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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-24-2019, 06:39 PM
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No, but they have been refreshing designs with screwdriver AF for quite a while, and so that type of drive remains quite current in the Pentax lineup. Considering that fact, it’d be good if Ricoh could develop some upgrades and improvements for screwdriver AF, at least on the camera bodies.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-24-2019, 08:32 AM
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Well, ring motors are by definition ‘DC’, since they use direct current, but no, there’s no such thing as a ring motor that employs a brushless DC motor... because then the ring motor wouldn’t be a motor at all. It could be a “supersonic” micromotor, like the ill-fated original SDM, or Canon’s Micro USM, but then it wouldn’t be a ring-type drive at all. Ring-type motors use vibrations in very high frequencies, that are translated into rotational motion, to move a focusing group. This works nothing at all like a brushless DC motor.
I’d like to see an “incredibly slow” ring-type drive. I don’t believe it exists. But there certainly are manufacturers that play fast and loose with their naming schemes (almost all of them, actually), and use confusing terminology to make buyers believe that they’re going to get the same performance from a standard zoom or prime than from an exotic telephoto prime, when in reality the former have puny AF motors that work ‘OK’ (and show little, if any, difference with Pentax lenses), and the latter use very powerful motors - and that’s where the difference is really felt.
Ultimately, the industry is moving away from both types of AF motors in preference of linear drives, which are nowadays relatively cheap to produce and have very quick startup, low energy consumption, no friction, and the ability to change direction really quickly. By using two, or even four linear motors, faster AF speeds can be achieved over even the best ring-type drives with competitive energy consumption and extremely precise control. Many Micro Four Thirds and Sony E setups have single-point AF speeds and precision that need to be experienced to be believed, all thanks to linear drives. Pentax have also used this type of motor in their PLM lens - it’d have been fantastic if they had used this technology sooner.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-27-2019, 08:48 AM
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The entrance pupil of a lens needs to be at least (focal_length)/(maximum_f-number) to realize the desired aperture. For example, a 200mm f/2 lens can't have a front element smaller than 100mm in diameter, or else it won't count as a real f/2 lens.
Nowadays, the very ambitious design goals set for lenses means that their diameters have outgrown this simple calculation. In some cases (Sigma ARTs, most famously, but also the Zeiss Otus line) this is done to project an image circle larger than necessary, leaving the garbage edges out of the frame completely. In other cases it's done to allow the designers extra leeway in the optical design, incorporating more aggressive corrective elements that would normally just cause hard vignetting in a narrower optical pathway.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
11-11-2016, 08:08 PM
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With the original E-M10, yes. An E-M5 would likely mean a stretch, but nothing extraordinary. Of course, they have to buy used.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
11-10-2016, 09:21 PM
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The answer for me is only one (two): Olympus E-M10/M5. Get a very cheap older 50mm f/1.4 and adapter and you'll have all the background separation you want in a very comfortable focal length for portraits. Add a Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 and you will have a modern and fast prime, or a 20mm f/1.7 if small and sharp are bigger priorities, for environmental portraiture.
The advantages that these cameras have are their incredible stabilization, which is applied to both video and stills (the E-M5 is more expensive, but also better at this); the electronic viewfinder, which is again usable on video and stills; their very small size, along with the diminutive size of the lenses; an unparalleled lens selection, between cheap native lenses that outresolve anything in their bracket and full adaptability for older lenses from ALL mounts; plus they're just beautiful to look at and hold :) If video is anything more than a passing consideration for you, this is the way to go - Canon cameras will produce nothing but puke-worthy 2006 footage, and I say this as someone who has used Canon extensively. Their lenses are great, their flashes are okay, but their video is disgusting - unless you're prepared to spend 5k for their Cine cameras.
Olympus video isn't the best, but their color science is up with Pentax's and their stabilizer makes even trivial footage look professional.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-07-2016, 02:02 PM
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By Dog, that's one fugly camera :fedup::lol:
I'd much rather see some K1000-inspired retro design, with bulletproof construction, lots of dials, a K-mount and EVF. That'd be very nice.
Also, I forget who, but someone mentioned an FF cooperation with Fuji. Well, you can forget about that, as Fuji were very forthcoming in their view on 35mm - they're not interested, as the quality difference with APS-C is too small.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
09-13-2016, 11:13 AM
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Thanks for all the tidbits. Could you cite the authors as well? I know it must've taken some work putting this together, but I find it difficult to assign a 'credibility score' to each quote without knowing who said it.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-25-2016, 10:24 AM
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Completely OT: How can it be that that photo hasn't become a meme!? Maybe it's the first time you've published it? It reeks of memetic potential... :D
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Forum: Pentax Price Watch
03-15-2016, 08:43 PM
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Excellent information, thanks a lot!
