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10-21-2014, 02:38 AM - 3 Likes | #1 |
K-3 video testing in my local woods I got a k-3 on Friday and was keen to test the video mode. I've found it quite tricky to find examples online of well shot video on the k-3, so I tried to shoot a variety of shots in various challenging light environments to push the k-3 to it's limits, while still trying to get the best looking stuff I could. My thoughts below, hopefully you'll find them useful. I previously owned a k-5, which didn't have a good enoguh video mode for my purposes. Despite the high datarate, the lack of manual controls and (to my eye) muddy colours meant I could never rely on it for video work. I do occasional paid video work and I would like to use my own camera to save effort/time/money, so although I only shot the attached video for fun, I was also investigating whether the video quality and ergonomics are good enough for pro work (usually corporate films for local businesses, interviews, that sort of thing). PS. These thoughts only apply to video, not photos! I am much less critical of the stills from my Pentax cameras and lenses! General points: The k-3 uses an h.264 codec and records at around 18Mb/s, which is low. I have used Canon's DSLRs a lot (mainly 600D, 650D, 7D) and it does not match up to these cameras despite being much newer. I used a 5D MkIII last weekend and this totally blows away the k-3 even at a glance at the footage - moire, artefacting, detail, dynamic range are lacking in the k-3 by comparison. I think it could be used alongside, say, 600/650D footage though without the quality difference being too stark. Obviously Canon put more effort into video than Pentax do, so you may think it is unfair to compare them so directly, but these comparisons are necessary for me as Canon's DSLRs are the standard for DSLR video work. The screen is wonderful - very bright even in strong light, a big step up from the k-5, which is fortunate as this is necessary to nail those exposures. The general performance is fast, zooming in on liveview to check focus is extremely fast and easy, and you can preset it to go to 10x zoom and out again at a single button press, very handy for manual focus work (which is all I do in video). Although the dynamic range is low, the blacks and whites were not crushed too badly, no ugly blocking of blacks. Sometimes the blue sky blocked a little. The video image stabilisation/shake reduction is a huge disappointment. It is NOT mechanical, (some older forum posts and reviews claim it is) it is software based, and the image looks smudged and still quite shaky with shake reduction turned on. I use premiere Pro CS5 to edit, and the digital Image Stabilisation it uses is much better, making the k-3's video SR totally pointless (the mechanical SR for stills is very good). The k-5 had great mechanical stabilisation for video, and it was very steady. A frustrating omission. BUT! Despite what seems like quite a critical view, the k-3 has fully manual video with nice punchy colours, and reasonable performance up to ISO 1000 at least, so would I use the k-3 for professional video work? Yes. Definitely. It's useable. It would be nice to see a 40-50Mb/s data rate to get some more control and latitude, but if properly exposed, white balanced and coloured in camera, and intended for upload to Youtube/Vimeo or DVD, the video is good enough for low budget pro work. Just. For stills, perfect. What I used: Shot using a Pentax DA 55-300mm lens, a Pentax DA 16-45mm lens and a Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. Giottos lightweight tripod, not a video head so the pans are ok, but not silky smooth. I shot on the vibrant picture style as I did not intend to do any colour correction to the footage. | |
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10-21-2014, 04:27 AM | #2 |
Nice video and interesting summary. I would have saved the sunset shot for the end of the video, but that's just me. 18Mb/s is indeed low... I have a cheap consumer camcorder which can do 50Mb/s (not that I'm using it ;-) ) and probably the extra bitrate is just junk due to the poor quality of the optics & sensor... that would have been good to have on the K3 with its first-rate sensor & nice Pentax glass... Anyway, post liked! | |
10-21-2014, 08:17 AM - 1 Like | #3 |
