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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
04-17-2015, 06:40 AM
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Well it seems that I can confidently attribute the poor image quality to the kit lens based on the responses so far. It is usable and at normal viewing on my computer screen the images are not bad, however I do confess to being a bit of a pixel peeper as I believe that something which looks great at 100% will look great at screen size as well, and I pixel peep to compare the quality of my different lenses/cameras. I tried shooting at f9 and above and then I post process the RAWs in Capture One Pro, which gave me stunning results with my D600, so I know it fairly well. This works well enough for shots of most things, but the lens simply does not seem able to get detail in foliage, and I am not talking about shots with trees and bushes in the distance, I am talking about short distances.
I paid 499 euros for the K5II+18-55, seeing that I don't like the 18-55 at all and I can't see myself using it much, I am considering two alternatives:
- Give the K5II back and get a new K5IIs body only for 589€ and then get some primes (I can get the 50/1.7 and 35 limited or some other combos and still stay close to 1000 euros for the body and two to three lenses based on the secondhand prices I see here)
- Get the K3 + 35mm/f2.4 at 855 euros and build it up from there
Decisions.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
04-17-2015, 04:58 AM
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Thanks for that. In fact, I did actually buy it seeing that I posted my question a week ago, but now I am having some doubts. The main issue I have is that I bought it with the 18-55 kit lens and I am actually very disappointed with the image quality of the combination. Now I have doubts as to how much is down to the lens and how much to the camera. Having seen so many rave reviews about the camera, I suspect that it is the lens. I have many years of experience with many different cameras and I think that I know reasonably well how to get maximum sharpness out of my equipment, but in this case my best efforts remain unsatisfactory.
My main issue is with detail in foliage etc. I have a great torture test that I do with all my cameras, it is the view from my balcony which includes some pine trees and other types of trees and bushes as well as some very well defined items such as buildings and cars at different distances. So far the K5II+18-55 combo is the worst of all my cameras.
I really love the camera and the handling and if I am sure that the issues are all due to the lens, I am willing to invest a bit in better lenses, but I am scared of putting more money into the system and still being disappointed. Decisions, I can still take the camera back for a refund, but Monday is the limit.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
04-07-2015, 06:36 AM
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I was looking for opinions on the K5II when I came across this thread so I decided to post a question. Just as background, I am hopping from camera to camera at the moment and can't seem to make up my mind. I am a very enthusiastic photographer, not a pro at all, but I have been taking pictures for 30 years, starting with full manual SLRs then eventually graduating to digital. I take pictures of everything except fast action sports. My first DSLR was a Nikon D40. I then bought a D7100, didn't really bond with it, sold it and tried the mirrorless route. Fuji X-E1, sold it as I missed the reactivity and handling of a DSLR. Then I bought a Nikon D600, loved the full frame file quality and flexibility but decided that it stayed at home too much due to size and weight. Then I jumped on the m43 bandwagon, twice, but couldn't get used to the feeling that I was shooting with something like a marriage between cellphone, point and shoot and proper camera and in addition, anything but the lowest ISO had noise.
So I sold everything but my Coolpix A and started fretting over which way to go, leaning towards a Nikon D610 or D750, but not being so keen on the high price.
Yesterday I walked into a shop and they have a brand new Pentax K5II for 499 euros, including the 18-55 lens and suddenly I started thinking. Why not? A good quality smallish DSLR for less than a m43 Olympus EM10 and with the possibility of adding some Pentax lenses later without breaking the bank.
My question to K5II users is, is this camera still up there with the modern offerings or is it getting really long in the tooth? Is the IQ on the very good side of good? Knowing that a Lumix GM1 with 12-32mm camera or a 2nd hand EM10 is the same price, I am thinking that the K5II would still be a lot better than these m43 offerings IQ wise and it is just a more decent and proper enthusiast camera. Any thoughts?
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Forum: Pentax Q
12-07-2012, 03:56 PM
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Waiting for my son to finish a school function, I quickly snapped a few on the Champs Elysées.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-17-2012, 05:55 AM
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Thanks for that detailed response LeRolls. It helps to know what other do as that is a way for me to improve my own photography. I have done very little in terms of PP up to now, but I am starting to do more of it since I bought Paintshop Pro X4 with Nik Effects. I had a trial version of Lightroom 4 which has now expired, but the price is not so high in fact so I might buy that as well. By the way you don't come across as artsy fartsy, I used to have this rigid view that a good photographer should only rely on the camera and his own ability to take good pictures and that PP was "cheating", but in fact I have changed my view completely.
If all pictures have to look like real life, what's the point? The art is in applying one's own touches to something isn't it?
