[cwood]

Not to rain on anyones hard work but one needs to compare ones own photo's of a genre with the same taken with top end Nikon & Canon models and generally you will find that the fast moving (especially head on) shots taken with Pentax lack the sharpness & "bite" so to speak.

I shoot a 1DmkIII, K20D, K-7 and D200 and I use these camera's to earn 100% of my income - a significant amount of that through MTB photography ...

I think you are wrong with regards to K-7. K20 requires careful technique and sometimes pre-focus. K-7 can track no problem.

[dylansalt]

Thanks Kunik for that insight and very interesting.

I'm just wondering the reason for shooting with 3 different systems - most pro togs I know generally a happy enough with the 1dmk111 & 5DMk11 setup and really need nothing else.

The only other challenger to their throne being the Nikon D3/700 combo.

I can really get good surf/action shots with my K10D but most would disagree;-)

Yes the K7 is great, especially its size/portability but unfortunately over here in SA the Pentax system has zero residual value and is impossible to sell to trade up.

I'm currently looking at changing systems hence I'm doing a lot of investigating & testing and with re: this I do find the af on the Nikon & Canons very much faster.

The problem these days is choice - due to the market generally being dominated by Canon & Nikon there are amazing bargains to be had 2nd hand.

Over here the 1dmk111 D700 are selling only slightly more than a K7/7D

One can even pick up a 1dsmk11 for the same price.

Over here once you have bought a Pentax - you are forced to always in paying a premium for the latest body.

[cwood]

The Nikon system doesn't belong to me... its a studio camera that I use for youth sports and youth sports portraits. I end up using it for about 1000 photos/day for about 20 days/year so I listed it as a camera that I use a lot.

The 1D3 is a great camera and without a doubt is better in almost every way - but when the situation is suitable to shoot the Pentax about 95% of the time I prefer the photos from Pentax. I'm the opposite of a tech geek so I don't take pitures of brick walls and do all sorts of other testing to figure out why... I've just been doing this long enough to know when I want to shoot pentax.

A lot of the difference comes down to Glass I'm sure. My Canon 70-200 F2.8 is much sharper than my Pentax 50-135 F2.8 but "SHARPER" does not always mean "BETTER". For sports like mountain biking sharper is great so I use that lens a lot - and I usually add more sharpness, saturation and contrast as well - but I shoot a lot of weddings too and for weddings I much prefer the Pentax 50-135mm. My 16-50mm is plenty sharp enough to produce great sports photos if you get in nice and tight so I've been using it lately.

And if those reasons were not enough I still LOVE the small size of Pentax. At a wedding I will carry a K-7 (no grip) with the 43mm LTD as a second camera and I have a Pentax 360 flash I can mount on it if need be. Nothing Canon or Nikon makes can compare to the size and quality of that little setup. And now that K-7 has predictive AF I can rely on it more at sports events which means I can take advantage of the small size there too. The last MTB race I shot I had the 300F2.8 on the 1DmkIII so having the K-7 with me instead of another 1D was a joy.

Having said all of that I would highly recommend you look into picking up a used mkIII. You can get one with low actuations around here for ~$2300 and its a pretty amazing camera. It can't do ISO 128,000 like some of the new systems but it does magazine quality at ISO 3200 with NO problem at all and with some noise software 6400 is manageable.

[pingflood]

Hi Kunik,

You seem to have both the skills and experience, so how would you rate K7 AF compared to the Canon bodies? Sounds like you are pretty positive on it.

Also, the Mk III is lower than that now... I see bodies on Adorama for 1700-1800. Even if the camera has a good 50-60k on it that's nothing, and a shutter replacement is only around $300 or less so nothing to really worry about.

[cwood]

Hi Kunik,

You seem to have both the skills and experience, so how would you rate K7 AF compared to the Canon bodies? Sounds like you are pretty positive on it.

Also, the Mk III is lower than that now... I see bodies on Adorama for 1700-1800. Even if the camera has a good 50-60k on it that's nothing, and a shutter replacement is only around $300 or less so nothing to really worry about.

I feel like the k-7 proves what I have always said about focus speed - the speed at which a camera can turn the focus ring is less important than the ability of the camera to track the object. When I look at the focus ring on my 16-50 the distance between infinity and 3 feet is very small so it should never have to turn very fast to track an extremely fast object. It is the software in the camera that needs to be able to predict where that object will be when the image is captured that is important.