Click above for link to video. I got a k-3 on Friday and was keen to test the video mode. I've found it quite tricky to find examples online of well shot video on the k-3, so I tried to shoot a variety of shots in various challenging light environments to push the k-3 to it's limits, while still trying to get the best looking stuff I could. My thoughts below, hopefully you'll find them useful. I previously owned a k-5, which didn't have a good enoguh video mode for my purposes. Despite the high datarate, the lack of manual controls and (to my eye) muddy colours meant I could never rely on it for video work. I do occasional paid video work and I would like to use my own camera to save effort/time/money, so although I only shot the attached video for fun, I was also investigating whether the video quality and ergonomics are good enough for pro work (usually corporate films for local businesses, interviews, that sort of thing). PS. These thoughts only apply to video, not photos! I am much less critical of the stills from my Pentax cameras and lenses! General points: The k-3 uses an h.264 codec and records at around 18Mb/s, which is low. I have used Canon's DSLRs a lot (mainly 600D, 650D, 7D) and it does not match up to these cameras despite being much newer. I used a 5D MkIII last weekend and this totally blows away the k-3 even at a glance at the footage - moire, artefacting, detail, dynamic range are lacking in the k-3 by comparison. I think it could be used alongside, say, 600/650D footage though without the quality difference being too stark. Obviously Canon put more effort into video than Pentax do, so you may think it is unfair to compare them so directly, but these comparisons are necessary for me as Canon's DSLRs are the standard for DSLR video work. The screen is wonderful - very bright even in strong light, a big step up from the k-5, which is fortunate as this is necessary to nail those exposures. The general performance is fast, zooming in on liveview to check focus is extremely fast and easy, and you can preset it to go to 10x zoom and out again at a single button press, very handy for manual focus work (which is all I do in video). Although the dynamic range is low, the blacks and whites were not crushed too badly, no ugly blocking of blacks. Sometimes the blue sky blocked a little. The video image stabilisation/shake reduction is a huge disappointment. It is NOT mechanical, (some older forum posts and reviews claim it is) it is software based, and the image looks smudged and still quite shaky with shake reduction turned on. I use premiere Pro CS5 to edit, and the digital Image Stabilisation it uses is much better, making the k-3's video SR totally pointless (the mechanical SR for stills is very good). The k-5 had great mechanical stabilisation for video, and it was very steady. A frustrating omission. BUT! Despite what seems like quite a critical view, the k-3 has fully manual video with nice punchy colours, and reasonable performance up to ISO 1000 at least, so would I use the k-3 for professional video work? Yes. Definitely. It's useable. It would be nice to see a 40-50Mb/s data rate to get some more control and latitude, but if properly exposed, white balanced and coloured in camera, and intended for upload to Youtube/Vimeo or DVD, the video is good enough for low budget pro work. Just. For stills, perfect. What I used: Shot using a Pentax DA 55-300mm lens, a Pentax DA 16-45mm lens and a Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. Giottos lightweight tripod, not a video head so the pans are ok, but not silky smooth. I shot on the vibrant picture style as I did not intend to do any colour correction to the footage. I am really disappointed at the performance of the K3 for video. We all know that the sensor is capable of much better results. I wish someone like the MagicLantern guys would tweak Pentax sensors to squeeze the real potential out of them. I shot some footage with it over the weekend and was not impressed at all either. I remember my Canon 7D and the the 5D MarkII with less capable sensors produced much better video. Then again, I am using the K3 for its excellent still image capability. The stills of the K3 trump any APS-c sensor I have shot and it competes favorably even with the best full frame cameras. Perhaps Ricoh needs to hire one of the Samsung, Sony or Panasonic engineers to make the K3 deliver in the video department too. Oh well, we can only hope! Last edited by btnapa; 10-23-2014 at 08:35 AM. Reason: typo | |
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10-22-2014, 04:39 AM | #4 |
Pentax has fallen way behind in recent years. I've been loyal to the brand because I liked to be different and the build quality of their gear is second to none. But I am becoming more frustrated that they don't recognize that many people also wish to shoot high quality video clips as well as stills. There is no excuse, everything is in place. I held off upgrading the K-7 to the K-3 until I knew more. It became clear it wasn't for me, so I went for the K-50 which has been great - but if their next DSLR doesn't have a tilting screen and much much better video, then I'm not interested. | |
10-23-2014, 02:24 AM | #5 |
Pentaxian |
