[Wheatridger]

After four years of happy K-1 ownership, I just now realized that I've never made a Pixel Shift image with it. I wonder what I may be missing? I'm completely happy with the sharpness of my images, if I'm using my best lenses. The dynamic range beats any other camera I've ever used. Tonight I was rereading the DPR review of the K-1, and they made a point that there's a 1-2 stop increase in DR using Pixel Shift. Their demo photos, made on a cloudy day at a shady waterfall, failed to prove that case. What's your experience?

When the K-1 arrived, I did attempt to use Pixel Shift. My understand was that you had to use Silkypix to process the image. I loaded that program, took one look and headed for the hills. Too unfamiliar, and the one function I wanted to use was hidden. Are there other programs now that makes the process easier. Can Lightroom handle them?

Similar sensor-shifting schemes are in use now, so I imagine that there are more resources. Enlighten me!

Finally, the title question- in what situations is it worth it?

[tduell]

A simple way of working with a pixelshift image using your image processor of choice is to simply use dcrawps to do the initial processing and combining of the 4 shots into a TIFF, and then do your PP on the TIFF in Lightroom or whatever takes your fancy.

Cheers,
Terry

[house]

Rawtherapee is the best software to use for pixelshift. I find that results vary with subjects. Sometimes the difference is hard to detect other times its significant.

[stevebrot]

My understand was that you had to use Silkypix to process the image. I loaded that program, took one look and headed for the hills.

The program you use should have come with your camera on a CD. It is called Digital Camera Utility.


Steve

[biz-engineer]

Finally, the title question- in what situations is it worth it?

Color macro photography, when cropping, the refined pixels of pixel shift are a benefit.
Using the camera for "scanning" flat subjects: reproduction.
More refined wide angle images: when stitching multiple images becomes difficult with loss of resolution in rectilinear projection (>90 degrees angle of view), pixel shift is an alternative method of getting superior image quality without the problems of stitching.

[kypfer]

When the K-1 arrived, I did attempt to use Pixel Shift. My understand was that you had to use Silkypix to process the image. I loaded that program, took one look and headed for the hills. Too unfamiliar, and the one function I wanted to use was hidden. Are there other programs now that makes the process easier. Can Lightroom handle them?

Finally, the title question- in what situations is it worth it?

The program you use should have come with your camera on a CD. It is called Digital Camera Utility.
Steve

I "resisted" the supplied Digital Camera Utility for a while, not so much "complicated" but certainly unfamiliar, and rather cryptic. The minimal documentation is an issue, but the supplied help file appears to be complete, if not very easy to work with, but well worth having open alongside the program … having two monitors can be useful here
Then I found the Japanese-language pages at ???????RAW??????????Digital Camera Utility 5 ?1??????? | PENTAX official , applied an on-line translator, and much became clear
For my purposes, a far more attractive solution than having to learn a third-party program, especially if I was to be expected to keep paying a license fee!
One characteristic of Digital Camera Utility that I do appreciate is the use of the same terms and descriptions in the program as used on the cameras, so any adjustments that are consistently required in DCU can be easily applied in-camera, thereby saving some post-processing "fiddling"
Sorry, never really tried Pixel Shift, so can't help with that aspect of things, but if you're going to spend time learning a software package anyway, why not use the tool designed specifically for the job?

[biz-engineer]

The thing is... most people don't see how pixel shift makes a noticeable difference, because... default JPEG compressions are designed for conventional bayer CFA image type. Now if I use Raw Therapee, enable pixel shift and capture sharpening, I get twice as much detail, I could print the pixel-shift image almost twice as large as the same image converted by PDCU or SPD10. Even with the best sharpening I could do on a single frame, I could never reach the level of details obtained from a PS stack in RT. However, it took me quite a bit of thinking and work to make some color / tone profiles to achieve good looking color output in RT. The defaults in RT are Off compared to Pentax styles, even the .dcp delivered with RT package is Off, I had to disable all this and create my own settings.

[beholder3]

Finally, the title question- in what situations is it worth it?

Basically Pixelshift upgrades your camera from 36 MPx to 50 MPx pixelcount. The latter is the Bayer-sensor-equivalent pixelcount to the resolution you get. Plus better color accuracy.
You have to answer the question yourself, if this extra resolution is valuable to you or not.

