[carpents]

I've been using the K10D for the past day+ and here are some of my thoughts:

Likes:

• GREAT viewfinder!
• Works with all of my lenses.
• The shutter is a quieter swish, rather than the loud DS clunk.
• Everything is F-A-S-T - writing to the card, autofocus (albeit not tested much), being able to access the Fn menu while writing to the buffer.
• Metering mode is under the main dial. This is a fantastic change from the DS, allowing me to change to spot metering without going through the menu!
• The rear scroll wheel is placed perfectly.
• You can choose to delete only a RAW or only a JPEG when shooting in RAW+JPEG mode - pretty cool.
• Programming Av mode so that one wheel gives exposure compensation - brilliant!
• The weather seals - I've already had it out in a drizzle. Although I'm not too comfortable having my lenses out there, it still is calming to know the electronics won't get zapped.
• I haven't done extensive testing, but my initial impression is that the K10 is metering better than the DS did. I'm dialing in less compensation than normal.
• The top LCD is backlit.
• Fine tune adjustment for white balance. Also neat, it shows your adjustments on the last picture taken.
• RGB histogram.
• RAW + JPEG mode.
• DNG for RAW files.

Dislikes:

1. THE SCROLL WHEELS DON'T WORK WITH M42 LENSES!!! Why, Pentax, WHY?!? This completely eliminated the most useful mode for me - Sv mode - because it won't let you change the ISO via scroll wheel with an M42 lens attached. Ditto for using a wheel for exposure compensation (like in Av mode) with M42 lenses.
2. The front scroll wheel is in the wrong place! Yikes! I much prefer the location of the front wheel on the Minolta 7D, where it is more upright and directly in front of the shutter button.
3. Immediately after taking a shot, you can use the scroll wheels to zoom in on the shot. Why don't I like this? Because if I'm taking a series of shots and using the scroll wheel(s) to change settings for the next shot, it won't register because it thinks I'm trying to zoom in on the playback! I wish I could turn that off, because I do this a lot.
4. I keep accidentally hitting the AE-L button. (Hmmm...can I lock this down?)
5. It doesn't prompt you to enter the shake reduction focal length when changing manual lenses.
6. I want Sv mode to have ISO on the front and Aperture on the back. The only choice for this is ISO/Program Shift, which isn't exactly the same.
7. For that matter, why just have the wheels fully programmable?
8. The size seems slightly off - it needs just a little more space on the right side so that my hand fits comfortably around it.
9. ISO 1600 looks pretty bad, similar to ISO 3200 on the DS. I'll use it, but sparingly. I don't envision getting better than a 4"x6" print from ISO 1600.

That's all I could think of so far. I'll be putting more of this up on my pbase site and here, so I'd be happy to test a feature out if you need to know it.
Feel free to check out some pictures and stuff:
K10 Photo Gallery by Sean Carpenter at pbase.com

And here is one of my baby:


Enjoy!
Sean

---

Last edited by carpents; 11-23-2006 at 08:09 PM.

[carpents]

I took this shot:

with both my *istDS and K10D. Below are 300x300 pixel crops from the far laft side of the shot, to show a noise comparison.
These have *no* noise reduction applied!

K10:


*ist DS:

[barondla]

Nice comparison of the 2 cameras. Does the K10D viewfinder look as good as the DS? Still waiting for my 10 to arrive. The DS isn't going anywhere.
thanks
barondla

[carpents]

Nice comparison of the 2 cameras. Does the K10D viewfinder look as good as the DS? Still waiting for my 10 to arrive. The DS isn't going anywhere.
thanks
barondla

Sheesh, you're right. I guess I take it for granted! Thanks for reminding me, I can't believe I forgot it!
(I'll update my original post.)

[slip]

I've been using the K10D for the past day+ and here are some of my thoughts:

Likes:

• The shutter is a quieter swish, rather than the loud DS clunk.
• Everything is F-A-S-T - writing to the card, autofocus (albeit not tested much), being able to access the Fn menu while writing to the buffer.
• Metering mode is under the main dial. This is a fantastic change from the DS, allowing me to change to spot metering without going through the menu!
• The rear scroll wheel is placed perfectly.
• You can choose to delete only a RAW or only a JPEG when shooting in RAW+JPEG mode - pretty cool.
• Programming Av mode so that one wheel gives exposure compensation - brilliant!
• The weather seals - I've already had it out in a drizzle. Although I'm not too comfortable having my lenses out there, it still is calming to know the electronics won't get zapped.
• I haven't done extensive testing, but my initial impression is that the K10 is metering better than the DS did. I'm dialing in less compensation than normal.
• The top LCD is backlit.
• Fine tune adjustment for white balance. Also neat, it shows your adjustments on the last picture taken.
• RGB histogram.
• RAW + JPEG mode.
• DNG for RAW files.