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
02-27-2016, 08:52 PM
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Hola Óscar, que bueno ver a otro chileno por aquí. Yo solo tengo una cámara Pentax ahora, que no uso mucho, pero reviso los foros de vez en cuando. Si tienes dudas me puedes preguntar por aquí o por mensaje privado.
Saludos desde Ñuñoa!
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Forum: Pentax K-1 & K-1 II
02-23-2016, 10:51 PM
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There you go, being yourself again. First of all, I don't think most posters here know or understand your almost irrational defense of Jim Malcolm (I don't). Maybe he's family to you? You won't admit that, currently, Pentax's marketing is worse than Panasonic's, which is an insult. Fine. The point still stands - you have one of YouTube's most famous photo personalities begging for a K-1 to test, and you can almost be assured that he'll treat the camera fairly (more fairly than DPR, at least). So...
Where's Jim Malcolm graciously saying to Tony Northrup "I've heard your message and I will personally send you a review unit as soon as we can"? That's all it takes. It's obvious Ricoh can't go around giving free cameras to whoever claims to be an "online personality" or whatever. But they should know that, even if it costs them $1400 (that's probably the cost of the K-1 to distributors) and only five spectators of Tony's channel make good on their preorders, they've already made a small profit. And I'm guessing it's going to be quite a few more than that.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not affiliated with Tony Northrup in any way. Actually, I find most of his videos a snoozefest (i.e. boring), and the fact he uses his attractive wife to promote his bland reviews doesn't sit well with me. Still, he has a massive following over the Internet, and caters especially to DSLR users. If he publicly stated that the K-1 was a winner, I'm quite sure there'd be more preorders. How many more I can't know, nor can Ricoh know, but if all it takes is four more purchases at release time to cover their costs, well, they'd be stupid not to jump on the chance.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-21-2016, 09:06 AM
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Actually, the champion of the 'fewer pixels' school, the A7s, has less dynamic range at base ISO than the D800. It improves after ISO 1600, where it seems to have some analog gain trick built-in. I agree with the other three points, but honestly, the fact that you get a D800 plus a K-5IIs rolled up into one Pentax body is amazing, and probably a much better choice for the current user base. Also, the temptation with high-end lenses always remains, if not because of resolution, then because of color or rendering.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-19-2016, 11:58 AM
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Quick reply, and coming extremely late, but the Sony A7s does it for a bit over $2K. Still, implementing 4K is extremely demanding of the sensor, and this is something that people fail to realize time and again! The 36 Mpix chip simply CANNOT do 4K, as the bus is limited and it'd probably overheat in a conventional camera. Sony had to go to great lengths to make it possible on the A7rii, Panasonic had to go to great lengths to get the GH4 to offer unfettered 4K capture, and Samsung also struggled with the codecs and heat with 4K on the NX1.
Let me repeat myself - 4K cannot be activated in firmware for the K-1. It's simply not possible from a hardware perspective. That being said, Ricoh is guilty of not even putting 60p on the K-1, as well as the other goodies (stabilization, peaking, etc.). I'm guessing they really were constrained for resources, or they're waiting to make it happen in a FW update.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-19-2016, 11:47 AM
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Blue is used by Olympus for all their current M. Zuiko zooms, and also for former HG four thirds zooms. I'd say it's not the best choice. Orange, brown, and violet remain unused, as well as very light shades of all colors (except gold, that's for Tokina).
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
02-17-2016, 03:00 PM
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Sure, but I wonder how the steel struts and bearings will survive dust and grit - that's probably the weak point of the design. I hope they won't use grease as a lubricant on the bearings, that'd be disastrous. I mean, it's a Pentax, so you can wash it under the tap, but water won't remove gritty grease...
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Forum: Pentax Full Frame
02-17-2016, 02:49 PM
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The Sony A99 had a design with very similar characteristics to the K-1's, but less robust. I think Ricoh did a fine job with it, but time will tell. It did have the advantage of allowing the screen to be stowed against the back of the camera, but the whole assembly was kind of delicate.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-16-2016, 02:05 PM
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But RokiBowYang wants to look like Canon!
