[UncleVanya]

Shooting hundreds of shots at a time at a Rocket Launch I shoot Jpegs. Shooting artistic landscapes I shoot Raw+. I typically set the JPEG to 2mp and use it for a quick post to a friend to show what I am shooting.

[aleonx3]

Shooting hundreds of shots at a time at a Rocket Launch I shoot Jpegs. Shooting artistic landscapes I shoot Raw+. I typically set the JPEG to 2mp and use it for a quick post to a friend to show what I am shooting.

I see what you mean... although from my experience, once you give your friends the "less than stellar" photos, they don't want to see the same photos again (although they didn't say it out loud). If I want them to see the photos right away, I send them the snapshots from my iphone. They can wait to see the better photos later... So, I never bother to take JPEG photos any more.

[grahame]

Unprocessed photos, JPEG or RAW, are secrets that I will keep for myself only. Even some JPEGs are good enough and need very little processing, I always check before I show them to anyone

[Bunch]

The lenses had to play a factor in this test too.

[stevebrot]

No surprises on this test, except perhaps for Sony. I was curious regarding the comment in the video that they used the "natural" setting for all cameras. Default for Pentax is "bright" and if "natural" were chosen that might explain the lack of punch.

Still, though the results are consistent with Consumer Reports and other review sites where a high premium is placed on JPEG quality and pleasing results. I personally feel that Pentax may be more accurate, but Canon or Nikon generally deliver "wow" right out of the box. I personally feel that Ricoh/Pentax should pay more attention to this matter, particularly with the consumer line bodies. In my opinion, blame probably should be placed on the color space coercion algorithms used to reduce the broad gamut capture to the narrow sRGB default JPEG color space. That might also explain the poor red channel detail performance typical for the brand with the Imaging Resource fabric swatch in their studio test poster.


Steve

[pierovitch]

Coincidence how the outcome favours models with favourable profit margins and sales volumes for the dealer? Tough for dealers in a declining market.

[Doundounba]

Just this morning I wrote the following in another thread about Pentax JPGs...

I think a lot of it comes down to taking control of the JPEG engine. IMHO, Pentax JPGs are reviewed unduly harshly because of the color profile that the cameras default to out of the box ("Bright"). Also, the "issue" with blown reds (discussed in the other thread) is common to most digital imaging sensors, and not at all specific to Pentax - see this discussion, for instance. BTW, some people feel the Fuji sensors have a problem with greens, but I couldn't say whether that is really the case or not.

If you intend to not shoot raw - a completely legitimate decision, IMHO - you should explore the very wide customization options available in the various color profiles that Pentax offers, as well as the options for highlight and shadow correction (under D-Range Settings in the menus, at least on my K-3). Find something that works for you. I shoot a slightly tweaked Natural profile, with highlight correction on and the lowest level of shadow correction. Personally, I'm super happy with Pentax's JPEG engine, and most of my shots only go through some light tweaking once out of the camera. I suppose I'll eventually move to RAW, but so far my attempts at RAW postprocessing have not equaled the results I get from my customized camera settings plus a modicum of tweaking in post. There's a real skill involved in (non-trivial) RAW processing, and although there's undoubtedly value in acquiring that skill, you should, I believe, feel free to decide if and when you decide to head down that particular path as you progress as a photographer. I feel that the vast customization options that the Pentax JPG engine provides give you that freedom, and provide excellent OOC images.

p.s.: If you shoot a lot indoor, you might also want to change the default for white balance under Tungsten light from Subtle to Strong Correction.

p.p.s.: I believe the TCS guys used the camera default color profile, so "Bright" for Pentax.

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Last edited by Doundounba; 11-16-2016 at 02:14 PM.

[rfaucher]

Having owned and still own a number of digital cameras from Pentax, Olympus and Panasonic, I have to concede I would put Pentax in last place for JPEG output. I give first place to my Olympus OMD-EM5 MkII and as well as other Oly m4/3 cameras I've owned. Of course, this is mainly a subjective preference based on colouring rendering and "keepers". Oddly enough, I prefer the JPEGs from my Pentax Q10 over my K3. It seems to me Pentax did a good job on the Q's JPEG engine to exploit its tiny, limited sensor.

When I got the K3, I shot both RAW and JPEGs. No matter how much I tweaked its JPEG engine, I never quite got the results I wanted. Later on, I set JPEGs to render at the smallest size for the convenience of previewing and uploading them quickly when I'm travelling. Now I just shoot DNG on the K3 as I get results I want quickly in Lightroom with my own camera profiles and presets. The K3 can produce outstanding image quality, but I've only seen its true potential when carefully developing its DNG files in Lightroom. If I really want to upload a JPEG on the go, the K3 has decent in camera development.

I understand that some folks really like the speed and convenience of JPG's, but if you don't have the RAW file, you'll never realize the full potential of your image. This is especially true as raw development software continues to improve and breathes new life and potential in your old RAW files. Storage is cheap these days, so it makes sense to shoot JPG+RAW if you really need convenience.