Dislikes:

1. THE SCROLL WHEELS DON'T WORK WITH M42 LENSES!!! Why, Pentax, WHY?!? This completely eliminated the most useful mode for me - Sv mode - because it won't let you change the ISO via scroll wheel with an M42 lens attached. Ditto for using a wheel for exposure compensation (like in Av mode) with M42 lenses.
2. The front scroll wheel is in the wrong place! Yikes! I much prefer the location of the front wheel on the Minolta 7D, where it is more upright and directly in front of the shutter button.
3. Immediately after taking a shot, you can use the scroll wheels to zoom in on the shot. Why don't I like this? Because if I'm taking a series of shots and using the scroll wheel(s) to change settings for the next shot, it won't register because it thinks I'm trying to zoom in on the playback! I wish I could turn that off, because I do this a lot.
4. I keep accidentally hitting the AE-L button. (Hmmm...can I lock this down?)
5. It doesn't prompt you to enter the shake reduction focal length when changing manual lenses.
6. I want Sv mode to have ISO on the front and Aperture on the back. The only choice for this is ISO/Program Shift, which isn't exactly the same.
7. For that matter, why just have the wheels fully programmable?
8. The size seems slightly off - it needs just a little more space on the right side so that my hand fits comfortably around it.
9. ISO 1600 looks pretty bad, similar to ISO 3200 on the DS. I'll use it, but sparingly. I don't envision getting better than a 4"x6" print from ISO 1600.

That's all I could think of so far. I'll be putting more of this up on my pbase site and here, so I'd be happy to test a feature out if you need to know it.
Feel free to check out some pictures and stuff:
K10 Photo Gallery by Sean Carpenter at pbase.com

And here is one of my baby:


Enjoy!
Sean

A few questions:

you did not meantion the dynamic range. how is it compared to the istD? (or k100 if you own that camera as well)

Is the image noise just that bad in that color or all colors? I don't have my k10, or any other DSLR for that matter, so is possible to have a lot of noise in one hue of color and not so much in another color/hue.

since the SR is even better in the k10 then the k100 (an non existant in the istD) wouldn't shake reduction enable you to use lower ISO settings, so noise is less of a factor?
for example on the istD you needed to boost the ISO to 1600 on a certain shot in low light, but with the same amount of light you can get away with, say ISO 400 with the k10, which will be less noise for that paticular shot? (due to being able to hand hold at slower speeds as well)

just some beginners questions, hope they are valid

thanks

randy

[MikeH]

Just a note about your comparison shots: you seem to have slightly underexposed the K10D shots, which will increase noise.

That being said, the K10D does show more noise. It's expected from that sensor.

[carpents]

A few questions:

you did not meantion the dynamic range. how is it compared to the istD? (or k100 if you own that camera as well)

I haven't had a chance to look, but this is a good one to try. I guess I'll have to figure out the best way to do it...without a studio...

Is the image noise just that bad in that color or all colors? I don't have my k10, or any other DSLR for that matter, so is possible to have a lot of noise in one hue of color and not so much in another color/hue.

This is the only in-depth look I've given to noise. I would imagine that it is different for different colors.

since the SR is even better in the k10 then the k100 (an non existant in the istD) wouldn't shake reduction enable you to use lower ISO settings, so noise is less of a factor?
for example on the istD you needed to boost the ISO to 1600 on a certain shot in low light, but with the same amount of light you can get away with, say ISO 400 with the k10, which will be less noise for that paticular shot? (due to being able to hand hold at slower speeds as well)

You are correct. However, shake reduction does not stop a moving subject. I had this problem today when shooting in the wind - no amount of SR was going to stop the *leaf* from moving!

just some beginners questions, hope they are valid

thanks

randy

They are, thanks!

[carpents]

Just a note about your comparison shots: you seem to have slightly underexposed the K10D shots, which will increase noise.

That being said, the K10D does show more noise. It's expected from that sensor.

Yah, they were slightly underexposed but the DS shots were at identical shutter speeds. I also adjusted the ISO 200-1600 shots the exact same in PS (ISO 100 wasn't underexposed) so you can still see some clear trends regardless.

