Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
12-28-2012, 09:44 AM
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:lol::lol:Thanks for that! I'm still laughing...
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
12-27-2012, 10:02 AM
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Hogan is a bit better than Rockwell, but neither is worth quoting. Yes, dust on the D600 & lots of issues with the D800 are obvious if one reads through a Nikon forum. But, dubious numbers from an egotist that can't be substantiated is another thing entirely.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
12-23-2012, 03:31 PM
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Ask that question in a brand-specific forum & what did you expect to get in response? Let me just pipe in with a few things. The build quality and sealing of the K-5/II series is much more robust than the D600. I would trust the K-5 II in wet conditions, whereas I would not even subject my D600 to the same conditions. I own zilch in terms of Pentax gear, but everything I've read from owners since the release of the K-5 has swayed me into believing it, along with the K-5 II, is as robust as the Oly E-3 or E-5, the former of which I used since it was first released. I'm kind of in the opposite position as yourself because I own a D600 and am looking at getting the K-5 II for the weathersealing. I can tell you right now that the kit lens, 24-85VR, is a fantastic little lens. There are a number of online comparisons between it and the 24-70 2.8 from Nikon (non-IS), along with the Tamron 24-70VC 2.8. It competes quite well with both. It won't trounce the Nikon 24-70 2.8, but it does have VC. A little softer in the corners at some focal lengths, but also similar for the most part in the center.
I personally like big, chunky camera bodies. I was highly impressed when I got the D600 because it is both smaller and lighter than my old Oly E-3, which was unexpected & nice. From what I've heard, the K-5/II/IIs grip is great. If you want a better visual as to the size difference between the two, have a look here: Compare camera dimensions side by side
Yes, there have been a number of people posting all over about the oil spots/dust on the D600 sensors. Mine was dirty as well, and I would guess I spent about 3 hours of time & about $100 worth of various products (electric blower, sensor pen, swabs, etc.) for it. Mine is now clean. Not sure how long it will remain so since one of the theories floating around is that the oil spots are the result of oil splattering off the shutter mechanism. Some have claimed it will go away in a couple thousand shutter releases, but who knows. I know I can clean it myself, so it isn't a huge dramatic deal.
Even though I own nothing Pentax, I can say that I have a few thousand RAW files that I have downloaded from various sites from the K-5, K-5 II and IIs. The D600 IQ is just superb in comparison, and extremely malleable. I'm positive others here will disagree. To answer your question, if I absolutely needed weathersealing, I'd go for Pentax. If weathersealing were not important, then the D600 by far. One of the guys on DPR was arguing with me that the D600, which has the same sealing as the D800, is just as weathersealed as the K-5 II. I do not believe him whatsoever, and the argument fizzled out because I was not about to subject my D600 to the same conditions as I have my Oly E-3. That would be an expensive test, especially if I am right.
Lenses are also a consideration, or the ONLY consideration depending on what kind of shooter you are & how many lenses you will need. I'm a zoom kind of guy myself. If I am on the side of a ledge out backpacking in the desert, I'd like to be able to zoom in or out as needed. A prime just would not be beneficial to my needs, although I did pick up the cheap 50mm Nikkor for fun. There are a lot of zoom lenses to choose from, and some of them can be quite expensive if you absolutely need the widest aperture possible. But, there are also quite a few 3rd party lenses that do 95% of the same for much less. As for myself & Pentax, I will only be buying the 18-135WR as the sole lens for the K-5 II or IIs. I simply do not trust any of the SDM lenses, and my whole point of buying into Pentax would be for the weather sealing.
Best of luck in your decision.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
12-08-2012, 05:21 PM
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Okay, now I know what you were hinting at. I can't believe they rated the A77 so high & praised it at high ISO. They certainly trounced the K-30 while they were at it.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
12-08-2012, 01:51 PM
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Not familiar with that magazine. What is it that I would have discovered by reading it?
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
12-06-2012, 04:03 PM
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I can't speak to the Pentax because I still have never seen one in person. I was able to play around with the A77 a few months ago at a store mfr demo day. I wasn't really fond of the EVF, but that is purely subjective. I know a lot of people love it because "it shows you exactly what the image will look like when the shutter release is tripped." I'd much rather look through a nice OVF and not have the entire scene change brightness, fade out, change color, etc. I had one of my SD cards along & took a number of photos in the store just for the hell of it. Only a few were on aperture priority, whereas the majority were on the auto setting. Let me just say that I really wanted to like this camera because it does check off a ton of boxes. When I viewed the photos back at home, my jaw hit the floor because they were so incredibly bad. I thought I was looking at something from a cheap P&S at ISO1600. Granted, the auto mode had selected ISO3200. Wow, absolutely dismal results.
