Originally posted by soccerjoe5 From my experience (I'm not saying I'm SUPER experienced), Pentax photos are just made for printing. The output is just fantastic in print compared to other brands. Those other brands feel like they're tweaked for on-screen viewing but when it comes to printing, Pentax just blows me away.
Well, I have to agree. I just shot & printed the same image with the same settings (this time they are
both f/4 @1/750 ISO200); all the prints were on my home Epson R1800 with Epson Ultra Matte paper and at best photo resolution.
My conclusions (now) are that:
at the K100 native resolution (8.4x12.5" @ 240dpi)...
there is no significant difference in IQ, in either the mico-resolution or "big picture" sense , even with the K100 print at 240dpi and the K20 scaled down to that size @360dpi;
at A3 size (11.7x16.5") to get a borderless print it gets interesting...
to get the K100 up to the full paper size it has to be enlarged by about 20% and dpi goes down to app. 180dp;
the K20 has to be reduced by about 20% and dpi goes up to app. 300dpi (
these are approximate numbers, please don't flame me to point it should really be something like 81.794% or 117.962% or some such thing);
and the outcome is, as you would guess, that t
he K20 print shows significantly better resolution, color, shadow detail etc.
In summary (for printed output) in my humble opinion ... if you print no larger than about 8x12"" @ 240dpi (approximately) the K100 matches the K20 in IQ, so you're just paying for K20 ergonomics and handling ; if you print 11x14" or larger, or, crop heavily (20%+ of the full image), the K20 will give you better prints and then the ergonomics+IQ justifies the cost,
Brian