[roentarre]

Thanks for the fantastic comparison of these two cameras. It seems that k10d does well with ISO100 with very little noise. At ISO 200, DS wins over k10d

I will be happy to receive k10d now whatever the noise level is. This seems like a great cam.

[SWEngineer]

I take it this was before discovering the ACR calibration problem? Are these from
JPG, Photolab, ACR? If ACR, I'm curious if your calibration adjustments would make any difference here. Thanks.
-Mark

I took this shot:

with both my *istDS and K10D. Below are 300x300 pixel crops from the far laft side of the shot, to show a noise comparison. <See original post>
These have *no* noise reduction applied!

[slip]

I take it this was before discovering the ACR calibration problem? Are these from
JPG, Photolab, ACR? If ACR, I'm curious if your calibration adjustments would make any difference here. Thanks.
-Mark

Hi mark

could you please explain the ACR calibration problem?
It will be good info to know for when my K10 arrives

thanks a million

randy

[SWEngineer]

Hi Randy. I don't have any details. (I expect Sean will share.) But the relevant info is on the 'other' forum.
Here: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=20996295
Here:http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=20997298
and here: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=20997462

Hi mark

could you please explain the ACR calibration problem?
It will be good info to know for when my K10 arrives

thanks a million

randy

[slip]

Hi Randy. I don't have any details. (I expect Sean will share.) But the relevant info is on the 'other' forum.
Here: Hmmm...like this?: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
Here:Totally helps...: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
and here: Adjusted colors in ACR: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

thanks for the links
unfortunately that thread is much to advanced for me, technically speaking.
That blue "blotch" above the cats head sure is weird...... definitely not supposed to be there, that is for sure.
kind of gives me a bit of cold feet about the k10 purchase. hopefully someone could elaborate further to ease my simple mind

thanks again

randy

[carpents]

To Mark, et. al. - yes, the flower shots were processed in ACR using a 'standard' method, not by tweaking the individual channels. I can easily go back and re-process them. (This is the beauty of RAW, after all!)

To help explain what is going on, it looks like Adobe Camera Raw does not do as good a job on the RAW files by default as it does (for example) on the *istD series. (Mine were DNG files, *not* the PEF files - because ACR won't read the PEF files.) I think this is somewhat normal, as the solution came from mksad when he was doing the same thing months ago for his new K100.

I simply used his values and it looks a lot better. I still suspect that there was something funky going on, like IR contamination or whatnot, but that it was over-saturating the greens and blues too much especially in the shadows.

My guess is that when ACR supports the native PEF file from the K10D it will make this a whole lot easier, and these fine-tuned adjustments won't be necessary.

[SWEngineer]

Not sure Sean's reply is going to ease your fears, so I'll try to add a bit to it...

The blue blotch is supposed to be there, ala the final link of the 3. But it's not suppose to have the strong magenta cast / noise in it. If you look closely at the cat pre & post, you'll see similar blue-greenish & magenta noise that got cleaned up as well. None of this has anything to do with the K10D itself. (Well... there could be a bit of IR leaking in as Sean speculates - he had the camera pointing right at a heater after all).
The real problem here is that ACR doesn't know the response curves (I guess) for the K10D. So using the DS(?) or other profile can result in strong artifacts. One can overcome this by doing a manual calibration of ACR. mskad figured out a decent set for his K100D and apparently these settings worked pretty well for Sean (K10D). Please see the embedded link to mskad's [other forum] post in the 'Totally helps' post I linked to (or scan the thread for my 1st post in it which also has this link.)

I can tell you that I would have no qualms purchasing the K10D. It appears to be an excellent camera, particularlly in terms of value for the $$$. However, my DS is still going strong & it's hard for me to justify the cost at this time.

Bottom line: If you use RAW (PEF or DNG) from the K10D, you need to
A) process with a converter that 'knows' the K10D - right now that's only Pentax photolab I'd guess.
B) calibrate your favorite raw converter yourself. (I'm not sure which programs besides ACR support this.)

I think the latest ACR has an embedded profile for the K100, so maybe that will suffice until a new version comes out that "supports" the K10D.

C) live with the occasional artifacts or "repair" in PS et. al.
D) wait for the necessary update of your fav. raw converter. (Shoot JPGs or better yet, RAW + JPG while waiting.)

thanks for the links
unfortunately that thread is much to advanced for me, technically speaking.
That blue "blotch" above the cats head sure is weird...... definitely not supposed to be there, that is for sure.
kind of gives me a bit of cold feet about the k10 purchase. hopefully someone could elaborate further to ease my simple mind

thanks again

randy