[PixelGeek]

I remember the K-x fondly although I have never had one of my own. I borrowed one from a friend a couple of times and after I got my K-3 I was there thinking "Bloody hell this thing is big and heavy!" although the K-3 is actually of quite modest size.

I never did any side by side shots with the K-x and the K-3 but I do have the impression that the K-3 has far better image quality. I only shoot RAW. The K-x to me often seemed like an OLED in comparison with an LCD. The colours were very flashy, attractive but "even better than the real thing". They were pleasing to the eye but didn't quite copy the reality which is a camera's main purpose.

There is one thing in this discussion that is really important to me:
I hate auto ISO! To me it is one of the most useless functions of modern cameras - especially if aperture and shutter speed are also in auto mode. The first thing I do with any SLR is restrict the auto ISO to some sane value (like 400 or 800), should I for some reason turn it on by accident. After that, I never use any mode that fiddles with the ISO value. The ISO is a value I check/set before every shoot and I may change it during a shoot, but only by hand. If all three values are set to auto it just happens too often that the exposure is correct but the values are just plain stupid. An extrem example could be 1s/1000, f/22 ISO 12800. If I have glass that goes up to f/1.8 or even 1.4, I don't need to stop that lens down to values that turn every picture into a blur - unless I want that effect, but then it is my choice, not my camera's - and use ISOs that make my pics grainy like rice pudding.

Just my two cents...

Best regards,
Chris

[aleonx3]

I hate auto ISO! To me it is one of the most useless functions of modern cameras - especially if aperture and shutter speed are also in auto mode.

Just my two cents...

Best regards,
Chris

How can this be? Which shooting mode are you using? If you leave everything in auto, then you are shooting in 'green' mode.... just don't understand this...

---------- Post added 03-12-2015 at 12:47 PM ----------

I shot with both a K3 (which I sent back) & the K5 IIs (which I've kept), working in Capture One or Photoshop, I see no differences. I kept the K5 only due to having less NR options that I had to turn off... which seemed never to turn off in the K3 no matter what I did.

I have to say though, comparing similar shots from my K-x (from last soccer season) to the K5 IIs (present soccer season), I like the K-x better.

I don't have problems with AF, so thats not the issue. Play tons of video games, I know how to track with or without a reticle. So, thats not what I'm speaking about.

I'm frustrated cause I like the the pic quality of the K-x better. Anyone notice the same? And, can anyone explain that?

Note- I shoot everything in M or TAv.

---------- Post added 03-11-15 at 08:42 AM ----------

Additionally, I think another problem is that both the K3 & K5 IIs jump to the highest possible ISO (in broad daylight!!!) whereas the K-x will not.

Comparing similar shots, in broad daylight, from last season to the present, the K5 uses a much higher ISO. The K-x shot at 100 or 200 last season. K5 at 200 was severely underexposed. It wanted 800. In post I was able to bump up the exposure and save the pics but I didn't like the look of them. Never had problems like that with the K-x.

TAv mode by definition, means you let the camera choose ISO according to your setting of the shutter speed and aperture based on the metering condition. I am not sure if k-x has the TAv mode in the camera and how is it behaves differently than the k-5IIs or k-3. The problem with shooting in TAv mode in broad daylight is often with metering takes the ISO lower than the range set resulting in over-exposed images (the camera usually warns with blinks).

[audiobomber]

I don't share this fear of auto ISO. I set the aperture for DOF and sharpness, and shutter speed to control subject motion and camera shake. If ISO is getting too high, I compromise on one of the other parameters.

Regarding the original post, I owned a K-x for two or three years, at the same time as a K20D. I considered the K20D to have better subjective IQ, despite having lower measured performance, and massively better controls. My current K-3 is easily the best of these, in every way. The K-x noise reduction was particularly horrible at default settings, giving a very plasticky look.

PS There is no TAv mode on the K-x.

[PixelGeek]

Actually, I don't know if my K-3 actually does this everything-auto-thing. I don't even know what colour the square has. I have never used it.

