[palmor]

Ok then, let's do a test run shall we. I'll get my friends Canon and my Pentax K20d with a DA 50-135 2.8 lens and well take pictures of the same thing with the same settings same fstop, shutter speed, ISO and see which camera produces better shots straight out of the camera (no photoshop, no tweeking, nothing). Let's see which one wins.

My money is on Canon but of course everyone here will say Pentax just because they love Pentax.

I have both Pentax and Canon and if you put the two on a tripod and took the same photo you'd see differences but one wouldn't be "better" then the other.. just different. You may prefer one over the other because that is more of your style but ALL the current generation DSLRs can produce great images.

You know what.. I'll play the game. One of these taken with the 40D and one with the K20. Same shutter speed (1.3s), fstop(f/5.6) and ISO (400), on a tripod with timer and mirror lockup. I heavily cropped both photos.. not 100% but pretty heavy. It would have been obvious which camera took what photo since the FOV is different between the two cams. What is a difference is one of these shots was taken with a $1k+ pro lens and one with a ~$300 consumer lens.

Both images taken in RAW, imported into lightroom and exported from lightroom with a resize of the short side to 600pixels and NO sharpening (of course this really favors the more exp lens but this isn't a lens test, it is a camera test). Of course you can see differences, colors ect but one isn't better then the other.

Edit: I used AF for both of these shots and even in these low light conditions neither camera had trouble.

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Last edited by palmor; 09-15-2009 at 04:52 PM.

[Hey Elwood]

That's pretty ridiculous. "Straight out of the camera" means nothing. What are your settings for sharpness, contrast, color etc.. what are his?

Canon tends to be more aggressive on noise reduction, color and sharpening "out of the box". That means nothing.

In my opinion and experience, a K20D will easily take on a 40D as well as a 50D when it comes to sheer image quality at least until ISO 800. Higher ISO can be debated depending on what you prefer, and it clearly doesn't keep up with brand C when it comes to AF and fps... but if you're getting bad pictures out of the camera and it's not because of the AF or fps lacking, you are the one at fault. Not the camera.

You can blame me all you want Pingflood but we'll see what happens when we put it to the test. I guarentee you that the Canon will work better in all conditions...expecially in low light conditions.

[nostatic]

I
Both images taken in RAW, imported into lightroom and exported from lightroom with a resize of the short side to 600pixels and NO sharpening (of course this really favors the more exp lens but this isn't a lens test, it is a camera test). Of course you can see differences, colors ect but one isn't better then the other.

My guess is that the top image is the Pentax, due to the darker exposure and I'm guessing a cheaper lens (check the hairs on the top of the head).

When I shot the K20d back to back to back with 5D2 and D700, I tried to roughly equalize the glass. I had 31ltd on the Pentax, 50/1.4 USM on the Canon and 50/1.4G on the Nikon. The Pentax had a different look and had a tougher time in low light. As you'd expect. But frankly the overall look of the images wasn't "worse".

[palmor]

My guess is that the top image is the Pentax, due to the darker exposure and I'm guessing a cheaper lens (check the hairs on the top of the head).

When I shot the K20d back to back to back with 5D2 and D700, I tried to roughly equalize the glass. I had 31ltd on the Pentax, 50/1.4 USM on the Canon and 50/1.4G on the Nikon. The Pentax had a different look and had a tougher time in low light. As you'd expect. But frankly the overall look of the images wasn't "worse".

I won't give away the answer but I will say both cameras wanted to expose the shot at slightly different shutter speeds but to keep everything exactly the same in dialed in a manual exposure. The camera that took the lighter image wanted to expose it darker actually so both would have been pretty close.

I also agree to do any "real" test you need to equate the glass but as I'm sure you agree with none of this conversation has any bearing in "real" photo taking anyway

[er1kksen]

Ok then, let's do a test run shall we. I'll get my friends Canon and my Pentax K20d with a DA 50-135 2.8 lens and well take pictures of the same thing with the same settings same fstop, shutter speed, ISO and see which camera produces better shots straight out of the camera (no photoshop, no tweeking, nothing). Let's see which one wins.

My money is on Canon but of course everyone here will say Pentax just because they love Pentax.

