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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
07-04-2016, 12:48 PM
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Wow, the amount of elitism here is mind blowing. I don't watch digital rev when I want to make buying decisions about where I'm gonna put $1500. i watch it when I want to be entertained. DRtv is by far one of the most amusing photography channels and proves that we don't all have to be stuck up, overly serious about what we love to do. I wonder if some people here don't tell kids to get off their lawn.
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
04-15-2016, 07:23 PM
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It looks like pentax completely forgot about ergonomics in the ks2 (Ks1 looks like they tried to make it as unergonomic as they could), menus look like a throwback to the K20, has a massive 11 focus points (why not just a d3100) , and only shoots video in 2009 cell phone resolution. What makes the NX1 so nice is it doesn't put tech before user experience. Impressive weather sealing, I will say that though. Chris from tsctv (look em on youtube) dunks the thing in the water and it was fine. It's stands up the elements well, but the same ruggedness seems like it's being taken to heart with the user experience. I can't speak to this directly as i don't own it, but this really came through on the k20, where it relied heavily on numbers. For example, the custom settings was a confusing mess of arconyms and numbers that was useless without out the manual. The Ks2 quite a bit better in this regard at a quick glance at the manual and if I had to get a pentax this just might be it, but it's an upper entry level camera, sort at the same level as the d5000 series from nikon.
The only pentax that's at the price point Im looking at is the K3ii and it has the same slow live view af that my nikon has (I intend to make live view a bigger part of my workflow), only shoots 1080p, not as good in low light, it's heavier, and I seriously doubt it can track at whopping 15 fps. ;)
AF coverage and density is an issue too as a portrait shooter.
---------- Post added 04-15-16 at 07:31 PM ----------
It's not marketing. That's just a cop out. Better marketing would help granted, but we live in a social media age. If pentax cameras were changing the lives of pros, we would be hearing about it on social media and before you know it people who want to take pictures of their kids would be raving about them too. But it doesn't seem like pentax has managed to appeal to either. No one buys camera magazines anymore to choose their next camera. When I wanted to see what to replace my nikon gear with, I went online and started looking at what the various companies were offering, sample images, reviews, etc. Pentax can be found on dpreview and every major youtube photography channel reviews them.
I think pentax deserves more attention than it gets. Some of their cameras do offer quite a bit at the price point, but they alienate themselves with the quirky looks and dated, not entirely fleshed out features that often fall short of expectations (video the 645 for example.) Pentax reminds me a bit of myself when i was in the early stages of the job hunt. I was blaming everything on everything else where it was really ME that had to improve with a better resume, portfolio, etc. If pentax wants to be have a spot in more camera stores, they need to give them a reason to do so. They aren't going to put up a pentax section unless there is a demand for them.
Pentax needs to stop neglecting video and connectivity. If they are going to stick with the dslr way of doing things (which is slightly out of touch with the state of things) then they need to focus on market trends. If they can make it easy and painless to connect the next K mount camera to your phone, email pictures, etc. then they will already be in a much better place.
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
04-01-2016, 02:01 PM
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You guys are getting mad about what they say but you have to realize that for most of the photography world there, this is like the worlds smallest car brand announcing that they are releasing a four wheel drive car. Pentax is roughly 6 years late to the game an while the K1 is nice (the astrophotography stuff is kind of cool) but it's not quite as ground breaking and as pentax thinks. For example, take the illumination. The D4s did it first except it was lot more practical. Having to use your screen as a flashlight in the dark sounds a little needlessly complicated. With the D4s, the buttons just light up, allowing you to do what you need to do in a simple straightforward way. Pentax is innovating in areas that dont necessarily need innovation. The AA filter is cool i might add.
The K1 kind of strikes me as a little peacock esque. It has lots of colorful feathers and tries to attract as much attention as possible but in the end, it goes home with only a few percent of the market share. For example, the screen tilting looks needlessly complicated. Why? The GH4 did it perfectly. It doesn't even look good. It seems pentax is a little too desperate to stand out. I would almost expect the lcd monitor on top to have windshield wipers. In
No amount of AA simulation is going to change the fact that when people turn this bad boy on, they are going to be confronted with something that doesn't look up to part in 2016. Pentax doesn't seem to understand that the camera market isn't just about specs anymore and if you want to grow your market share, its not just how many megapixels or how high the iso goes up.
I mean, and this is if the boxy looks dont put people off. Cameras aren't just tools like a screwdriver. They are part of our lives, they are things we identify with. I think there is a reason why "3 people" use pentax. Jared Polin wouldn't say that if they had half the market share the other big players do. You may say pentax is a niche market and they are content to be like that and I am gonna call BS on that. Any business besides to grow. Do you think if pentax could bring over 50 sony users adopt the k mount than it wouldn't?