It is a pity the neutered version of SilkyPix Pentax includes with their cameras is such a crappy piece of software. It would be great if they had software that allowed one to easily and quickly batch process your RAW images into JPGs that faithfully mimic the camera's JPG engine as well as any in camera JPG customizations. Such a workflow allows one to shoot RAW and then rapidly convert all images to JPGs as if they were rendered in camera.

The Viewer software included with Olympus cameras does this very well indeed. I shoot RAW only and if I don't have time to process a bunch of images in Lightroom, I can run the files through Olympus Viewer in minutes and get great JPEGs that are virtually indistinguishable from those out of the camera.

[UncleVanya]

What I found most interesting was the finish at #3 on portraits. I have struggled to get good skin tone on Pentax (and other cameras) without Raw at times. I usually think the straight out of the camera files just are too red. Does anyone know if they published the jpgs?

[MadMathMind]

Owning a DSLR to shoot JPEG is like owning an espresso machine to boil water for your instant coffee...

This is true in general, but editing and processing EVERY image is too time consuming. I never edit my travel photos because I don't have time. I don't know why I take them, to be honest. What would be nice is to shoot RAW+JPEG and edit the best images and then leave the others as is. But frankly, the Pentax JPEGs are so poor that this is unfeasible. I find myself just editing the JPEG if I want something quick.

I'm thinking of acquiring another camera system for travel because I find that I can't edit my photos in a reasonable amount of time due to other time commitments. The K-1 is just way too much work for casual shots because of its ruddy JPEG engine.e

---------- Post added 11-16-16 at 04:44 PM ----------

Just this morning I wrote the following in another thread about Pentax JPGs...

I think a lot of it comes down to taking control of the JPEG engine. IMHO, Pentax JPGs are reviewed unduly harshly because of the color profile that the cameras default to out of the box ("Bright").

There's far more wrong with the Pentax JPEGs than the color. The contrast is poor, the image unsharp, noise reduction is substandard...the photos just look so unbelievably flat. They're pretty much close to unusable for anything serious, in my opinion.

[grahame]

There's far more wrong with the Pentax JPEGs than the color. The contrast is poor, the image unsharp, noise reduction is substandard...the photos just look so unbelievably flat. They're pretty much close to unusable for anything serious, in my opinion.

I don't think Pentax JPEG is that bad. Most time if light is good, JPEG is fine enough.
I can only compare to Sony's Jpeg, or Ricoh GR. I will definitely put Sony as the worst, way worse than Pentax. color is off, noise reduction is way overdone. I shoot RAW from A7 and A6000 only because I found the JPEG from camera is useless.
For Pentax, if you like more vivid and contrasty photos, try setting JPEG at bright or vivid (?). Neutral setting is flat and boring.

---------- Post added 11-16-16 at 05:04 PM ----------

It is a pity the neutered version of SilkyPix Pentax includes with their cameras is such a crappy piece of software.

Yes, unfortunately.
But processing RAW in the PDCU makes much vivid and bright color than from LR. I process raw from PUCD for color, WB, lens correction, noise reduction, sharpening... and export tiff, and process tiff in LR for cropping, light touch up and so on. I found color from LR directly is not as good.

[UncleVanya]

It was my impression that they just left the cameras on whatever the default was - perhaps an email for clarification would be helpful. I certainly would think bright would not work well with the baby and the studio shot didn't look like bright to me.

[bm75]

I mainly shot in raw+jpeg because I like jpegs OOC from my k5 but I don't want to miss the raw datas. simply put jpeg engine is graeat but tweaking its parameters is impossible or time consuming for every shot. So having the raw for that special photo I want perfect is importantfor my way of taking pictures.

[RobA_Oz]

I wouldn't like to impugn the motives here, but comparisons like these are of limited value, unless they're made across a range of user-settings, and viewed on a standard monitor (or perhaps even a range of devices), then both compared with a reliable standard, like a colour card, and blind tested across a suitable range and number of people, to give both objective and subjective findings. I doubt anyone short of a manufacturer or independent testing laboratory has the resource to do that well enough. Anything less may be of passing interest, but really is just internet noise, or clickbait, or both.

[wildman]

For what it's worth - I always shoot RAW but I'm retired and have the time.

Basic primary workflow:

1. Get the tone you want in ACR
2. Get the WB you want in Photoshop doing a full manual white balance - Photoshop is particularly powerful for this purpose.
3. Get the balance between dark and light tones the way you want.
5. Finish off the file with whatever else that it might need that is peculiar to that file.
6. It's a finished file when Photoshop tells me it's finished.

I can't imagine trying to get the results I want with the limited control that the camera body provides. The camera does allow more or less accurate control of overall exposure but little else. Given the final results I want, shooting RAW, is the simple easy way.