[Pentaxor]

Well I don't think so. The lens pen, zeiss lens cleaning solution and "photofinishing specialist" magazine are cleary OOF in K-x shot while in focus on K-7. I think K-x is focused a bit "behind" ("SD Camcorder" label on the card board seems in focus and is sharp). I'm talking about ISO 100 shot.

try ultra-zooming in or blowing up the image texts a bit more. compare both texts in the images which says "card model". take note of the inner-side circles of the vowels.

also the texts which says "Smart, Compact Card Camcorder" which is located below it and printed in the white sticker. compare the intensity and definition of both texts.

[jerrymouse]

try ultra-zooming in or blowing up the image texts a bit more. compare both texts in the images which says "card model". take note of the inner-side circles of the vowels.

also the texts which says "Smart, Compact Card Camcorder" which is located below it and printed in the white sticker. compare the intensity and definition of both texts.

I did, thanks. K-7 looks better in those shots. It's calming - maybe we won't see more "K-7 is doomed, we want K-7x" threads If I had the money, I'd have K-7 on my desk right now. But my budget is limited, so I have K-x. High iso didn't affect my decision at all
I'll take K-x on a walk today and try to get some images.

OP, thanks for the comparison.

[ogl]

K-7 with NR 25 at ISO1600 is good detailed and good sharpness.
Without NR rather noisy. WB - I like K-x better.

Anyway, I'd prefer K-7.

[Pentaxor]

The Sharpness setting does make a lot of difference.

I only did this with the JPGs -
Opened both normal NR ISO100 jpgs in my photo editor - tiled them side by side.
The just applied standard sharpen to the Kx image -
bang! the visual acuity/sharpness was immediate and noticeable -
now the Kx image looks a lot clearer and sharper.

Let me see if I can illustrate this -
below are crops (from 100% ie: NO resizing)
from the STD-NR versions of the ISO100 JPGs -
the EXIF info should still be attached -

the larger crop is obviously the K7 the Before and After are the Kx
all I did was to crop the images and save them to medium quality JPG
the "After" (Kx) shot had simple one-click standard Sharpen applied -
that's all nothing fancy -
look at the obvious difference
I would now pick the After shot as the better over the K7 -
whereas Before I would have chosen the K7......

what application did you use for sharpening? btw, did you do the opposite and had lessen the K-7 result by -1 instead?

[Pentaxor]

The Sharpness setting does make a lot of difference.

I only did this with the JPGs -
Opened both normal NR ISO100 jpgs in my photo editor - tiled them side by side.
The just applied standard sharpen to the Kx image -
bang! the visual acuity/sharpness was immediate and noticeable -
now the Kx image looks a lot clearer and sharper.

Let me see if I can illustrate this -
below are crops (from 100% ie: NO resizing)
from the STD-NR versions of the ISO100 JPGs -
the EXIF info should still be attached -


the larger crop is obviously the K7 the Before and After are the Kx
all I did was to crop the images and save them to medium quality JPG
the "After" (Kx) shot had simple one-click standard Sharpen applied -
that's all nothing fancy -
look at the obvious difference
I would now pick the After shot as the better over the K7 -
whereas Before I would have chosen the K7......

I did the opposite and adjusted the K-7 jpeg (-1) instead using PCU4. still the K-7 has more definition and darker uniform text prints across the image.

[roy4core]

I bought the K-x after comparing the pictures of the K-7 and K-x
Now I have this camera I don't know how I can put the iso at 100 or 12800 I only see the option for 200-6400
Can somebody help me

[jerrymouse]

I bought the K-x after comparing the pictures of the K-7 and K-x
Now I have this camera I don't know how I can put the iso at 100 or 12800 I only see the option for 200-6400
Can somebody help me

Custom menu 1, 3rd option, switch it to "2 - On".

[UnknownVT]

what application did you use for sharpening? btw, did you do the opposite and had lessen the K-7 result by -1 instead?

No, remember I used the JPGs - I just used my photo editor (Ulead PhotoImpact 8) and did a simple sharpen.

I did the opposite and adjusted the K-7 jpeg (-1) instead using PCU4. still the K-7 has more definition and darker uniform text prints across the image.

Be grateful if you could please show us crops at 100%?

As a previous poster said he did not care about JPG at all - here are the same crops from the STD-NR ISO100 DNG files converted to JPG (all default settings) -




The larger image is from the K7
The converter I used did not have sharpening
(my Pentax Photo Lab 3.6.1 would not open either of the DNG files)
so I did the same simple one-click standard sharpen on the Kx image
(nothing fancy or magical)

Once again it is pretty obvious that the sharpened Kx image has improved a lot, so that I would once again choose the Sharpened version over the K7 where as the As-Is does indeed look inferior to the K7.

One may argue that the K7 image ought to be superior -
and it probably is in actuality -
BUT I was only trying to illustrate that lower sharpening would make an otherwise good image look less so -
by merely sharpening the image in even a simple photo editor can make an otherwise lack-luster image look pretty darned good.
That was all I was trying to show.....

[ogl]

I've opened DNG in LR 2.3 and C1 Pro - and I can say that K-x is just slighly worse than K-7 in resolution.
Maybe LR 3.0 beta doesn't work fine with K-x?

K-7 looks better in LR 3.0. K-x is a bit worse than in LR 2.3.

[rawr]

Maybe LR 3.0 beta doesn't work fine with K-x?

According to Ned Bunnell's blog, LR 2.5 does include support for the K-x. They gave the K-x details to Adobe at the same time as the K7 details. So LR 3 should support it too.

The K-x's resolution at low ISO's would, you would expect, be lower than the K7 given the 14MP vs 12MP pixel density.

