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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-14-2008, 09:17 PM  
Pentax k20d High ISO Photo Gallery
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 68
Views: 19,864
Look at it this way: You can buy all the equivalent of your lenses 2 stops faster (and at least twice as expensive per lens.) Or the next Pentax camera could have noise levels at 6400 similar to the current 1600, hence allowing your lenses to be 2 stops faster in low light situations.

For someone having a lot of glass, better ISO performance should be a very attractive proposition. Also, the other brands are making good progress in noise level handling hence the "bargain" qualities of Pentax might not be as interesting if they don't keep high ISO performance at competitive levels. Not necessarily lead the pack but keep in the pack on this point, too. Oh, and the increase in stops of your lenses is a bit of a simplification (faster glass is not just faster, it usually tends to be optically better as well) but I think the more general point is valid.

This is why I'm saying looking at noise in itself and just say you like grain qualities is nice but it's not the whole picture.

Jewelltrail: You are, of course, correct: decrease the shutter speed. Thank you.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-13-2008, 10:59 PM  
K200D- how good a camera is it?
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 26
Views: 5,187
I had the exact same impression myself and it was one of the reasons why I upgraded. I still don't have a full explanation as to why there seem to be more reviews of the K20d than its little brother. One things I realized is the K200d is heavily based on the K10d. And there are tons of reviews about that one, most of them superlative from what I understand.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-13-2008, 09:09 AM  
K200D- how good a camera is it?
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 26
Views: 5,187
I know you didn't ask me but I'll chime in anyway as I had the K200d and sold it to buy the K20d. To be honest I'm not extremely impressed by the megapixels and the live view, myself. The live view is not bad and I don't think it's the implementation that doesn't impress me, just the feature itself.

As for the megapixels, uhm, dunno what to think. Maybe it's just me but I was far more impressed with the K200d+50-135 DA* combo than I am with the K20d+50-135 DA*. It just seems to me that the images had such an amazing sharpness with the K200d and *some* of that magic seems gone with the K20d at 14MP. So now I long for primes that would restore the magic+add some more ;-p

Other than that you have the controls on the body, and that's a nice plus if your're taking many pictures. There are also more advanced modes although I don't think they're a deal maker/breaker. Google should tell you the other differences but I think the previous ones are the main ones.

All in all, with Photokina being just around the corner I would suggest you wait for what Pentax has to offer (if anything.) Maybe a more impressive update than the K20d will appear.

Anyway, there's no question the K20d is a great camera and the price is not bad. It's just that in terms of value per dollar I think K200d is a just terrific.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-12-2008, 11:08 AM  
Why k20d IS the best low light DSLR out there.
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 19
Views: 6,798
I like picture, and I like some other nice ones on your flickr account, congrats! The one of the cat walking in the street is very nice.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-11-2008, 11:15 PM  
Pentax k20d High ISO Photo Gallery
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 68
Views: 19,864
I don't quite get it. The camera is producing more noise at higher ISO (and even in shadows in lower areas) than some other cameras. Not a great performer, nor an especially poor one (although...) Now, some of us might love noise, others might not love it. Some of us might like the noise to start at ISO 6400 hence allowing Pentax to up the ISO range and allow us to take those same "acceptable" images at ISO 12800 and up.

The question of the noise seems relevant to me only when comparing it with other cameras and better ISO performance is desirable for the reason stated before, it would allow you to take pictures in a wider range of situations.

Does the performance of the K20d at hight ISO make it a crappy camera? Of course not, and decent images can be had at higher ISO, but this does not invalidate other reviews nor the more general point about the noise.

Noise is, in my humble opinion, a pretty complex subject that most people do not understand properly (count me in, I think I barely begin to understand it's complex and don't pretend to understand it completely, yet) and many people will make wrong generalizations based on topics such as this one, where people show only their best results with high ISO (expose to the right, high contrast pictures with few subtle shadows, etc.)

Sorry, I understand this topic is only meant to show nice pictures at high ISO not emit opinion (although I'm going to say I present facts here not opinions :-) but I think staying on the realm of the objectivity at least a bit would help.