I think Ricoh wanted to use their corporate color (red) to show the change in ownership, and never suspected just how inflexible Pentaxians are.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-15-2016, 09:22 PM
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People didn't like the Canon vibe :D
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-15-2016, 08:32 AM
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D'oh :fedup: Of course, there's always that, that the distance the curtains must travel is longer in Pentax cameras. Good catch and thanks.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-15-2016, 08:29 AM
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Ok.
However, claiming that portraits don't work because you shot them at 105mm and f/5.6 simply doesn't make any sense. You will have less DoF control, sure, but from this to that there's simply an ocean of drama. "Blurred backgrounds", "bokeh", "magical point of light sources" and other maligned words and overused expressions actually depend of two things primarily - how close the photographer is to the subject, and how far away the background is from both. That's it. All this talk of focal lengths and apertures is absolutely irrelevant if you can't first control the other two aspects (in the interest of transparency, I will say that the impact of those two factors becomes exponentially greater with tiny sensors, but is simply moot with a 35mm frame).
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-15-2016, 08:19 AM
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The problem is that manufacturers don't really make their own shutters, but typically source them from Copal or Seiko. If you look for LensRentals' camera teardowns, you'll see that Canon, Nikon and Sony, at the very least, get their shutters from those two companies. I don't know about Pentax, but I'd be very surprised if they were any different, since shutters are precision mechanisms (comparable to analog watches) that require considerable expertise in a field that has no other direct application in photography. So I'd blame the provider, or Ricoh's management for choosing a different set of compromises than you or I would've (faster X-sync at the expense of durability or cost). Because that's how it is: focal plane shutters need to suffer extreme stresses, perform within microscopic tolerances, be perfectly sealed against light ingress, have the curtains be very thin, and also perform reliably over the course of thousands of shutter cycles. And, most importantly, can't just be made of unobtainium, or take a gigantic amount of space inside the camera. I'd say that Ricoh, in this case, simply decided to go with the rated 300,000 thousand shutter cycle life, while having heavier curtains that simply can't travel as fast as those found in other similar cameras.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-15-2016, 07:56 AM
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That's the most bizarre interpretation of exposure I've yet seen :eek: Not yours, Giklab, but the post you quoted.
Again, this lens makes sense in two broad ways: it'll be the most compact and cheap modern zoom for FF, and also sealed and silent in AF, which will make it a preferred choice for many different use cases and scenarios. It doesn't hurt that in no way will it compete with the new 24-70mm f/2.8.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-14-2016, 05:47 PM
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I said it is large and heavy, but not impressive. Chalk it up to my copy, or the 6D, but I find my Olympus 12-60mm SWD quite a bit better, especially wide open. When I had it, I finally understood that much of the praise heaped on that lens is due to how old the design is (and so are the reviews) - the AF isn't really "silent" or "lightning-quick", the build is good, but not fantastic, and the IS seems outdated now. It still can produce excellent IQ at f/8, and great portraits on FF at 105mm and f/4, but for me it isn't worth the hassle. There are much better zooms, including the much-maligned Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 (that's a DAMN SHARP lens at f/8), that are lighter and smaller.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
02-14-2016, 05:14 PM
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Sure, if you don't consider that the Canon is a ten year old design, and that tens of thousands of copies have been sold, and that the price you referenced is grey market/refurb. Also, it's a stop slower, and really isn't an impressive lens, considering how large and heavy it is. Try searching for the Canon 24-70mm f/4 L IS, it'll return you to your senses.
The elephant in the room here is SIZE. The new 28-105mm looks very compact, also probably quite light, and I'd guess it'll have performance similar to the 20-40mm Ltd: unimpressive wide open, and very good a stop down the road. If the lens really shapes out to be small and light, then I'll salute Pentax for really sticking to their philosophy of compactness.
PS: primes don't count. You can argue for primes all you want, but many people just need a versatile zoom with WR to travel. Changing lenses is simply absurd in some environments, and it isn't like WR primes are abundant in the line-up, either.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
10-22-2015, 07:30 PM
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Continuous high/low? But, it looks just like on Nikon models, where the small dial *beneath* the 3rd e-dial control wheel is for drive mode, I'd say. Because that dial, with all the acronyms, is to control the function of the third wheel.
The FF looks AMAZING. It'll generate a ton of hype now, so I hope Ricoh can handle (and exploit) it!
---------- Post added 10-22-15 at 10:37 PM ----------
Let's play! This thing modifies the function of the third e-dial, I'm quite sure. So, you can change ISO, exp. compensation (+/-), bracket mode, HDR strength, WiFi on/off, crop mode on/off, SR mode, maybe drive or focus priority, and grid line display on the (finally!) intelligent viewfinder.
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