Having said that I have only had the K-7 out to two mountain bike races but the results have been impressive and I have achieved a high rate of keepers. I would still say the AF accuracy is not up to the level of 1D but that matters more with EXTREMELY small DOF - which is one of the reasons why I swapped my Pentax 300F2.8 for the Canon version. A fully framed mountain biker at 135mm F2.8 still has sufficient DOF that the lack of precision is not visible. I have used Canon 30D-50D before but not enough to make fair comment. The Nikon D200 is not overly impressive in the AF department. Even taking "still" portraits of kids in good light the AF will hunt sometimes which is both strange and annoying. Since I am not using top-quality glass for those pictures though I could not fairly comment on a comparison to K-7

The problem is that most people prefer to measure speed by grabbing unexpected shots and for this Pentax is limited by either SDM or screw drive. For example I would never shoot a baseball game with Pentax because you might want to capture a tag out at 3rd base and a slide into 2nd base within only a few seconds and the Pentax just can't handle that. Its hard to say how good Pentax would be with USM but I would predict a pretty big improvement.

Basically I rarely take a really strong stance on any of my opinions (in case you couldn't tell) because it would be easy to prove me wrong. Canon 1DmkIII has a few fatal flaws in its AI-Servo focus system that have to do with fast moving objects changing trajectory so for certain shots I would bet I could achieve higher success rates with the Pentax but that does not make the Pentax better. My only real point is that Pentax finally incorporated predictive focus in their AF-C and it seems to perform as advertised with regards to tracking moving objects. The fact that the frame rate falls as low as 2fps in this mode is problematic and the fact that the focus speed is still limited is problematic but the number of situations in which I am now able to use my Pentax gear has gone up considerably with this body. I have no doubt that the 7D (which is what this thread was all about) is better in almost every regard to K-7 but Canon does not make anything for that camera that can compare to my 16-50mm, my 43mm or my 50-135mm so I choose to stick with Pentax.

[cwood]

I could add that the k-7 does "locK" focus much faster than previous models (regardless of lens) which is a breath of fresh air. These photos were taken at the first wedding I shot with K-7 at 200mm F2.8 (AF-S) about 1 second apart and I'm pretty sure my K20 would have missed at least one of these with the razor thing DOF

[Jonson PL]

I could add that the k-7 does "locK" focus much faster than previous models (regardless of lens) which is a breath of fresh air. These photos were taken at the first wedding I shot with K-7 at 200mm F2.8 (AF-S) about 1 second apart and I'm pretty sure my K20 would have missed at least one of these with the razor thing DOF

Hi Christopher,
Great shots you’ve posted in the thread. And good to hear from the ones that put different brands through extensive test, instead of just us hobby snappers. Fine stuff on your blog too.

A good thread also with open discussion of the Eos 7D, without it ending in brand wars. I’ve learned a lot of new things about it. Setting a new benchmark for crop sensor cams is positive, in that others will be inspired to up their game.

I’ve read how it has been stated that it feel like Canon is built by engineers and Nikon by photographers. How many prefer the ergo of Nikon.
I’m surprised by the placement of rear dial, think that it would bother me too, as I often change values on both the front and rear dial. (Love that I can dedicate things on my Pentax). There are many areas I wish for Pentax to improve, and wouldn’t mind a class above the K7.

[str8talk83]

This thread has been an interesting read. Everything is a matter of perspective I guess. A lot of Pentax users like the small bodies and lenses and I respect that. I wouldn't mind having a K7 and a couple of limited primes myself for street shooting.

In general though, I actually prefer the larger size of my 40D to the K7. I have never liked small camera bodies though. The K20D did have great ergonomics from when I have used one.

The most interesting thing was the bashing of the 40D. From what I understand Canon's full-frame sensors seem to provide a little more "pop" straight out of the camera and some have lighter AA filters which makes a difference. This is why images from the 1D Mark I and Canon 10D are highly regarded. You can take the pictures and do minimal post processing and get great results. That being said, the assertation that 40D images look flat surprised me a bit. With proper PP, I would be very surprised to see a meaningful difference between a Pentax and Canon. Here is a link to a 40D thread on the Canon forum for reference. Horrible I know....

Post your absolute best 40D photos here... - Canon Digital Photography Forums

[Big G]

I've just picked up a 7D, I'll let you know how I get on .