Good lord I couldn't stomach that music right through sorry! Pentax have all the hardware there to do great things, but their software implementation is just really really letting them down now. Their loss of real SR is a poignant example and means they are going backwards now unfortunately. I'm over it now though and am looking elsewhere for video. I don't know if I'll replace my existing dslr with another Pentax when it comes time to part,unless hey can offer a new all in one that does stills and video in the same body. Pentax (no Ricoh now) may gain new users through coloured bodies, so good luck to them. |
10-23-2014, 04:32 PM | #6 |
Yes ... we have to go on ... some way or the other .... Whenever you are really tired of your Pentax Video Tool you may watch one of these clips ? ... just to cheer up ... and rethink ... and start all over again ? Last edited by TomGarn; 10-23-2014 at 04:39 PM. | |
10-24-2014, 02:09 AM | #7 |
The Canon cameras use a similar data rate in their 'stock' configuration - it's not till you go to "All i-frame" that the Canon shows just how much more detail there is with higher data rates. Give the 'Muted' image profile a go, you should find it's performance, especially where the whites and blacks in the image are close to being clipped at the limits of the CoDec or sensor. Shodan's work will get there eventually, and it seems Pentax has decided to ignore feedback on Video. | |
10-24-2014, 05:09 AM | #8 |
And what makes Pentax ignore the frustrated demands of us silly video-users ? One reason might be the video-tool-bashing on those pure and raw Pentax photograper's boards ... They are quite hatefull and are really spitting on these damned video-extras they wanna shoot to the moon ! Pentax may think they are here for those classical old school konservatives ... Let's just face it: We are a poor tiny minority here - and the managers may gently smile about us funny fools. "Why in the world you want a Pentax for video at all ?" "Why not go to those really good and much better other brands in the real world of video ?" "Why the hell are you trying to hijack a good old photo-camera with your desires ?" "Why not leave us alone here ?" "Why not just keep quite and shoot photos ? | |
10-24-2014, 12:25 PM - 1 Like | #9 |
Come off it, Tom. Over 80% of Pentax DLSR users want decent video. Ignore the purists, they just don 't get it. | |
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10-24-2014, 01:46 PM | #10 |
You may start a poll ... Those voices (not just in my head ... "hello ?") were thought of as a mixture of old-school-Pentaxists and some lousy Pentax managers - of course. Just analysing - or trying to - what the reason might be for this ongoing video-failure. Hope you guess my name ! | |
10-24-2014, 03:07 PM | #11 |
The rot is at the top.
| |
10-28-2014, 10:26 PM | #12 |
Click above for link to video. I got a k-3 on Friday and was keen to test the video mode. I've found it quite tricky to find examples online of well shot video on the k-3, so I tried to shoot a variety of shots in various challenging light environments to push the k-3 to it's limits, while still trying to get the best looking stuff I could. My thoughts below, hopefully you'll find them useful. I previously owned a k-5, which didn't have a good enoguh video mode for my purposes. Despite the high datarate, the lack of manual controls and (to my eye) muddy colours meant I could never rely on it for video work. I do occasional paid video work and I would like to use my own camera to save effort/time/money, so although I only shot the attached video for fun, I was also investigating whether the video quality and ergonomics are good enough for pro work (usually corporate films for local businesses, interviews, that sort of thing). PS. These thoughts only apply to video, not photos! I am much less critical of the stills from my Pentax cameras and lenses! General points: The k-3 uses an h.264 codec and records at around 18Mb/s, which is low. I have used Canon's DSLRs a lot (mainly 600D, 650D, 7D) and it does not match up to these cameras despite being much newer. I used a 5D MkIII last weekend and this totally blows away the k-3 even at a glance at the footage - moire, artefacting, detail, dynamic range are lacking in the k-3 by comparison. I think it could be used alongside, say, 600/650D footage though without the quality difference being too stark. Obviously Canon put more effort into video than Pentax do, so you may think it is unfair to compare them so directly, but these comparisons are necessary for me as Canon's DSLRs are the standard for DSLR video work. The screen is wonderful - very bright even in strong light, a big step up from the k-5, which is fortunate as this is necessary to nail those exposures. The general performance is fast, zooming in on liveview to check focus is extremely fast and easy, and you can preset it to go to 10x zoom and out again at a single button press, very handy for manual focus work (which is all I do in video). Although