Originally posted by stevebrot I am not saying that the K-3 sucks because of its high ISO behavior. What I am saying is that it appears to give up its resolution advantage relative to its little sister (K-50) when things get dim. At low ISO (the majority of my work) the results are spectacular and I am thrilled with the camera's performance.*
Steve
* No kidding! I swoon every time I shoot with it!
Yeah but you know this is better than you might think, look to theses 6400ISO crops of K3 & K50:
K50, DFA50 f/2.8, IS0 6400, f/5.6, 1/2500
K3, DFA50 f/2.8, IS0 6400, f/5.6, 1/2500,
reduced to K50 size.
The color deph of the K50 shoot is better, mostly due again to the blur. But the contrast and sharpness of K3 shoot is better. This also why it show more noise, due to more default contrast. And also why it look more pleasing overall if you see it from some distance.
Still overall, there more visible detail on the K3 shoot, even at 6400isos. It is because the sample for the 645Z concentrated on a shadow part where the K3 struggle more but as if to know if a well exposed 6400isos shoot is good or not or overall better/worse than K50, I would say it highly depend of the shoot itself. If the shoot has lot of mid tones/highlight, I'd say the K3 does a better job. If the shoot has lot of shadows, I'd say the K50 does a better job.
The K50 adventage might expend as you get higher and higher in isos, likely that 25600ISO and more the K3 is only noise, even in highlights but at 6400ISO (and even more the 3200/1600isos) the response is more "it depends", at least to me. Sometime you'd be better with a K50, sometime better with a K3.
Still the overall better AF on K3 could really make the difference. It is better to have more noise in shadows than to miss the focus on the eye on a portrait ! K5-II can at least focus in dim light consistently (K5 & K50 can't) and I think K5-II also get more precise focus as K3 for fast lenses (thanks to f/2.8 AF sensors) but off-centered AF point are too big in K50/K30/K5/K5-II to easily achieve a very shallow deph of field shoot (like a portrait), even more in dim light. I would be more confident to get a nice shallow deph of field shoot at 3200isos with my K3 than with a K50 !
In the end, there many factor and I would say to be carefull to not take just an example, just one crop and conclude that the new sensor is really that bad. If many where in fact really surprised by the results it is also because it didn't fully reflex real world usage. I mean yes you could take the same shoot, get the same noise on the shadow (as you could remove most of it by bumping luminance noise removal) but on many shoots there not just shadows and nothing else!