[dylansalt]

Would be very interested in your progress as I'm really keen on this cam - mainly for its sensor

So far (after playing with many images) I feel it has a great tonal curve and a beautiful natural (but with pop) color output which I have not been able to replicate with my K10D.

[Big G]

Ok once I've got my Sigma 10-20mm in Canon mount then I'll post some proper landscapes, but in the meantime here are some "real world, pick up the camera" shots of some stuff lying around the house to give you an idea of ISO noise.

So here is ISO 3200 on this machine (these pics are just randoms, don't expect anything arty ). All shot RAW, converted in ACR 5.6, sharpen mask applied, auto white balance, various shutter / aperture:







I'll post some more shots and musings once I've had a serious outing with the 7D.

[photogerald]

and also the talk that the only really good lenses out there are Pentax

To be quite honest I have seen a lot of incredible sharp pics on ave from Nikon & Canon lenses

The 7D seems to have incredible resolution - more so than the K7 which is only 4Mp less - how?

I hope my post here isn't taken as "crashing the party", but in response to the above I would like to share some photos from my K20D + A*135/1.8 below. Of course this isn't a controlled test and so it shouldn't be taken too seriously, but I thought it was interesting that the subject matter and shooting conditions of the photos I had on hand were somewhat similar.

There have been some faulty 7d's that after an ajustment are much better in the AF department. With that said I think that pixel peeping has hit a wall with such a high MP sensor. Looking at 100% crops that 18mp sensor is crazy, the slightest camera shake will show up. Personally I haven't had any problems and 100% crops with my 7d are very sharp when I take the time to do it right .

This is the only example I have but it is a 100% crop taken with the 7d and Sigma 17-70 @17mm wide open and no post processing at all. Not exactly the caliber of lenses you and your friend were using

1/125s f/2.8 at 17.0mm iso800


Here is the entire photo (scaled down of course)

Agreed, at this level focus is critical and so is technique.

I must say, that your Sigma is very sharp - is this the original or the new version of this lens? I am, however, a bit surprised by the amount of chroma NR aftifacts (the blotchiness) in the 100% crop given the decent amount of light. Was this an out-of-camera JPG?

Anyways, here is my ISO 800 wide-open (f1.8) shot @ 1/60s (link to full-sized image is here: http://www.pbase.com/image/121251445/original.jpg):



Converted from RAW using PPL at default settings (sharpness 0), natural image tone, and all NR disabled. No PP aside from raw conversion. Image resized using IrfanView (the resizing operation automatically applied some sharpening).

Here's a 100% crop of the above (there is no sharpening applied here):

I didn't find sharpness to be a problem at all even with the 18MP and 100% crop. Here was a picture of a mountain near sunset:



Here is a 100% crop showing the individual saguaro in the foreground mountain,and trees on the mountain in the background:

Which lens did you use here?

Here's my mountain shot and extreme "brick" wall test, this time at f7.1 (link to full-sized version: http://www.pbase.com/image/121251632/original.jpg):



Here's a 100% non-sharpened crop of the previous image:



Comments are welcome. Again, this isn't meant to knock the 7D.

Cheers!

[Samsungian]

Pentax no longer sells either 135mm f1.8* or K20D

Canon however still sells the 7D new & still sells the speedy autofocus 135mm f2 L new.

Pentax marketing relys on lenses they use to make to sell people on buying their system today.

So many Pentax lenses discontinued without a replacement, just like your manual focus 135mm f1.8*.

Funny thing is, Canon 135mm f2 sells brand new for $999 in USA and 20 year old Pentax 135mm 1.8* trades for what, $1,500 plus and is only manual focus.
Canon's lens is designed for digital sensors too. You know, minimal purple fringing.

I hope my post here isn't taken as "crashing the party", but in response to the above I would like to share some photos from my K20D + A*135/1.8 below. Of course this isn't a controlled test and so it shouldn't be taken too seriously, but I thought it was interesting that the subject matter and shooting conditions of the photos I had on hand were somewhat similar.





Comments are welcome. Again, this isn't meant to knock the 7D.

Cheers!

[PentaxPoke]

Pentax marketing relies on lenses they use to make to sell people on buying their system today.

Well said.

[dylansalt]

and everyone crows on about the backward compatability - for sure if you can find the lenses

Buy a Nikon D300 upwards and you have compatability to tons of prime Nikon glass, meters perfectly and they come pretty cheap too.

Purchase a D700 and you have nirvana when it comes to lens choice