With regards to processing the optimal tool is the free RawTherapee software.
Lightroom still is way underwhelming versus all other options. IMHO outright crappy.
Surprisingly enough the in camera raw developer probably comes in at second place as it achieves very good results - if you once take the time to tune your raw development settings in the camera to your liking, especially fine sharpness.

[biz-engineer]

Basically Pixelshift upgrades your camera from 36 MPx to 50 MPx pixelcount

I could confirm that by a blind test, converting a K1 PS file converted to JPEG, same processing on file from other 50Mp cameras (including 51Mp MF). I shuffled the JPEGs, then guessed what JPEG came from which camera. I had mistaken the K1 pictures for the A7RIV pictures, and mistaken K1 pictures for GFX50S pictures. In fact, the K1 pictures didn't contain any false colors, while the 50S JPEG still contained false colors. There were only two files that didn't have false colors: the K1 pixel shift export and the GFX100 export.

[microlight]

It’s not just about sharpness and dynamic range for me; there are three other benefits that I see - increased colour fidelity, reduction in capture noise and also a general slowing-down of the whole process, of using a tripod and taking more time over the exposure.

There’s no doubt that resolution is increased but I also enjoy the slower pace of pixel shift shooting. I agree with biz that for me, DCU5 gives better results than RawTherapee, but then I am used to using it - YMMV. So frame rate in the new K-3III is of little interest to me as if I did buy it when released, it’s a feature that would be rarely if ever used as it would be likely to spend more time on a tripod in pixel shift mode.

[Rondec]

It depends on the photo. If there is much movement in what you are taking then don't bother. Same with really long exposures. Same if you aren't using a tripod.

I use Raw Therapee and have found it simple to use and I do think it adds detail and color depth and decreases noise in the shadows. The base RAW images for the K-1 are already really good, but this adds to them. Whether it is worth it to you depends on what kind of shooter you are, but the post processing really is pretty simple in RT.

[jgnfld]

...My understand was that you had to use Silkypix to process the image. I loaded that program, took one look and headed for the hills. Too unfamiliar, and the one function I wanted to use was hidden. Are there other programs now that makes the process easier. Can Lightroom handle them? ...

There IS a bit--well perhaps more than a bit --of a steep learning curve with Silkypix and the Japanglish help files can be hard to follow at first until you get your mind into their groove. But it is quite powerful. And the menus follow a great workflow visually on the page (basically work top to bottom opening submenus covering all PP aspects--your "hiding"--either accepting what's there or tweaking it). But I found it took me a while to to actually see the elegant ideas behind that workflow organization. I pretty much use Silkypix (10 Pro some $$$) all the time for all PP now as I have no wish to subscribe to Adobe in perpetuity.

That said, rawtherapee at least some time ago was already good when I tried it (another steep learning curve, however, plus the help--and there is lots of it--spread around the internet is not necessarily well organized--think gimp help) for pixelshift. And the price is right, certainly. DCU handles it. It acts like a primitive version of Silkypix as that is what it actually is, I think. Lightroom has it but I often read complaints. Don't know how valid they are. There are others but DCU, Silkypix, rawtherapee, and Lightroom are the most talked about in actual use in my observation.

[steephill]

Another processing option PixelShift2DNG: Convert Sony and Pentax Pixel Shift Files to DNG | FastRawViewer

[house]

If there is much movement in what you are taking then don't bother. Same with really long exposures.

I'd add a qualification to this. Movement is fine as long as the things moving aren't the ones you want to be in highest possible resolution. The bits that end up not being pixel shifted due to movement don't stand out like a sore thumb. They have subtly more noise and subtly less sharpness. For me it's typically people moving in the frame or leaves moving in the wind. If you pixelpeep you can see a "shadow" with slightly more noise behind a moving person. Similarly leaves will be slightly less defined. For my use case that's more than fine.

[normhead]

Originally I dd a lot of comparisons to try and evaluate Pixels shift. My comment would be , I use it whenever possible. Comparing single and pixel shift images rarely produces a huge difference, but when it does, it makes all the time you spent on the ones that didn't worthwhile. If you are setting up tripod anyway, you may as well throw in a few pixel shifted images into the mix. It may make a better image, it may not, but it definitely won't if you don't give it a chance.

My process is simple. Load the pixel shifted image into their own folder, import them into DCU. Export the ones I want to keep as tiffs using the "save changes" function. Go on from there with my usual editing software. DCU is slow and clunky, but it gets the job done.

Good luck.