Allow me to make some speculative comments on K7 vs K-x resolution.

The argument could be made that at higher ISO's the K7 and K-x may catch up with each other in lph resolution as ISO increases. All cameras lose resolution as sensitivity increases. Even though the K7 has a denser sensor, the K-x may possibly lose resolution at a slower rate than the K7 sensor as ISO increases, due to its better noise floor.

To illustrate the issue, eg according to some of the Focus-Numerique charts, a camera like the K200D loses fully 25% of it's horizontal resolution from ISO 100 > ISO 1600, whereas a better FF sensor like the Canon 5DII loses only 15% of its resolution across the same ISO range. Similarly, the Canon 500D seems to lose less than 20% of its resolution across that same ISO range.

In theory, if the K-x's resolution loss was on a slower trajectory than the K7's from ISO 100 onwards, the K-x's resolution might be expected to match or exceed the K7's at some point, perhaps even at ISO 1600, depending on the relative rate of decline in resolution vs sensitivity of the two cameras.

Eg for arguments sake if, like the K200D the 14MP K7 lost 25% of its resolution ISO 100 to 1600, it would effectively be resolving at 10.5MP at 1600 ISO, but if the K-x lost only 15% resolution across that range it would be effectively be 10.2MP at 1600 ISO. And at 3200 ISO or earlier the K7 might fall below the K-x in resolution, if the rate of decline in resolution were constant for both sensors after ISO 1600.

Holding onto more sensor resolution even up into high ISO's is certainly a handy trick, if the K-x does indeed do that. I suspect it may.

[Daemos]

No, remember I used the JPGs - I just used my photo editor (Ulead PhotoImpact 8) and did a simple sharpen.

The way to test that way is incorrect, you MUST use DCU since that has the exact same adjustment settings as you would have on the camera.

Using DCU v4 open up the K7 DNG set it to -1 sharpness hell set it to -5 sharpness and it still has more definition than the Kx.

If someone can give me a place where I can host the images I'll do the work with DCU and Jpeg it.

[Eruditass]

Well I don't think so. The lens pen, zeiss lens cleaning solution and "photofinishing specialist" magazine are cleary OOF in K-x shot while in focus on K-7. I think K-x is focused a bit "behind" ("SD Camcorder" label on the card board seems in focus and is sharp). I'm talking about ISO 100 shot.

That's what I was thinking - perhaps the K-x has a bit of back focus, but the DoF is such that "SD Camcorder" is within the acceptably sharp DoF. "SD Camcorder" is much more comparable to the K-7, but everything in front on the K-x significantly worse comparatively than the difference in "SD Camcorder". That's why I suggested f/8.

[Daemos]

K7 vs KX @ ISO 100&200 K7 adjusted using DCU to -1 and -5 sharpness
Download the Jpegs here: Adjusted using DCU from Pentax v4

[url=http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LC4G8O8Jhttp://www.megaupload.com/?d=LC4G8O8[/url]

It's noticable even at -5 Sharpness there is more definition in the K7 than there is in the KX at -1 sharpness

[WerTicus]

RAW is the only relevant comparison IMO when your looking this closely at quality, to even be considering quality and NOT using RAW does not make any sense.

Its like buying a FA Limited 31mm lens and then smearing Vaseline on the front to protect it because its easier than having to take on and off a lens cap.


Thanks very much for taking the time to put this together Daemos!

[UnknownVT]

The way to test that way is incorrect, you MUST use DCU since that has the exact same adjustment settings as you would have on the camera.

Using DCU v4 open up the K7 DNG set it to -1 sharpness hell set it to -5 sharpness and it still has more definition than the Kx.

Correct?

If you please read my post #28 - all I said was sharpness setting can make a difference to the visual acuity/sharpness of a photo.

Then went on to say having the two STD-NR ISO100 photos tiled side-by-side in my photo editor I applied a simple one click sharpen to the Kx version - and all of a sudden it looked a lot better - better than the K7.

I then went on the illustrate this with some 100% crops of the same area with a Before and After sharpening Kx crops.

Since someone said he did not care at all about JPGs I converted the STD-NR ISO100 DNG - and again looked at them in my photo editor tiled side-by-side and doing exactly the same applied a simply one-click sharpen to the Kx crop and again it looked a lot better - again better than the K7.

Legitimate - of course it is - if I can manage to make the Kx shot somehow look a lot btter - better than the K7 - what's not legitimate about it - it's not if I did something no one else could do, or had some program no one else has.

The point is sharpening makes a difference in any visual comparison - and it also illustrates what I said in post #28 " Of course visual acuity/sharpness can make a lot of difference - sometimes lower resolution images can look sharper (as higher resolution does not necessarily mean sharper). "

The Kx is obviously of lower resolution - but somehow with simple sharpen it manages to look better than the higher resolution K7.

Yes, of course the K7 could have been sharpened too so that it would also gain and I'll do that to be fair so that with the same sharpening the K7 would again look better - but I was surprised that the difference/gap was not as much as before - at least not to my eyes - of course YMMV.




EDIT to ADD -

Thank you again for your sterling efforts and the latest batch of DCU sharpened photos. I took the ISO100 sharpened -1 versions and tiled them side-by side in my photo editor - this time visually the gap was not as big - but the K7 still looked better - no disagreement from me - that's probably due to the sheer fact the K7 has higher resolution.

For grins - please don't take this "seriously" - to show that sharpening can make a visual difference - I did a simple one-click sharpen of the Kx image - and although I know what I see - I'll leave it for people to draw their own conclusions.

Thanks again for your efforts -