I know people who love the camera & swear by it, but I've also seen quite a few posts on forums from owners who have sold it because of horrible IQ even in the lower ISO range (200-800). I'd say it would be worth a few hundred miles of driving to test one out in person.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
12-02-2012, 11:32 PM
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The white one is only 609.89 as well. That particular merchant seems to have really good ratings on Amazon, so I doubt you would have to worry there. I'm guessing there will be even more of a price drop. No idea if that will happen before or after Christmas, but it has certainly been on a steady fall. I'm keeping my eye on it, along with the K-5 II/IIs bodies as well.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-27-2012, 02:44 PM
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Even though I've been a member there the last 8 years, I have rarely posted anything. Too many factions & a huge lack of common sense. Some of the guys in that particular forum will bash anything larger than the smallest micro 4/3rds cameras. I've even seen numerous posts there flaming one of their own, the new GH3, because it is "too big."
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-27-2012, 12:33 PM
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No need to take this personally. Nobody here has been telling people to buy Olympus, but we have been pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of both Pentax and the EM-5. If you look at the title of this thread, all of the posts contained within it are related. I've even posted how the E-M5 did not work for me, but I am not a fanboy of any brand & will certainly have no problem discussing the pros and cons of any brand for which I have direct knowledge.
A couple of questions for you: have you used an E-M5 or played around with any raw files from one? And I don't understand what you mean about "the amount of resolution you miss with the omd." They are both 16mp cameras. If you meant horizontal & vertical "line" resolution, have a look on IR and their resolution findings for both cameras.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-27-2012, 10:41 AM
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Yes, "teeny weeny." It seems you are implying that the sensor is too small to be rated so high by reviews, DXO, etc.
As to the K-01, yes you can buy three of them currently. Any takers?
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-27-2012, 09:12 AM
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Not sure if that total includes all of the 4/3rds lenses or not. While they are large and slow to focus on the E-M5, Olympus is supposedly working on a way to get them to function properly with micro 4/3rds. If that happens, the system will offer some of the best lenses money can buy. Their 4/3rds zooms are far superior to anything from Pentax, but Pentax has far more stellar primes. As to the body, I don't think $1,000USD for a truly weather sealed, 10fps, tiltable OLED display, etc., is bad at all. Unless you feel it is too much for something that small...
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-26-2012, 03:31 PM
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One of the perks with using micro 4/3rds and 4/3rds is with the lenses. They are typically much sharper edge to edge than aps-c or FF. "Worse high iso" and "less detail" I never encountered with my EM-5. All previous Oly (and Panasonic) cameras, yes. The EM-5 didn't just raise the bar over previous (crappy) sensors, it blew through the roof.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-26-2012, 01:03 PM
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He does, but only by adjusting the K-5 II files & leaving the IIs files alone. I still haven't seen him optimally adjust both a II and IIs photo. If he did that, and the II looks as good as the IIs, then I'll start paying attention. I've played around with a number of the IIs samples out there and there is considerable leeway for sharpening in post.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-26-2012, 12:56 PM
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All I ever see here is people who really like the 18-135, and those who think it isn't even a proper lens. I've seen both good and bad sample photos using it, but if one wants weather resistance in a fairly standard walkaround lens, is there a better option? In theory, the 16-50, but possible SDM issues kind of deflate that idea. Sure, Sigma offers a lens or two that will work, but they aren't weather sealed. Some of us need a weather sealed lens for our weather sealed body. People tend to forget that there are some of us who are buying into the system primarily because it is about the only option out there for weather resistance/sealing.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-25-2012, 09:11 PM
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I have small cameras in the past, but the ergonomics were a bit better. If my hands were about 1/10th their current size, the body only E-M5 would probably fit just fine. It was still pretty tiny with the grip, although the grip really made a world of difference...for another $299, or whatever the going rate is now.
