[frank]

is yellow the right pencil? if it is, wow, that's actually very green...

Nope, the right one is a light green pen, kinda between yellow and green


Here is another shot of those color pens, you can see there is a yellow pen in there:

Kx at ISO1600:



K7 at ISO1600:




And the center crops of the above photos:
Kx:


K7:

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Last edited by frank; 11-06-2009 at 09:33 AM.

[Pentaxor]

frank, did you apply any in-camera NR to both k-x and K-7? how strong did you apply NR?

it appears that the K-7 lost a significant amount of detail due to noise smearing. note the small lines of the brown cap in the middle.

[rawr]

frank, did you apply any in-camera NR to both k-x and K-7? how strong did you apply NR?

it appears that the K-7 lost a significant amount of detail due to noise smearing. note the small lines of the brown cap in the middle.

It may not be K-7 NR at work. It may simply be the fact that noise destroys detail, or to put it another way, there is less signal and more noise on display in the K-7 crops. Any NR impacts would only come after the fact.

You can see this most starky at work in the 6400 crops. You are not just seeing the difference in camera NR strategies at work, but mainly the differences in signal to noise ratio between the two sensors and their associated circuitry.

[frank]

frank, did you apply any in-camera NR to both k-x and K-7? how strong did you apply NR?

it appears that the K-7 lost a significant amount of detail due to noise smearing. note the small lines of the brown cap in the middle.

No, NR was set to OFF on both cameras, and all testing photos were taken in RAW (DNG in this case) then converted by the new Pentax software came with the Kx camera. I didn't apply any NR either during the conversion or afterward either.

Here is another one (the very first shot from my Kx other than the one I fired in store when I bought the camera) taken under low street light at ISO3200, focusing can be a little better:
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1ppDfQGForeRF7wycrrN0yB5SN-jVL8fWcBH77G...Q/IMGP0002.jpg

It's full size one directly from RAW conversion, but re-saved in CS4 at quality of 8 (so to reduce its size a bit for easy uploading)

I've taken similar photos w/ K7 before, don't think it can make it this clean even at ISO1600.

Anyway, just on high ISO noise control this aspect alone, Kx is quite a bit better than K7. And good thing is, Kx still retain very good details even when the noise control is pretty good. But K7 still has better details under ISO1600 due to its higher resolution sensor.

If I go out for night party or street walk, I'd feel more comfortable w/ a Kx in hands instead of K7

[Pentaxor]

It may not be K-7 NR at work. It may simply be the fact that noise destroys detail, or to put it another way, there is less signal and more noise on display in the K-7 crops. Any NR impacts would only come after the fact.

You can see this most starky at work in the 6400 crops. You are not just seeing the difference in camera NR strategies at work, but mainly the differences in signal to noise ratio between the two sensors and their associated circuitry.

could be. although I'd be interested to see if the exposure, let's say the EV adjustment or shutter speed adjusted could atleast improve the signal to noise ratio at that aperture speed.

if in anyway that the K-7 at a set aperture, does not improve it's signal to noise ratio when such adjustments had been made with the shutterspeed or EV adjustments, then at High ISOs such as 1600 and 3200, the k-x has certainly cleaned up most of those destructive noises and able to retain the image detail. thereby saying that the k-x rules at ISO 1600 and above. although these results are more obvious to see at the in-camera jpegs results from both cameras, since shooting RAW on the K-7 would certainly enhance and retain those details lost while shooting jpeg at ISO 1600 on the same camera. the K-7 however has a useful ISO 3200 results when shot RAW. the k-x however, would be able to produce very good results at 6400 ISO,and occasional acceptable good results at 12,800 ISO (though I believe more photos can be salvageable by PP).

[Pentaxor]

thanks frank. with those kind of results at High ISO, I don't think that you would still need NR (both in-camera and out of camera pp) at all nor anymore.

[Pentaxor]

No, NR was set to OFF on both cameras, and all testing photos were taken in RAW (DNG in this case) then converted by the new Pentax software came with the Kx camera. I didn't apply any NR either during the conversion or afterward either.

Here is another one (the very first shot from my Kx other than the one I fired in store when I bought the camera) taken under low street light at ISO3200, focusing can be a little better:
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1ppDfQGForeRF7wycrrN0yB5SN-jVL8fWcBH77G...Q/IMGP0002.jpg

It's full size one directly from RAW conversion, but re-saved in CS4 at quality of 8 (so to reduce its size a bit for easy uploading)

I've taken similar photos w/ K7 before, don't think it can make it this clean even at ISO1600.

Anyway, just on high ISO noise control this aspect alone, Kx is quite a bit better than K7. And good thing is, Kx still retain very good details even when the noise control is pretty good. But K7 still has better details under ISO1600 due to its higher resolution sensor.

If I go out for night party or street walk, I'd feel more comfortable w/ a Kx in hands instead of K7

that 3200 shot looked great in small prints frank. though I believe it could still be great under larger prints with a little bit of NR and sharpening during pp. having said that, that would mean less work during post-processing.