the dynamic range is low, the blacks and whites were not crushed too badly, no ugly blocking of blacks. Sometimes the blue sky blocked a little. The video image stabilisation/shake reduction is a huge disappointment. It is NOT mechanical, (some older forum posts and reviews claim it is) it is software based, and the image looks smudged and still quite shaky with shake reduction turned on. I use premiere Pro CS5 to edit, and the digital Image Stabilisation it uses is much better, making the k-3's video SR totally pointless (the mechanical SR for stills is very good). The k-5 had great mechanical stabilisation for video, and it was very steady. A frustrating omission. BUT! Despite what seems like quite a critical view, the k-3 has fully manual video with nice punchy colours, and reasonable performance up to ISO 1000 at least, so would I use the k-3 for professional video work? Yes. Definitely. It's useable. It would be nice to see a 40-50Mb/s data rate to get some more control and latitude, but if properly exposed, white balanced and coloured in camera, and intended for upload to Youtube/Vimeo or DVD, the video is good enough for low budget pro work. Just. For stills, perfect. What I used: Shot using a Pentax DA 55-300mm lens, a Pentax DA 16-45mm lens and a Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. Giottos lightweight tripod, not a video head so the pans are ok, but not silky smooth. I shot on the vibrant picture style as I did not intend to do any colour correction to the footage. I love my K-5 for video, mainly because the high bitrate means artefacts are a thing of the past... only problems are aliasing and moire, and because it has some really good stabilization, and I love shooting handheld. On any other camera, except for the Olympus OM-D series, it would look awful (except for a few lenses perhaps). Not so on the K-5. I haven't noticed muddy colors on my K-5, and anyway I always shoot very muted and desaturated... if I really want it to be saturated I can do that in post. Actually Canon doesn't put any effort in video at all. Their cameras are artificially held back a lot in order to make people buy their C100 or higher. The ones who do put effort into video are Sony, Panasonic and Samsung, to a lesser degree Nikon. Olympus hasn't so far, though rumors are they are going all in with cameras with beta firmwares being given to professional cinematographers in Hollywood. The K-3 stabilization was complained about a lot (especially by me). It has been that way ever since the K-01 (I suspect that's the first time Fujitsu offered electronic SR in their cameras, and Pentax immediately used it instead of mechanical SR). In the last Pentaxforums interview Pentax was _finally_ asked why they did that, and Pentax said it's the noise the SR makes. Argh. I think if you're serious about video you should rather be looking at either the Nikon D5300, D750 and D810 (great looking video, decent low light performance (especially the latter two of course). The Sony a7S (not the most easy footage to handle apparently, but you can make a ton with it, and ffs, someone has shot an aurora borealis with it. As a video! That thing is better in low light than the human eye! The Olympus OM-D E-M1 (if you want the best stabilization there is, don't care much about only being able to shoot 30p... nothing above, nothing below, and are willing to pray that Olympus greatly improves the video functionality in post). Panasonic GH4 for more controlled shoots in 4K. And of course the Samsung NX1, for 4K with a very, very efficient encoder, an extremely fast sensor that should make moire, aliasing a thing of the past, while still collecting plenty of light for a APS-C sensor and hopefully reducing rolling shutter (it can read the full 28 MP sensor at 240 fps... so the time it takes between the first and the last line should be really short!), 4K without a crop, advanced video AF, etc. pp. Joseph Gordon-Lewitt is currently shooting a film with the NX1. @PiDicusRex: All i is only advantageous in post, it is a problem when encoding the video, as it needs much higher bitrates to even come to the same level. It's funny how Olympus once, not too long ago, said that they are focusing on stills and if you want video you should really be buying a Panasonic instead. I guess then they saw the massive sales of the GH4, and the poor sales of their OM-D line, and reconsidered. I don't think Pentax does not want to attract people who are interested in video... I mean, why on earth does the K-3 have manual gain control and a headphone output to monitor the audio? Besides the audio input of course. There is really no reason for this, which actually costs money to implement, other than to please and attract video guys. However I do think they have no clue whatsoever about video, about what is needed. They only base what they have to do on reviews... review criticizes lack of manual gain and headphone output, Pentax fixes that. Review criticizes the noise the SR makes? Pentax deactivates SR and replaces it with something vastly inferior... but quiet. I don't think they even get to hear what we are saying, cause they are Japanese, thus the level of English these guys speak is probably rather awful. Clearly no one at Pentax shoots video even as a hobby, and they haven't had the idea of asking actual videographers. | |