I haven't really directly replaced it with anything. I sold off ALL of my Olympus gear as I just don't see anything in the future that will interest me, and I also sold off the majority of my camera collection (mostly Canon FD stuff). It's a bummer, because the high & super high grade Olympus lenses were spactacular. I have a D600 now, but no way am I going to take that thing into the rain like I would my E-M5 or E-3, so now I'm looking primarily at the K-5 II/IIs bodies to fill my weather sealed needs. It's really a shame that there are so few REAL weather sealed bodies & lenses on the market.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-25-2012, 06:46 PM
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I had the OMD E-M5 for 4 or 5 months. I also had the grip permanently attached to it because otherwise, the body was way too small for me. The IQ is definitely there, but I really felt that it was pushing the limits. I could squash highlights and bring back the blackest of shadows with virtually no penalty, but I had a tough time applying sharpening: once I got to a certain point, skin would become mottled. With the grip attached, it was virtually the same size as a DSLR, so no real size advantage. I had a number of fantastic 4/3rds lenses that I really wanted to have work on the E-M5, even knowing the limitation concerning focus speed, but I ended up shooting all my fantastic lenses in manual mode. My biggest problem is that there are no sealed lenses to go with the body. The kit 12-50 is ok, but it's slow and not even close to something like the 4/3rds 12-60. There is one weather sealed prime, but that won't help if you are looking for a good zoom. The only other options available are 2 $1000 plus lenses from Panasonic that are the poster children for purple fringing.
If you have the opportunity to test drive the E-M5, do so. I know a ton of people love them, but it just didn't work out for me (body & lack of weather sealed fast lenses). Just my $.02 as a former owner.
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
11-24-2012, 08:54 PM
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Very tempted by the IIs price. I was going to get the 18-135 with it, but now I'm having second thoughts. Now that the 16-50 is now reasonable ($674 with the body), I'm not so sure. Then again, the SDM scares me away, along with numerous reviews & posters who have said the 18-135 is the better lens. Decisions, decisions.
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
11-22-2012, 11:34 PM
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-21-2012, 12:03 PM
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Hmm, guess I'll be looking at the K-5 II body instead. I've seen a few posts now, here and elsewhere, that don't paint a truly weather sealed picture for the K-30. Thanks for posting about your experience.
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Forum: Pentax K-30 & K-50
11-20-2012, 01:15 PM
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How about deals with the 18-135 lens & K-30 body? The price has been hovering a little above & a little below $1,000 on Amazon.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-17-2012, 08:40 PM
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A few questions for you: on the "other" forum, you say you shot these as RAW & only tweaked exposure in PP? The first shot looks like a jpg to me, mostly because the sky is so blotchy and the image is soft. That may have something to do with how the images are uploaded and/or "refined" by the other site. The second one with the wall, when viewed at 100%, almost made me sick to my stomach. It's almost as if there is a double exposure going on. I notice what appear to be sharpening halos, but that could also be part of that double exposure look I was talking about. The rest of them look good, although if I had to guess, I would have said they were straight out of a II, not a IIs. I'm merely stating what I am seeing, so please don't take this the wrong way.
Thanks for posting the link to these. Please let us know if you run across anything with the new body that you really like, dislike, or is generally noteworthy.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-16-2012, 10:18 AM
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-16-2012, 10:14 AM
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I'm not seeing that in this thread. Quite the opposite. I'm still waiting for someone to post up some comparisons of something other than studio shots, and with each (II and IIs) processed to their fullest. Examples such as those from the PF review of the II/IIs here. For someone like myself who owns zero Pentax gear (yet), I honestly do not care which camera is better. I would like to see at least a few owner arguments for the IIs, as opposed to all the anti-IIs here.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-13-2012, 04:26 PM
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No, it does not make sense to me. Why spend the effort to get a pseudo-similar image when the more helpful of approaches would be to either present both the II and IIs unaltered, or both after post processing? They both use the same sensor & take the same lenses, so they are only different as to AA filter or no AA filter. Post processing both would be beneficial because then we could see if the II can come close to the IIs in real world usage & by using techniques the majority of us use when processing RAW.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
11-13-2012, 03:43 PM
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I agree. Doing something to one, yet not the other, is pointless. Sorry, John, but your posted intentions at the start of this thread were fairly cryptic. Now that I know what you did, why don't you start another thread following along the lines of what civiletti posted? Work a II and IIs sample to personal perfection and post the results. Given the latitude available, I can't imagine anyone not applying any type of sharpening to RAW.
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