[Andi Lo]

Hmm, I have to agree with ogl here unfortunately. K-x has indeed lost the 'pentax colors' that was there up until K-m. The pictures are fine. It just doesn't look the same anymore. Remember people complaining that their k20d pics look 'better' than K-7? This is the same case imho. 'Pentax colors' do look 'oversaturated' but it's pleasant (kinda like Velvia or Portra?). In my head the K-x looks very 'tamron'... for lack of a better term. YEMV (your eyes may vary)

Either way I do still think it's the current champ of aps-c lowlight, and the pics still look great, so I'd still be getting it. Going to stick to that awesome k10d ISO 100 for daytime use.

[Pentaxor]

Hmm, I have to agree with ogl here unfortunately. K-x has indeed lost the 'pentax colors' that was there up until K-m. The pictures are fine. It just doesn't look the same anymore. Remember people complaining that their k20d pics look 'better' than K-7? This is the same case imho. 'Pentax colors' do look 'oversaturated' but it's pleasant (kinda like Velvia or Portra?). In my head the K-x looks very 'tamron'... for lack of a better term. YEMV (your eyes may vary)

Either way I do still think it's the current champ of aps-c lowlight, and the pics still look great, so I'd still be getting it. Going to stick to that awesome k10d ISO 100 for daytime use.

actually the OP did mention that he purposely over-adjusted the custom image settings. I believe the Pentax colors are always there and just needed to be adjusted or calibrated properly under custom settings and even better during post-processing.

[Andi Lo]

actually the OP did mention that he purposely over-adjusted the custom image settings. I believe the Pentax colors are always there and just needed to be adjusted or calibrated properly under custom settings and even better during post-processing.

We'll see about that. I'll report back here (or somewhere else) when I get my K-x

[er1kksen]

I've got my K-x in hand, but I'm not used to shooting at night, so I have no idea if the colors I'm getting are the "Pentax colors" I'm accustomed to. :-p

[Andi Lo]

I've got my K-x in hand, but I'm not used to shooting at night, so I have no idea if the colors I'm getting are the "Pentax colors" I'm accustomed to. :-p

Just go with what your eye thinks

[er1kksen]

True that. Pentax colors wouldn't mean anything to me if they weren't the colors my eye *likes.* That said, The main difference I'm seeing, colorwise, between the K-x and and the K20D, indoors with crappy lighting, is that the K-x's auto white balance is doing a much better job than I'm used to. Colors look great. So does ISO 128000. Snaps of friends, poor light, no flash. Probably good enough for 4x6s. More than good enough for facebook. I can't wait to see how it performs at low ISO in RAW for the things I shoot seriously.

[rawr]

This issue of 'Pentax colors' is an interesting one to me. In two parts.

Part one: I can see that if you get the camera (K-7, K-x, whatever), accept all the defaults, use the SMC kit lens without any filters, and shoot JPG's, you will see an image under most common scenarios that reflects what the Pentax engineers thought would work best for most people when they (Priority 1) printed the images out or (Priority 2 or 3) looked at them on a computer screen.

This Pentax look, including colours, judging from my K200D and K-x and other image samples around the place, reflects the 'Bright' Custom Image profile which is the default, with boosted contrast and sharpness, as well as the subtle tonality introduced into the image via the Pentax lens optics and SMC lens coatings. The 'Pentax colors' may also reflect the slight under-exposure that is also said to be a classic Pentax imaging issue.

Whatever it is and however it is formed, the default 'Pentax colors' can easily be changed by the DSLR user, at capture time via lens/filter changes or in camera settings, and/or modifications to an image at post processing time. It's not as if when you buy a Pentax you are stuck with producing images with 'Pentax colors'. You can tweak your settings to do a imitation of 'Nikon colors' if you want.

Which brings me to Part 2. Due to their simple camera market share, and in particular their dominance of the image producing mass media, in terms of still images we literally see the world today through the eyes of Canon and Nikon. Canon and Nikon sensors, optics, lens coatings, colour rendering, tonalities etc probably form 95% of the images we see in print and online. The impact of this is very subtle and quite profound when you think about it.

If there are indeed 'Pentax colors' or there is indeed a distinctive Pentax imaging personality (or Olympus, or Leica, or Sony etc), that's probably a good thing, otherwise we all might get conditioned to seeing the world the way Nikon and Canon's camera and lens engineers thought we should see it.

Sorry for the long post.

[skid2964]

I have seen this in all my Pentax camera's, very bold and vivid colors. I was trying to achive this with the K-x.

Out of the box, my K-x was delivering the more bland Nikon/Canon look, I bumped up the settings to get back to the Pentax look I enjoy. I may have not gotten it right yet as I stated before, It was one of the first 5 or 6 photos I had taken with it.

Regardless, I am EXTREMELY happy with the camera, it's a keeper for sure.