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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
02-06-2012, 10:57 PM
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Er, the point is that the signal is already in digital form, and indeed a large part of the camera's expense has been getting it there. So using an EVF is taking advantage of that situation. And indeed, the mirror/etc on an SLR is complex (in practice, if not conception), expensive (which of course is why the OVFs on non-top-tier SLRs tend to be kind of cramped and dark), quite large, and somewhat fragile.
orrrrrr you're just engaging in a bit of hyperbole... and sure, these EVFs aren't perfect, but they are quite good (strobing effects from electronic displays etc, are one of their weak points, for instance, although that isn't something I'd generally care about in actual use), and offer a different set of tradeoffs from OVFs. On many mid-tier DSLRs, for instance, the OVF is kind of small and dark, whereas EVFs are much easier to make large and bright. Panning lag can be a problem with older EVFs, but I haven't noticed it to be an issue on current good EVFs (e.g. V1/A77 -- and yes, they are quite good).
Anyway, the beauty of it is that we don't need to agree. I have my standard for what I consider acceptable, and some current EVFs seem to meet it. You may have different standards/uses, and may disagree with me about certain models -- but EVFs have a lot of room to get better at acceptable cost (faster update speeds, higher resolution, etc), and as long as enough people agree with you, they will continue to get better....
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Forum: Photographic Industry and Professionals
02-03-2012, 08:20 PM
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Note that it's not the case that OVFs have "infinite" resolution—they're limited by the resolution of the lens and finder optics, and even super high quality lenses cannot be "perfect," because of diffraction effects. Of course people's eyes are typically the limiting factor anyway, so there's no point in increasing resolution beyond some threshold (and ... the best EVFs are already there, basically).
Also, of course, the idea expressed above, that using electronics for the finder is just unnecessary complication of "simple" OVFs is a bit odd, given the huge amount of complexity behind SLR viewfinders (pentaprism, super fast mirror, etc, etc). EVFs are a natural evolution when the camera already has the image in the digital domain.
Personaly I have a very simple test for whether an EVF is "good enough": If I use it, and it feels like an OVF, I'm happy. EVFs a few years ago were almost universally crappy (and many still are), but recently they've started to become very good. The EVFs in the Nikon V1 and Sony A77, for instance are excellent, and are already hard to distinguish from OVFs in many circumstances.
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Forum: Pentax K-01
02-03-2012, 08:04 PM
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Why? There's no need to make the body bigger to put in an EVF, it's big enough to accomodate one already.
Just stick the EVF in the existing "hump", extending down into the main body area as necessary, and shrink the back LCD a bit to accomodate it (there's no particular need for the LCD to be exactly the size it is on the existing K-01, a little smaller would be totally fine).
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Forum: Pentax K-01
02-03-2012, 02:00 AM
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No.
I don't know about other posters, but blithely dismissing all critical comments as mere "hating" is the worst sort of fanboyism.
Everybody has their little gripes about new products, but this is a real, and significant issue for a camera. What do you expect people to do, just shut up and hum happy tunes?
It's certainly true that there are a lot of crappy EVFs out there, and if they had stuck one of those in, people would be (rightly) complaining about that. But there are also some absolutely brilliant EVFs out there too, e.g. the ones on the Nikon V1 and the Sony A77 (and reportedly the same tech in the latter is what's used for the NEX-7 and the NEX-5n add-on EVF).
Anyway, whether or not a VF is important to the K-01's target audience will eventually be revealed by its sales record...
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Forum: Pentax K-01
02-02-2012, 10:23 PM
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Yeah, the MX / ME are the the sweet spot IMHO... I was kinda thinking the K-01 might be the modern-day equivalent, but the lack of viewfinder makes it a non-contender. Oh well.
Waitin' for the K-02 announcement...
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-02-2012, 03:32 AM
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Yeah, it's a real shame about the lack of EVF. It's a deal-killer for what seemed a pretty nice camera.
I love the looks of the K-01, and it seems to be in a nice place size/feature/price-wise (going by the rumors)...
but... no VF, no sale. Taking photos using a back screen is just too impossibly painful in so many circumstances.
Sorry Pentax; maybe next model?
I'm a little curious what they were thinking though. EVFs seem to be a trend in "prosumer mirrorless" these days (nikon, sony, olympus, panasonic, fuji, even ricoh (!) all seem to have an EVF as at least an option on their PSM cameras), so obviously there must be some demand for them, and lately the EVF tech has really advanced to the point where they're really quite nice (especially compared to the awful low-res flickery EVFs of years past).
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-23-2011, 02:57 AM
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The annoying thing about the Q is that it's going to be a "blocker": Pentax is not going to do any serious development on a better-designed mini-camera system until the Q dies. Because the Q is a "system" (not just a single camera), it represents a much bigger investment for them, and they'll be loathe to kill it off quickly.
Even if it finds a niche as a "point-n-shoot with quality construction," with people that don't care about image quality, while that's good for Pentax as a company, it's bad for all those who want a better mini-camera from pentax—it seems unlikely that Pentax will ever put any money into a "mini camera with decent image quality" line, because there's too much perceived overlap, and it would dilute the market too much.
