Handled a P70 recently

mikeb · 02-08-2009, 03:51 AM

I was at ny local sealer and met the pentax rep for this area. He was taking orders for the new cameras and had a P70, with pre-production firmware, with him. I tried it out in the shop and can report:

1) It is very slim, rounded at one end, and by far the most attractive compact out there - slips easily into a shirt pocket.

2) Hard to judge with the "beta" firmware, but the software shake reduction appears to be reasonably fast. It takes 2 pics, one reference, and somehow juggles them into a shake free picture. You can select, via the menu, to review the "before" and "after" pics. I could not check the efficiency of this system in the shop, shall have to wait till they have a production copy - due middle of Feb.

3) It has in-camera panorama stitching of 3 pics, portrait or landscape; had no time to test this, but the rep was keen on this feature.

4) List price will be €179, seems very inexpensive to me.

I am looking forward to taking an sd card in with me, and taking some test pics to look at at home; they always let me walk around outside and do this.

Erik · 02-08-2009, 07:41 AM

Originally posted by mikeb

2) Hard to judge with the "beta" firmware, but the software shake reduction appears to be reasonably fast. It takes 2 pics, one reference, and somehow juggles them into a shake free picture. You can select, via the menu, to review the "before" and "after" pics. I could not check the efficiency of this system in the shop, shall have to wait till they have a production copy - due middle of Feb.

I wonder if this is an implementation of that technology I've heard about where you would take one correctly exposed, blurry picture, and one underexposed, but sharp picture, and merge the tones from the blurry one with the sharpness of the underexposed one to create a final, correct looking picture. I've seen proof-of-concepts done on PC but it should obviously be possible to implement in camera firmware. Maybe that's what Pentax is doing here?

airconvent · 02-14-2009, 12:00 AM

yup. They call it pixel-tracking.
But it belies belief that they chose to revert back to the tiny 1/2.3" sensor instead of the usual 1/1.6" ones even though its 12MP. Also, they also chose to exclude CCD-shift stabilisation too. If they can launch an A50 with these including HD plus 30fps video that would make it a great PnS camera!

02-08-2009, 03:51 AM	#1
mikeb New Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: South West Germany Posts: 14	Handled a P70 recently I was at ny local sealer and met the pentax rep for this area. He was taking orders for the new cameras and had a P70, with pre-production firmware, with him. I tried it out in the shop and can report: 1) It is very slim, rounded at one end, and by far the most attractive compact out there - slips easily into a shirt pocket. 2) Hard to judge with the "beta" firmware, but the software shake reduction appears to be reasonably fast. It takes 2 pics, one reference, and somehow juggles them into a shake free picture. You can select, via the menu, to review the "before" and "after" pics. I could not check the efficiency of this system in the shop, shall have to wait till they have a production copy - due middle of Feb. 3) It has in-camera panorama stitching of 3 pics, portrait or landscape; had no time to test this, but the rep was keen on this feature. 4) List price will be €179, seems very inexpensive to me. I am looking forward to taking an sd card in with me, and taking some test pics to look at at home; they always let me walk around outside and do this.

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02-08-2009, 07:41 AM	#2
Erik Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Umeå, Sweden Posts: 755	Originally posted by mikeb 2) Hard to judge with the "beta" firmware, but the software shake reduction appears to be reasonably fast. It takes 2 pics, one reference, and somehow juggles them into a shake free picture. You can select, via the menu, to review the "before" and "after" pics. I could not check the efficiency of this system in the shop, shall have to wait till they have a production copy - due middle of Feb. I wonder if this is an implementation of that technology I've heard about where you would take one correctly exposed, blurry picture, and one underexposed, but sharp picture, and merge the tones from the blurry one with the sharpness of the underexposed one to create a final, correct looking picture. I've seen proof-of-concepts done on PC but it should obviously be possible to implement in camera firmware. Maybe that's what Pentax is doing here?

02-14-2009, 12:00 AM	#3
airconvent Inactive Account Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Singapore Posts: 11	yup. They call it pixel-tracking. But it belies belief that they chose to revert back to the tiny 1/2.3" sensor instead of the usual 1/1.6" ones even though its 12MP. Also, they also chose to exclude CCD-shift stabilisation too. If they can launch an A50 with these including HD plus 30fps video that would make it a great PnS camera!