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-17-2012, 02:07 AM
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LeRolls, I would like to know if you did those pictures with in-camera effects or did you do some post processing? I am still discovering all the special effects and filters of the Q and even though I have a fair idea of what most of them do, I end up sticking with very basic Bright setting and using it in Av mode most of the time. At the moment I find it difficult when I look at a scene to imagine what it would look like with a certain filter of effect before I take the picture. Hence my pictures are slightly boring, not as exciting as yours.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-16-2012, 01:45 PM
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Played a bit while waiting for my daughter to finish her horseriding lesson. Converted from RAW, iso 1250.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-13-2012, 02:14 PM
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Nice pictures Henk. There are some very nice castles in France as well, I have taken many pictures with my DSLR but cannot wait to go and capture a few with my Q.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-12-2012, 12:37 PM
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Wow Chris, the raw does seem to make a big difference, maybe I must start shooting mine in RAW as well.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-10-2012, 06:20 AM
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I just spent a few hours at the Salon de la Photo in Paris checking out the new gear. I only took my Q with me, but there were people with some really impressive cameras I must say. Anyway, I took a picture of the display with the new Q10, they come in an amazing range of colors, quite impressive. I also played around with the Fuji X100, the X-E1 and the Olympus OM-D, all very nice, but of course much more expensive than my Q. The X100 in black limited edition was tempting though, at 999€.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-03-2012, 11:14 AM
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@Riv. Thanks for the comments and don't worry, I don't see it as slamming me at all. I agree with you that the Q doesn't hold up well to pixel peeping so I am stopping it now, in the beginning I tried to check a lot of detail to judge the quality of the images compared to my Nikon, but I am now starting to appreciate the Q for what it is and using it for its strong points. I enjoy it immensely and I have it with me all of the time. The only thing is that I don't have a lot of free time to spend on post processing, but I have started playing around with Lightroom 4 and Paintshop Pro X4 with the Nik effects plugin, I will spend a bit of time enhancing my best images and dump the rest in the souvenir bin.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-03-2012, 02:28 AM
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OK, I have been walking around snapping anything and everything I can lay my eyes on without trying to take good pictures in terms of subject and composition, just to see if I can get sharper images, and I believe I am getting closer. I know there's nothing wrong with my camera, I just have to pay more attention to what I am doing. Below are a few pictures that are quite a bit sharper than that what I have managed before. I really am very happy with my purchase, the Q is the type of camera that I have been looking for for a long time, I have a Canon S90 as well and I don't really like it, while my Nikon DSLR is too bulky, the Q is honestly so much fun, I just need to become a better photographer and I believe the Q is the tool that can help me get there, it challenges me.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-02-2012, 12:32 PM
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Well after all of the replies to my previous post I have learnt one thing and that is to limit my pictures to between f1.9 and F4, I will see how it goes from here onwards. Thanks for all the comments and advice.
I must say I am still amazed at the sharpness that some of you guys get.
Pinholecam's 100% crops are still quite sharp in my opinion. I will have to pray for some proper sunlight and then go and snap a few to see if I am getting any better at extracting some good quality out of my Q. I still love it, but it's a bit like dating a girl that I can't quite please, so she stays a bit angry with me.
Cobus
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-02-2012, 02:10 AM
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Saladin, thanks for your comments, maybe you're right about the f8 issue, I wasn't aware of the diffusion issue. I didn't have the ND filter on, that's for sure. I get quite a lot of those "foggy" pictures for some or other reason, problem is that here in Paris for the last few weeks since I got the Q the weather has been awful, mostly grey skies, and the Q doesn't seem to like that very much. As it is the grey skies make pictures look awfully flat and dull, and as I said I discovered that the Q bumps up the iso automatically as soon as the light is less than perfect. When I look at the pictures that pinholecam posted, taken with the fisheye which I would have thought to be less sharp perhaps than the 01 prime, I am surprised at the sharpness.
At one stage I thought I was maybe blurring the pictures slightly due to movement, or that my focus was maybe slightly off, but I have installed the latest firmware and tried fine tuning focus manually using the focus peaking feature and I still get quite soft results and missing quite a bit of detail.
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Forum: Pentax Q
11-02-2012, 12:31 AM
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I keep looking at the pictures of other posters on this forum and I am amazed at the sharpness that some of you guys are getting, I still seem to be struggling with it. Unless of course you sharpen up your images through post processing? I find that when I leave the Q on auto iso, it very quickly bumps up the ISO, even in daylight in slightly overcast conditions it starts increasing iso. Furthermore my images are quite soft, maybe I'm spending too much time staring at 100% blown up images. Below is an example, I took a picture of the same building in a park, one with my Nikon D40 with 35mm prime, the other with the Q. The Nikon stayed at its base iso of 200, 1/40th of a second shutter speed at f8. The Pentax was also on Av, set to f8, it bumped up the iso to 320 and shutter speed was 1/60th. When I compare the Nikon and the D40, under good light conditions I don't see much difference, except for the slight softness in the Q images that is there 90% of the time. However as soon as the light deteriorates the slightest bit, I lose sharpness.
Anyway, I still love the Q and despite some misgivings I have about it, it is still with me 100% of the time while my Nikon stays at home most of the time. The Q makes me want to take pictures and it makes me think all the time about what I am doing.