I just remember seeing pics on the web that had these crazy settings and I assumed they were done by some auto mode because the people who would have been dumb enough to actually use these settings would not know how to set them. I just read my camera's manual and decided that auto ISO is evil.

Regards,
Chris

[arkav]

I just read my camera's manual and decided that auto ISO is evil.

Much depends on the type of shooting you do. I find TAv mode very handy for the kind of shooting I do. I want to control aperture and shutter speed, but I can tolerate a little variance in ISO to deal with changes in ambient light that might occur while I'm actively shooting.

It's very handy when you're doing near-macro shooting of subjects that don't necessarily hold still, and can be scared off if you start moving your hands around on the camera body to make adjustments. If you're in position, and working your subject, and a cloud passes overhead, or a change in magnification requires an adjustment in exposure, it's handy to have the camera compensate without messing with your chosen aperture/shutter speed. With this kind of shooting, I used to shoot 100% manual when I shot film, then mostly in Tv with my K200D, but I like using TAv on my K30. I still keep an eye on what ISO the camera is setting. It works for me far more often than it spoils a shot. If my camera body had poor high ISO performance, I'd probably be less inclined to use it.

Admittedly, that's a somewhat specialized use case. For other situations, TAv may not be my preferred mode. That's the nice thing about having all these different modes on your DSLR - you can try different things and find which mode works best for you in different situations.

Personally, I've never been able to wrap my head around P mode. I just don't get it. But I'm sort of manual oriented, and I've never really spent much time trying to work out how I'd use that mode in the context of my own shooting ( my old film cameras didn't have it ). I see that other people do use it, so I figure there must be something I'm missing. I do not conclude that it is "evil".

[audiobomber]

I find TAv mode very handy for the kind of shooting I do. I want to control aperture and shutter speed, but I can tolerate a little variance in ISO to deal with changes in ambient light that might occur while I'm actively shooting.

It's very handy when you're doing near-macro shooting of subjects that don't necessarily hold still, and can be scared off if you start moving your hands around on the camera body to make adjustments.
Personally, I've never been able to wrap my head around P mode. I just don't get it. But I'm sort of manual oriented, and I've never really spent much time trying to work out how I'd use that mode in the context of my own shooting ( my old film cameras didn't have it ). I see that other people do use it, so I figure there must be something I'm missing. I do not conclude that it is "evil".

I mainly use TAv in two situations:

- For birding, I need a high shutter speed to control camera shake and subject blur. I want maximum sharpness and reasonable DOF, so I prefer not to have the lens wide open. (The DA*300 is acceptably sharp wide open, the 55-300mm is not). Metering in the deeply shaded woods vs. a sunlit branch can vary as much as 5 stops. TAv mode compensates for brightness, while maintaining my preferred settings.

- Indoor ambient light shooting, with attendant high ISO, low shutter speeds and wide apertures. I may not shoot in TAv mode if I'm using a lens that works wide open, like my FA 35mm. But the FA 50mm f1.4 is not good wide open, and Tv mode will select extravagant shutter speeds. TAv is the best answer, it will compensate the metering and not disturb my carefully selected settings.

The lack of TAv mode was my biggest frustration with the K-x.

I use P-mode for general shooting. The camera makes sensible decisions most of the time in good light. If I want to control DOF, I just tweak the rear dial, and the camera automatically switches to Av mode. If I want to control the shutter speed, I spin the front dial. This is called Hyper-Program, which I believe was invented by Pentax and is a wonderful feature, not available in all brands.

[arkav]

TAv is the best answer, it will compensate the metering and not disturb my carefully selected settings.

Exactly. Same goes for me when I'm chasing butterflies.

I don't think I discovered TAv mode on my own. IIRC, I read someone's post here in Pentax Forums describing how they used it, and it struck me how it would be applicable to what I do. Same goes for Back button focus.

In both cases, my previous camera didn't have these features, so I didn't really imagine using them until I read about how someone else used them, and then I gave them a try on my new camera. There may be other cases where you find
that what you're doing doesn't work as well as you'd like, and you start to think "if only this camera would do X" - and then you discover that in fact it does, you just have to configure it a little differently.