True innovation comes from looking at problems photographers face. Make the camera easier to use, help it do peoples jobs easier and people will buy into it. Things used to be all about the technology. I remember when I used to shoot pentax in college and i would hesitate to push it past iso 400 in low is light. Now even micro 4/3s does gives you the freedom to shoot almost under any lighting conditions. I am switching to APS c mirrorless not because it's all about low light (I shot at night at only iso 320 the other weekend) but because it makes my life easier. The artist will always seek out the paintbrush that weighs them down the least.
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
04-01-2016, 05:28 PM
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Whoops sorry, the first full frame DSLR was actually the contax N which was released in 2002, 15 years ago. But arguably there wasn't the greatest lineup of full frame lenses so lets go with the original Canon 5D, which was released a whopping 11 years ago.
That's like spending 80% of your money on booze and saying that you are serving yourself because you dont have any immediate expenses. This is such poor strategy. If pentax ever hopes to grow and become more than a niche brand they need to think about the future. In a few years, mirrorless af will have probably outclassed or atleast gotten up there on equal grounds with dslr autofocus. We are already starting to see drops in dslr sales in certain countries.
I am a designer, sir. And i can tell you that the screen tilt mechanism won't win any awards. It looks awkward at best, regardless of how functionally dreamlike it may be. You have all these metal rods poking out at different angles. It looks decidedly outdated, like a throwback to an era of long past, like the times of flash gordon. It looks like a transformer or something. Pentax isn't exactly the greatest when it comes to aesthetics. I mean, they have some of the most peculiar looking cameras out there and while this is by no means the K-01 which looks like it was designed to be held by a giant lego man. What makes it look unfinished is how you have the metal exposed against the black of the rest of the camera. Those metal rods are going to freeze to your hands if you take the camera out in that -30 degree weather it's advertised to be good at, not to mention the possibility of rust. The problem is all the bits that protrude so much which are magnets for dust. It just doesn't look as well designed as other tilt screens.
I have no allegiance. I shot pentax, starting in 2012 for about 2 years, then nikon for another 2, and now I'm looking at switching to samsung or sony. E mount or A mount? Im still having a hard time deciding. I shot with 3 pentax cameras, the oddly named istds, the K10, and finally the K20. I like the colors pentax produces. I like how my first pentax surved san francisco rain one day shooting pictures for class.
I applaud pentax for it's innovation and the pixel shift is pretty cool to be honest, but the fact is that it still has work to do in the "standard" features. Their attempts at wireless connectivity haven't exactly been class leading dude. In a pro level body as this, every thing must be up to pro standards. If they are going to include a movie mode, it needs to be every bit as good as the stills. Mirrorless proved this could be done.
The in body stabilization is nice though as well, but most of the sony line up has this. I think it's some of the "standard" problems that photographers care the most about such as not being able to see their screens in daytime, hence one one the reasons why I'm leaving nikon for the world of mirrorless.
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
09-18-2015, 02:51 PM
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What about batteries? Pentax could innovate here? In addition to the standard size battaries about extra big battaries for the grip that say offer twice as much power?? It would add to the weight sure but for those shooting a time lapse or something it would really help out. What about weather sealed batteries? Seems kinda minor sure but if someone is out in the field and its raining they can do their battary switch out in the open. What about a metering mode where you could go in and tell the camera meter for this specific part of the scene? Would help pros get the shot and there hasnt been much innovation here imo. For over a decade its been the choice of rhe same 3. metering modes. The iphone came out in 2007 and it lets you just expose for a certain part of the scene just by tapping the screen. There could be a new shadow/highlight metering mode where it lets you adjust the balance of highlights and shadows that it exposes for. just an idea.
EDIT: even better allow us to charge via usb. There are a ton of high capacity usb power banks for people to choose from.
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
08-03-2015, 12:18 PM
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I encourage you to shoot near dark rooms with the d800 or d750 and see if it can stand up to the a7s like it does here. You could never do the same thing with a d800, especially so easily and handlheld. Even if you brought along a tripod you would still have noise at longer exposures.
https://youtu.be/J9uBy8x5p7E?t=19m14s
The a7s isnt optimized for video. Thats being disingenuous. Traditionally slrs do on one or the other (canon with video and nikon with stills.) Sony delivers a package that shines in both. You would definitely be getting visible (image noise as you call it) in the d800. Shooting that handheld would probably require iso 16000 or 25k and in those kinds of dark conditions, there is no way the image would be usable. I dont understand this distinction between pixel noise and image noise anyway. Thats like making a distinction between historical science and observational science.. Dont sue me bill nye. Sure, with film era isos the differences may only be visible at 100% but at iso 25600 (which is strongly suspect he is using) zooming out isnt going to make the image more usable. Its going to be just as noisy zoomed in as its zoomed out. And the d600 is atleast a stop or two better than the d800.