Well, if the Canon in consideration is a 40D, then there's no contest. I like my new 40D, but 1) the resolution is nowhere near the K20D, and 2) the high-ISO noise is just awful. In jpeg, high ISO photos look mushy, and in RAW there are tons of these scattered white hot pixels. I had always heard things about the K20D being noisier than contemporary Canons and such, but in practice I'm finding that to be the opposite of the truth.

Straight out of camera, you're actually skewing things in favor of the Pentax, since I can get a lot more resolution out of the 40D in RAW with good post (still not as good as the K20D), and the color rendering of the K20D's jpeg engine is simply better.

If I still had my K20D, I would certainly do this comparison on some slow, boring day. Sadly, my 40D is now my only camera. But I do know that one of the last major shoots I did with my K20D was during a whale watch; with a long lens and a wildly bobbing boat, I needed a high shutter speed, which on that cloudy day needed high ISO. TAv mode was invaluable, and I set the ISO cap at 1600. Many of the photos ended up at 1250 and 1600, and with the right processing they're very, very usable. Not fantastic, but usable. I wouldn't be able to do that with the 40D; I'm terrified to go above ISO 800 because getting rid of those swarms of tiny white dots obliterates what little detail the Canon is retaining at ISO 1000+.

[yeatzee]

Ok then, let's do a test run shall we. I'll get my friends Canon and my Pentax K20d with a DA 50-135 2.8 lens and well take pictures of the same thing with the same settings same fstop, shutter speed, ISO and see which camera produces better shots straight out of the camera (no photoshop, no tweeking, nothing). Let's see which one wins.

My money is on Canon but of course everyone here will say Pentax just because they love Pentax.

You can blame me all you want Pingflood but we'll see what happens when we put it to the test. I guarentee you that the Canon will work better in all conditions

Ha, you crack me up dude.

[Hey Elwood]

Ha, you crack me up dude.

That's right...that's what I'm here for...your damn amusement.

[Supa Lao]

[dylansalt]

Hi Elwood

Out of camera jpeg below taken with a lowly K10D and 55-300 consumer lens.

All I did was apply some sharpening - if you can't get similar with your equipment, I think you have to start looking at yourself and not the brand



Regards

Dylan

[er1kksen]

Dylan, why aren't those white areas blown out? Your defective Pentax metering is clearly underexposing the scene to a drastic degree.

[pingflood]

Yeah, Pentax definitely errs on the conservative side while Nikon and Canon (dare I, "Canikon") shoots for the subject being "properly" exposed while sacrificing highlights to make the light levels look ok.

For JPEG shooting, I prefer the Pentax approach. For RAW, I always kept the K20D on +1/3 or +2/3 since the extra headroom let me get away with it.

[monochrome]

Hey Elwood - you do understand your position (all awards go to Canon and Nikon users, ergo Pentax sucks) is a null hypothesis, don't you?

Null Hypothesis

[Mike.P®]

I must adimit () that I have been toying with the idea of keeping my K10D and kit and using the money saved for my K-7 to buy a 7D and 100-400mm L purely for birding and aircraft.

[trumil9]

5dm2, 1.4/24, 14/35, 1.2/85 but I use a lot of lenses from other systems to shot with Canon
Here Voigtlander Apo-Lanthar 2.5/125 M42



CZ Planar 2.8/80 Hasselblad mount



Tamron AD2 2.5/180

[Hey Elwood]

Hey Elwood - you do understand your position (all awards go to Canon and Nikon users, ergo Pentax sucks) is a null hypothesis, don't you?

Null Hypothesis

OK then, just take a look at the past 2 years worth of Digial Camera World, Digital Photo and Practical Photography magazines. Out of the past 2 years of buying these magazines I've only seen 1 (count you only 1) featured photographer who shots with Pentax and it was a K10d. All the others were Canon and Nikon (many of which are award winning photographers). So tell me something...if pentax is so great then why in the world have these reknown magazines only displayed 1 pentax photographer (and they didn't win any award). Based on your assumption, weither you shoot pentax, canon, nikon, sony, menolta, olympus, or any other brand name DSLR camera there should be more award winning photographers shooting with Pentax. But there are not based on the facts from these magazines. The facts don't match up with the conclusion. Show me a non partisan source where there are more award winning photographers who shoot with Pentax then Canon or Nikon (and it can't be a pentax sponsored source). I would love to see it.