In the meantime, all the other players are coming out with much better mini camera systems.
Soo.... Pentax certainly missed this chance to be a leader. Maybe they can play a decent game of catchup in 5 years or so...
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-28-2011, 02:06 AM
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Very odd, as the dimensions are very similar; from my previous comment:
Pentax Q:
Dimensions: Approx. 98.0mm x 57.5mm x 31.0mm (excluding the operation parts and protrusion)
Weight: Approx. 200g (loaded and ready with the dedicated battery and SD Memory Card)
Sony NEX-C3:
Dimensions: 110 x 60 x 33mm
Weight: Approx. 225g (7.9 oz, with batt and card)
[Sony dimensions from the dpreview preview; Q dimensions from the article linked to in this thread.]
Is somebody fudging...?
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-28-2011, 12:22 AM
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I'd be very interested to see how small lenses for the Sony NEX series can go -- as it's got a body as small as the Q, if it were paired with a good pancake lens, it would be a great APS-C sensor alternative for the Q, at basically the same size.
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-28-2011, 12:15 AM
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And note that it's much easier to make a good-quality lens cheaper/smaller at a given focal-length if you can just ignore everything except the center... so a lens make for a small-sensor camera should always be smaller than a lens of the same focal length made for a larger-sensor camera.
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-27-2011, 05:23 PM
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I think there's two things:
(1) The Q is seemingly much more expensive, and so naturally gets more scrutiny than a cheap-n-cheerful compact.
(2) I think there's an impression that because interchangeable-lens cameras are more of a niche product than cheap-n-cheerful compacts, there might be only enough "room" in the Pentax lineup for one such model. Moreover, once a camera becomes part of a "system" (as opposed to a completely standalone product like traditional compacts), it's much harder to just change details (like sensor size etc), in future products, because compatibility becomes a significant concern. So those who actually want a nice high-quality compact interchangeable-lens camera from Pentax are naturally somewhat concerned that it be done right.
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-27-2011, 04:50 PM
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I don't think that's true -- the older classic Pentax stuff seems well thought-of in Japan (e.g., the 6x7; I've seen way more people with 6x7s in Japan than in any other country).
They also seem to be doing pretty well with their latest DSLRs; obviously still a minor player compared to everybody-and-their-dog-has-one Canikon systems, but the Kr and K-5 etc, seem to have found some legs, and have accordingly managed to retain a fairly good chunk of retail space in Japanese camera stores compared to other minor players (e.g., Olympus DSLRs have pretty much been crowded out, despite their Pen cameras being super trendy).
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-27-2011, 06:41 AM
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Er, a small sensor size most definitely hurts in low-light -- that's the main reason people don't like small sensors...
A fast lens can help offset such a loss of course, and conversely, a small sensor with an unusually slow lens is even more horrible.
Another thing that helps a little for low-light is image stabilization (allowing the use of slower shutter speeds), though that seems pretty common on even cheap cameras these days anyway (my cell phone has it!), so it's not much of a differentiator.
It is interesting that Pentax has chosen to emphasize ISO 6400 performance in their press material, because it at least seems to indicate they think they've got the "small sensor in low-light problem" sussed in some acceptable way (advanced sensor tech, really good noise-reduction algorithms, etc); we'll need to wait for independent reviews to see if that's true, of course.
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-25-2011, 06:58 PM
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It's very unlikely -- the areas outside the sensor are probably either cropped explicitly, or if not, suffer from greatly degraded optical quality. To make it otherwise, they'd need to essentially design them for a larger sensor from the start, which would make them bigger and more expensive, negating some of the advantages of the Q.
[It's easy to adapt lenses the other way, from a larger sensor to a smaller one, as the lens just sees the smaller sensor as a patch in the middle of the larger sensor area.]
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-25-2011, 03:39 PM
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The GRX system actually seems a lot more innovative than the Q though. It's actually an attempt to rethink the entire concept of a "camera" as a series of interchangeable modules (well I guess that sort of thing exists to some degree with super-high-end cameras -- Hasselblad etc -- but I've never seen anything like it that a mortal could afford).
I think it's very cool, but in practice the details/implementation seem a bit more disappointing (e.g., when I've tried it in stores, the focusing was crazy slow).
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-25-2011, 12:05 AM
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Even many current cell phones take quite good pics, at least in decent lighting. The point where a "real" camera often beats them though, is in more challenging situations -- e.g. low lighting, where sensor size helps hugely (or situations where fast focusing [something mirror-free cameras aren't so great at], a real viewfinder, good lenses, and other quality-of-implementation issues help).
The thing is complicates all this though, is price. Though my cell phone takes very decent pics in reasonable lighting (though it has image stabilization to help with low-lighting situations), it was more or less free... If I'm going to pay a substantial fraction of a grand for a camera, I'm a lot more picky; "good in decent lighting" isn't gonna do it then, nor is a cool retro look. Good lenses will help, but only to the extent they aren't hamstrung by the sensor.