Here is another comparison
D800 is unusable where the other two ones continue to do well. Even in a well lit, non real world situation, the a7s has a 3-4 stop advantage over the d800. The differences would be even more pronounced in the low light conditions jason shot with in the above video. It would probably be more along the lines of a whopping 5 or 6 stops. Why do you think full frame is known for its advantage in low light? Do you think its just a coincidence that bigger pixels result in better low light?
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
07-01-2015, 01:20 PM
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Shows you what can be done even with such an old camera. The lens is an ancient film era lens that prob dates back to long before i was born.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-30-2015, 11:55 AM
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Still very much looking at picking up one in the not too distant future for the video but the its lacking some pretty critical features for stills from what i hear. The flash system isnt up there with what im used to working with on the nikon side of things. The 4k looks fantastic and its almost worth it for that but i really would prefer to have a much better all around package for stills and video even if not 4k. I think it's remarkable what a good package the NX1 is for basically samsung's first step into the game, but sony still has more experience. The more i read about the a9 the more intrigued i am. There are talks of a 46 megapixel sensor that can canpture rgb independently. Im starting to think that offering that higher resolution (if you need it) is more important than high iso. The wedding photog i assisted awhile back rarely went above iso 500 and outside i sometimes still have to worry about overexposed shots with a max shutter speed of 1/4000th sec on my d600. The only time when high iso actually proved to be invaluable was when i was shooting from a train and i needed iso 3200 to freeze the motion outside. Ever since i got my speedlight I have been using high iso less and less. I think this is something people notice as they move from just messing around with their camera (that i did alot of in college) to actually working with clients.
For video though its hard to argue with (its basically a smaller version of the red's 6.5k sensor) and i think i can say that it actually beats my d600 for low light video
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
02-05-2015, 03:56 PM
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It's not just canon/nikon dude. I dont know of any dslr out there that looks that boxy.. Here is an olympus
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
01-12-2015, 01:20 PM
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Prob the pentax that i shot with the longest for. In a way, i do miss it. All of my gear fit into a tiny bag roughly the size of the pinapple and practically fit into my pocket :D
Check out what the k20 did for me. Second to last one is an hdr with 6 shots done for class
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
08-29-2014, 06:43 PM
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 Quote: This has never really been a problem for me as nikon's full frame systems offer several stops of iso performane over pentax's smaller sensors. Better iso = faster shutter speed = no need for shake reduction atleast with smaller lenses. I mean, my k20d had in body shake reduction. and i had a pretty big problem with shaky shots, whereas i find that i can do hand held shots with virtually zero worry about getting shakiness. Especially with my 50mm 1.8. I find superior iso performance has made a much bigger difference than shake reduction, but that's just me. With bigger lenses this might be a problem, but no one is going to do hand held shots with a 20lb lens so this is academic. I think pentax's biggest weakness is that they discount a full frame camera. Full frame gives you a "middle of the road" option between the smaller aps-c and spending $10,000 on a medium format camera.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
08-11-2014, 04:41 PM
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Yeah, it looks neat! I like the colors!
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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
12-16-2013, 12:12 AM
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I havent seen two many reviewers citing the interface as a plus. In fact, if anything usability has been one of the most common weaknesses of pentax cameras. Im not exactly a big fan of the switchtes than pentax has in alot of their cameras. They only seen to have stopped using them with the k30/k50. The menu for custom white balance on my K20 is anything but user friendly btw. I dont think that there is any question that they do look dated compared to the competition
Another example.. Looking at the back of the D7100, its immediately clear how to do common things like change the white balance or iso.
Ok, so the K20 might be a bit old. Lets take their newest camera, the K3. The D3200 gives you comparable image quality for less than half the price. Problem is that the pentax K3 is really their first camera that has up to date features, and it costs quite a bit more than other cameras in a similar class. Pentax has been playing catch up with cannon/nikon for the last decade and they are starting to get up to date with modern standards. Heck, in 2008, according to wikipedia, nikon had the D3s which packed 24 megapixels, 51 af points, and over twice the continuous shooting rate of the K20.
The D7100 and the K5ii are somewhat in the same price point and the D7100 still pulls ahead in some areas
You Tube
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src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJ9MsmECULw?controls=1" allowfullscreen>
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Here is a fairly large image comparing the D7100 (on the left) vs the K5ii (on the right)
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/GOyLXv6e3Q4/maxresdefault.jpg
I dont want to turn this into pentex vs nikon, its just at the moment it seems like nikon offers more performance
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