Originally posted by sewebster I have a k200d. It's great, but there are two things I'd like to improve, low light AF and high iso performance. Can anyone quantify how much better the k3ii is over what I'm used to in terms of iso?
One online comparison I saw said 1 stop. Not sure if that is accurate though, seems like not as much as I'd like. Maybe 2 stops? Can be hard to compare sample shots due to the extreme resolution difference.
Thanks for any advice. I'm sure that any modern body would be a huge improvement, I guess it's more of a question of which to get or when to buy. Not sure if I can live without a top LCD... and more controls than k200d would be nice (e.g. change iso without using screen).
Of course I keep searching for k200d on here and there is so much about how the CCD is so good! Hard to leave it behind!
The K-3 is definitely going to be an upgrade in this respect. The AF is better, as others have mentioned, and the white balance is more accurate in low light.
According to DxO, the K-3's sensor has over 2 stops more dynamic range, and about a one-stop advantage in terms of noise. Given the K-3's higher resolution, though, you could easily add another stop and a half to that metric in practice, so let's say you'd get results between 2 and 2.5 stops better. So an ISO 3200 image from the K-3 scaled to 10Mp should be at least as good as an ISO 800 shot from the K200D.
Some users prefer the K-5 because it has less noise overall- but the lower sensor resolution balances things out, and overall the two are more or less tied at high ISOs, while the K-3 pulls ahead at lower ISOs.
I wish I could offer a definitive comparison, but I've only squared off the K-3 against the K-50 and the K-5. That said, since the sensor in the K200D has about the same performance as the one in the K-7, so it would be fair to use this K-5 vs K-7 comparison to illustrate that 2-stop difference:
Pentax K-5 Review - Image Tests | PentaxForums.com Reviews
Select ISO 6400 for both, NR off, and the difference is huge!
If you need more convincing I might dust off the K10D to give it for a spin- but last time I tried something similar the difference was so huge that I did not proceed with publishing the results.
Adam
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