10-29-2014, 12:28 AM | #13 |
Pentaxian |
I just shot a half hour or so of random clip footage from a family gathering trip to some gardens. Left the S/R on. More than half is rubbish due to warping, with no way to correct it, short of exporting a film strip to photoshop and trying to correct frame by frame. It's ruined, useless. I considered going back to the K5-iis which is on sale now but the huge file sizes, lack of 24p, lack of ISO adjustability are putting me off. 25p is actually damn close though, and at least I'd get stabilisation of all lenses attached. Bitrates aren't directly comparable when you're comparing different codecs side by side. Man, Pentax just yanks me soo much, they've got all the ingredients, they just haven't put it all in one camera. Don't like the noisy mechanical S/R, then have the option to enable spastic 'movie sr' instead. As you say, don't take the option away, give us some control, that's probably the one thing DSLR's are good at, given the shooter manual control. You take that philosophy into stills work, why not offer it for video? That way we might get some footage with useable Dynamic Range also. Sorry, rant over.
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10-29-2014, 04:07 AM | #14 |
I just shot a half hour or so of random clip footage from a family gathering trip to some gardens. Left the S/R on. More than half is rubbish due to warping, with no way to correct it, short of exporting a film strip to photoshop and trying to correct frame by frame. It's ruined, useless. I considered going back to the K5-iis which is on sale now but the huge file sizes, lack of 24p, lack of ISO adjustability are putting me off. 25p is actually damn close though, and at least I'd get stabilisation of all lenses attached. Bitrates aren't directly comparable when you're comparing different codecs side by side. Man, Pentax just yanks me soo much, they've got all the ingredients, they just haven't put it all in one camera. Don't like the noisy mechanical S/R, then have the option to enable spastic 'movie sr' instead. As you say, don't take the option away, give us some control, that's probably the one thing DSLR's are good at, given the shooter manual control. You take that philosophy into stills work, why not offer it for video? That way we might get some footage with useable Dynamic Range also. Sorry, rant over. I think the problem is also one of perception at Pentax... they'd really need to hire a couple of engineers that are videographers, and give them control over the video portion, or even hire actual videographers for input. Maybe a few at the level of wedding etc. videographers plus one or two cinematographer working on feature films as consultants. I agree, the hardware is plenty capable, though to be honest I think the competitors have moved on with better CPUs and sensors that became available recently... the problem is the software and the people who plan the products. They do a great job for stills, but video isn't their strength. People kept bumping into me, yet I think the SR did a good job. At most I have used the 60 Mbit setting, perhaps even 40 Mbit (didn't have that much storage back then). On my channel there are more videos (and a few more to come), some of which shot at 200mm. It was a bit harder to get a stable video there, given the conditions (and I had to hold one hand above the microphone to improve the sound, so it's basically shot with one hand that also tries to focus while holding the camera). | |
10-29-2014, 06:12 AM - 1 Like | #15 |
The psychology of Pentax ... hahaha .... I also did write a complete doctor's thesis on that ... for some years now. My summary in short: Pentax is hating videofunctions --- They were dragged to it ... They have got no enthusiasm, no clue how and why. Pentax is a looser's product in video-affairs and just good for some low budget drop-outs (or new beginners) Sony simply always knows what they are doing - Panasonic always by their side, sometimes ahead even ... ... and Canon right behind and equal sometimes. As a pro I always shot with Sony of course - for certain broadcasts also in heavy Pansonics (DVCPro) No Canons there (in my time) And in low-budget I used Canon 60D - at home Pentax K-5, for fun and substitute only Last edited by TomGarn; 10-29-2014 at 08:14 AM. | |
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