[mattdm]

So, the K10D manual documents Natural and Bright like this (on p120):

Natural: Images are finished naturally and suitable for retouching.
Bright: Images are finished brightly, with high contrast and sharpness.

This isn't nearly as much detail as would be useful, but at least it gives you a basic idea.

By contrast, the ONLY documentation in the K20D manual is the following line:

Select from the following six modes for Image Tone: Bright, Natural,
Portrait, Landscape, Vibrant and Monochrome.

That's it. No explanation whatsoever.

We can guess what "Monochrome" does pretty easily, and presumably Bright and Natural are the same as in the K10D/K100D, but what about
Portrait, Landscape, and Vibrant? Is "Vibrant" more so than "Bright"? In what ways is "Portrait" unnatural? Which might be a better choice for a person in a natural setting — that or Landscape?

Is there secret documentation for this somewhere? Has anyone done any experimenting?

Thanks!

[garth1948]

K20D and K10D have no 'scene' modes on the function dial.
The image tone settings provide starting point settings for these scene modes.
e.g. for a portrait shoot, you could start with the image tone set to portrait then adjust settings for DOF, brightness, flash use etc using aperture and shutter wheels.
Vibrant is high contrast rather than a brighter overall scene - can lead to less detail in shadow and high saturation areas.
Garth

[augustmoon]

here's some info and samples

Pentax K20D Review


FYI
I shoot RAW and process in Lightroom, so for me, this only affects my LCD preview and histogram, which is from a rendered jpeg. But I leave mine on Natural, and reduce the contrast, so that my histogram is more in line with the RAW file. (otherwise the jpeg preview and histogram would show premature clipping if I were to say, set it on bright and up the contrast, then when I would get into Lightroom, I'd see that I had room to push it more)

[mattdm]

K20D and K10D have no 'scene' modes on the function dial.

\

Yes, I have one, so I know that.

The image tone settings provide starting point settings for these scene modes.

Okay. What is that starting point?

Vibrant is high contrast rather than a brighter overall scene - can lead to less detail in shadow and high saturation areas.

Where is this documented? What consequences does this have beyond what I'd get from the Contrast setting up really high?

What about the other modes?

[mattdm]

here's some info and samples

Pentax K20D Review

That's a good start, thanks for the pointer. Too bad they don't have some more useful images for comparison.

[falconeye]

@mattdm, very good question, ideed!

I fear we have to make testshoots in the various modes and compare histograms afterwards. Any suggestion for a test chart / test subject?

[mattdm]

I fear we have to make testshoots in the various modes and compare histograms afterwards. Any suggestion for a test chart / test subject?

I think the most helpful would be test subjects that match the names — a couple of portraits, a couple of landscapes, maybe some flowers, etc.

Then, one can do what I did for the k10d: use the in-camera raw converter to produce a grid showing the different conversions. A bit tedious but super-helpful to many people.

Honestly, it'd be great if Pentax did this for us and made the results available both in nice printouts that come with the camera and online. But failing that, if anyone wants to volunteer...