements it doesn't like. Details it doesn't like either. It will lead to blocking at the quality settings and maximum bitrates they have set fixed in the camera... which aren't particularly high. Sony, Panasonic etc. IIRC can go right up to 50, 100, 200 Mbps. Pentax is limiting to 25 Mbps... And keep in mind that Sony and Panasonic use superior encoders, that even at 25 Mbps should easily beat Pentax at 25 Mbps. The K-3 probably has the capability to shoot MJPEG with 80 Mbps, it's just not activated.


Nikon, Panasonic and Sony (and I guess Canon with hacked firmware?) also have a clean HDMI output, thus giving you the option of plugging in an external recorder that can for example save barely compressed video with a ton of detail.


Having no low pass filter seems like a bad idea to me too. For some DSLRs you can install an additional filter to make the picture even blurrier, so that you don't get as much aliasing and moire. IIRC some people even intentionally focused wrong to avoid moire and aliasing. No low pass filter is only ok when you read all pixels on the sensor, rather than just a few (as Pentax does). That would also lead to better dynamic range, better low light capabilities etc. On the other hand this would heat up the sensor more, lead to more rolling shutter effects (good stabilization actually can help pretty much removing all rolling shutter that is really distracting... skewed lines in fast pans are nowhere near as irritating as wobbling back and forth due to small shaking/jitter (which the stabilizer would eliminate). You'd also need a fast CPU to downscale the 24 MP image (with crop thanks to 16:9 maybe 16-20 MP ish?) to 2 MP. Sony and Panasonic do pixel binning in their more video focused cameras, and I'm not sure about the 5D Mk III.


And I didn't even mention that Panasonic and Sony can do 4K video.


To me the disadvantages of a Pentax for video can be ironed out by having that great stabilizer and MJPEG codec... it gives the camera enough advantages to consider it. Heck, I'd consider Olympus, despite poor low light capabilities (relatively), poor dynamic range (relatively), only ONE frame rate (and one I don't like!), just because the stabilization is so good and would be worth it for me. The K-3 offers no such advantage though, even though they could add it in the firmware. MJPEG video is supported for time lapse videos. Stabilizing works in Live View... so you can use it with a video feed, and without cropping (which can't be deactivated in the K-3 when recording video, even when you're not using IS).


As for camera brands not offering useful video: Yes, Fuji, Leica and Sigma. Sigma is irrelevant, Fuji and Leica cater to a small crowd of photography purists with plenty of cash. Not the average working photographer that needs to earn a living and is asked to do stills and video.

[normhead]

I was asked to snap a photo with friend's D7100 and I figured I need to have exp.compensation applied. my thought process at the moment: "ok, let's adjust! wait.. wha?.. ugh. no, really? where.. oh, whatever, they'll do the PP"

I went through the exact same thing the other day, with this girl, she asked me to take a group shot. I said "This needs EV compensation" she said "What's that?" "Here . i'll show you... ok maybe not."

[Cynog Ap Brychan]

I went through the exact same thing the other day, with this girl, she asked me to take a group shot. I said "This needs EV compensation" she said "What's that?" "Here . i'll show you... ok maybe not."

That'll be the little exposure compensation button on the D7100 (not far from where it is on the K-5), coupled with the rear wheel (just like the K-5), Norm