[I love the look and feel of the Fuji X100, but the price is way up there, the implementation is a bit flaky, and lens has gotten a lot of criticism wide-open -- and really "wide-open" is important. If the price were a lot less, I might forgive these shortcomings, but it's very hard at the price they're charging...]
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-23-2011, 05:44 PM
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Given that Nokia seems to be in its death-throes, I'm not sure that's who they want to be compared with...
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-23-2011, 04:12 PM
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Body-wise, they're very similar:
Pentax Q:
Dimensions: Approx. 98.0mm x 57.5mm x 31.0mm (excluding the operation parts and protrusion)
Weight: Approx. 200g (loaded and ready with the dedicated battery and SD Memory Card)
Sony NEX-C3:
Dimensions: 110 x 60 x 33mm
Weight: Approx. 225g (7.9 oz, with batt and card)
The NEX-C3 body is basically the same size as the Q body, so any difference will have to be in lenses. The Q's much smaller sensor makes smaller lenses easier, and the lenses in the linked article look decently small (though not crazy-small). On the other hand, as we've seen with Pentax's SLR pancakes, it's quite possible to make very small lenses for an APS-C camera. In practice, I don't know; I haven't spent too much time looking at the Sony NEX line in stores, though there seem to be two lenses one commonly sees, one pretty big, the other smaller, though not as small as the Pentax SLR pancakes.
Another pieces of evidence that large-sensor lenses need not be big is Leica 35mm cameras -- their lenses are often like little jewels, despite targetting a full-frame 35mm format. From what I hear, some of this is due to the lack of the mirror box (I don't know why this helps make lenses smaller, but that's what I've heard).
The look of the Q is great, and they've got the retro vibe down pretty well (the Sony NEX cameras are much less appealing on that front).
I guess my main gripe is that it seems to me Pentax could have done something really cool with this: with their experience at making small and svelte large-sensor lenses, I think they were capable of producing a cool, small, retro-look camera that also be world-class in terms of image quality, and would appeal to both picky photographers and those who want an extremely small and portable (and cute) camera.
Instead, well... I guess we'll see. But I'm not very optimistic... sensor-size isn't the only factor in image quality, but it's an awfully important one...
Links:
Pentax Q Camera Reviews - Pentax Camera Reviews - DSLR and Film SLR Database
Sony NEX-C3 Preview: 2. Specifications: Digital Photography Review |
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-23-2011, 10:45 AM
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Note, on the other hand, that Sony's NEX-C3 is about the same size, weight, and feature set as the Q -- but the NEX-C3 has a much bigger (APS-C) sensor. Sony's no slouch at sensors (the NEX-C3 uses an "exmor" sensor), so it seems pretty unlikely Pentax has come up with some sort of magic that offsets that huge size difference.
Oh, also the current NEX-3 has a lower price than the Q too... (not sure about the differences between the 3 and the C3, they seem roughly the same)
The only hope I can see for the Q is if Pentax can make super-duper dinky lenses or something, that lets them slip into the "pocket camera" niche (the lenses I've seen on the Sonys seem to nudge it a bit over that size).
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-23-2011, 10:09 AM
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Seriously, I wonder where on earth this concept came from -- they're copying a form factor others have pioneered (so no points for originality, or chance of finding a new niche market), but with worse specs and no obvious improvements (bye-bye enthusiasts), and a higher price (bye-bye everybody else).
Ok, ok, I know where it came from: marketing... "hey... can't we kinda tart up one of our consumer models to look like an Olympus Pen and raise the price to match the retro vibe..?! We'll make a fortune!"
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Forum: Pentax Compact Cameras
06-23-2011, 09:53 AM
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No viewfinder. Disappointing.
Overall seems kinda meh. Expensive meh.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
06-14-2011, 04:11 PM
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It's a shame these are a "limited edition"...
Why can't they simply make this a normal model...? It's sooooo much more beautiful, and it would make the K-5 stand out from the zillion other "black blob" DSLRs that are around these days.
Maybe for the K-3?
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-17-2009, 05:42 PM
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It's kind of a shame the K-x is still using the ugly old pre-K-7 shell design though...
Plastic or not, something with a bit more design sense like the K-7 would have been a lot more striking -- and given the color selection they're offering, it's clear they care about the appearance!
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-08-2009, 03:06 AM
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Sadly, this crashes on startup for me...
[No source code, so it's a bit hard to debug, but the error message suggests somebody is trying to free something which was allocated on the stack... !]
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
09-07-2009, 05:51 PM
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There these little moths here that I hate ('cause they eat your clothes!), so when I see one flying around, I try as hard as possible to catch it.
It's not easy, not because they fly all that fast, but because they're constantly and randomly changing direction with very high acceleration. If they fly straight for even a short while, I can easily snatch one out of the air, but as long as their movement is unpredictable, it's extremely hard, because my relatively huge hand requires some amount of lead time to arrive at the same spot they are.
Poor autofocus algorithms! :(
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