Nikon picture at the top.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-19-2012, 11:06 AM
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Here's one straight out of the camera, jpeg, shot early morning just after arriving at work. It's probably not a great picture in itself, but I found the colours quite nice with the neon lights at dawn. Otherwise I have been struggling to get good sharp pictures in anything but the best of lighting conditions. Most of my pictures don't look properly in focus, trying to find out what I am doing wrong.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-17-2012, 11:51 AM
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I thought the Q and the Q10 had the same back illuminated sensors? There are some differences in algorithms I believe, but I am no expert. I have the Q with 01 prime lens and find it much more fun than my Nikon D40 DSLR. Anyway, I looked at the differences and so far I prefer the looks of the Q and solid magnesium alloy body. Autofocus is really not such a big issue and the 125 vs 100 iso is not going to be such a big issue either. I don't think the Q10 is worth waiting for if you compare the price that you can get the Q for now. I can get the Q for 294€ with either the 01 prime or the 5-15mm zoom, whereas the Q10 is expected to come in at close to 600€. The Q10 is not double the camera that the Q is, for sure.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-15-2012, 10:14 AM
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Following crewl1's comment in one of the other threads I decided to start posting some pictures here. This first one is the same as posted on another thread, just to get the ball rolling. By the way I don't know whether there are any "rules" for shots to qualify as street photography so I hope I am posting the right kind of stuff. This was taken yesterday at the Palais des Congrès in Paris.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-14-2012, 12:25 PM
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I post a few more below, just snaps taken this afternoon without spending time thinking about composition, no special effects, no post processing. Just having fun, sometimes shooting without even looking at the screen to frame the shot.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-13-2012, 11:02 PM
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Shawn, I would like to know how you get such vivid colors. What are your settings? I used natural and just cranked up the saturation, but that resulted in smeared pictures, especially the greens. I now alternate between natural and bright settings, but my colors seem flat and dull.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-13-2012, 12:58 PM
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Goeie werk Henk, ek hou daarvan. Seeing that you are Dutch I hope you can understand a bit of Afrikaans? I am South African, but have been living in Paris for 4 years now. Anyway, I Like what you have done, in fact I played around earlier today and did something very similar with that exact same image. By the way I don't have Photoshop, I use Paintshop Pro X4 Ultimate, it was a lot cheaper to buy than Photoshop.
I never really take B&W pictures, but the idea of street photography appealed to me and I started playing around with monochrome. The more time I spend with the Q, the more I like it. The way I look at it is, my DSLR is so good that I don't put much into the shots, whereas with the Q I find that I have to work a lot harder at getting good results, but it is a lot more fun. I have seen some amazing images on this forum, I am now really trying hard to improve my photography.
By the way,I have the white Q with the 01 prime, picked it up for 284€ brand new, now I see the black model brand new available for 299€ with the 5-15mm zoom. I am actually considering getting this as well, seeing that the 5-15mm zoom alone is 279€, I figure that buying the kit with the zoom gives me a zoom, an extra battery and charger, and an extra body!
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Forum: Travel, Events, and Groups
10-13-2012, 12:13 PM
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CobusBasson has created a new social group called "Pentax Paris", with the following description:
To join this group visit the social groups homepage where this new group will be listed.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-13-2012, 12:03 PM
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@fuent104: I am a bit of a lazy photographer, I rarely do any post processing, I just take pictures and use them straight out of the camera, but maybe you're right, a bit of post processing could maybe bring my pictures to life. It's just that playing with Photoshop makes me feel as if I am not a good photographer because I have to "fix" my bad work artificially.
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-12-2012, 01:44 PM
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Some more pictures. Note that I don't claim that these are good pictures at all, they are just tests from my first few days with my Q. By the way, I love the camera, looks, handling, features, all of these are great, I simply love it. However, with regards to IQ I am not 100% convinced yet. The thing is, I paid 284€ for it, brand new, and at that price I think it's great. I paid 400€ for my Canon S90, I haven't compared pictures yet, but just in terms of handling etc. I prefer the Q. It is like a mini DSLR, I stuff it in a pocket or my bag that I take to work and whenever I feel like it, I just whip it out and snap. My Nikon D40 DSLR on the other hand is a great camera, but because of its size I never take it with me, what good is that?
IMGP0188 by Cobus Basson, on Flickr
IMGP0113 by Cobus Basson, on Flickr
IMGP0174 by Cobus Basson, on Flickr
IMGP0140 by Cobus Basson, on Flickr
IMGP0204 by Cobus Basson, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax Q
10-12-2012, 01:30 PM
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Here's a color version of one of the pictures uploaded previously. This was shot in fairly low light conditions, I am happier with this result compared to some previous results. It confirms my previous finding that increasing the saturation causes problems with smearing. This one is natural color without increasing saturation.
IMGP0228 by Cobus Basson, on Flickr
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