I've added a boring ISO 1600 shot of my own, indicating the absence of noise when resizing pictures to display them on the forum. The image has noise when zoomed in, obviously.

Another question, instead of taking more than one exposure, if the subject stays still for that long (at most 1/3 sec, right?) why not just increase the shutter speed and decrease the ISO, hence removing noise? The advice sounds reasonable but for a pretty limited amount of circumstances, right?
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-11-2008, 10:34 PM  
K200D- how good a camera is it?
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 26
Views: 5,187
After having owned both the K200d and the K20d (which I have at the moment) I am of the opinion that the K200d is simply *amazing* value for the money. Can't say anything about the 18-250 lens, obviously some trade-offs will be there, if it can produce images of quality similar to the 55-300 (with which I have personal experience and I like - though not *love*) than it's a pretty good lens.

For the record, my friends have Canon XTis, 40Ds, 5Ds and Nikon D200 and except for the Canon 5D there was not one camera there that I would have swapped for the K200d. I simply loved the quality of the images of the K200d, the images stabilizer, the other nice properties of the Pentax system such as high quality not too expensive lenses, etc. It would be heresy to say so, but I loved the IQ of the K200d maybe better than that of the K20d *when pixel peeping at 100%.*
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-08-2008, 10:48 PM  
Pff. K20D's overrated.
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 155
Views: 21,600
I think I've seen the histogram similar on both the body and Lightroom. Of course it being Raw you can salvage something, but obviously from a pretty seriously underexposed picture the noise levels will be quite high.

I'll keep an eye on this next time I feel like experimenting, for now I am using the +0.5/+1.0 exposure compensation.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-07-2008, 10:16 PM  
Pff. K20D's overrated.
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 155
Views: 21,600
Thanks for the considerate reply, I agree with your points about AF and FPS. While I would obviously like to see improvement there, I can understand that these might be hard problems to solve, especially to solve cheaply.





QuoteQuote:

3. Exposure: That is something I cannot quite understand myself. Over all my K20 is quite reliable, especially when I take care of the situation and apply the necessary exposure correction. [...]



Yeah, this is a bit of what I'm talking about, in particular the part about "when I take care of the situation." As I said, I have pictures on which the whole histogram is playing in the lower half. This can't be an attempt to have "middle gray" at the middle of the histogram as there is nothing at the middle of the diagram.
I tried to reason with myself on saying all this is because there's some highlight in the picture that would get blown by higher exposure. However I have deliberately tried pretty hard to eliminate all highlights from some pictures while retaining some dynamic range in the picture and I came up with those "lower half" histograms I previously wrote about. Of course it is possible there are some combinations of dynamic range and lack of highlights that would prove the K20d default exposure right but how hard do I have to work to prove it right? +0.5 or +0.7 seems to work well most of the time but then why isn't it the factory default?

Anyway if what I wrote came across as bashing I apologize. I was trying just to say "if there's a problem let's (reasonably, no bashing needed) accept it and make it obvious to Pentax we care about it and would like to see it fixed/improved."

Best regards,

letomuaddib
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-07-2008, 10:03 PM  
Help K20D Problems
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 14
Views: 2,770
Now, what I will say is based on my observations of both the K200d and the K20d and if I am wrong I'll stand corrected.

The image on the K200d LCD, while brighter than it should be (sometimes mis-indicating exposure, unless you're checking the histogram) was a very good judge of the quality of the image, in particular sharpness, even at x16. That happened even when I shoot RAW (most of the time.)

On the K20d, however, I'm finding the LCD is a poor judge of the final quality of the image. So poor that I literally jumped out of my chair the first time I shoot a piece of cloth to see detail. It looked shockingly bad, with what looked like bad JPEG artifacts and certainly no representation of the reality of the object in the picture.

My impression is that the camera is displaying a JPEG, and a badly converted one, too. I theorize it's because it would take a lot of memory to display a high quality one, hence they are cutting some corners, here.

Another thing is, the K200d is zooming up to x16, which I thought (however I could be wrong) it's 100% zoom. The K20d is zooming up to x32 which, if x16 is 100% of 10MB, x32 is more than 100% more than the 14MB. Which means at that zoom level you're already seeing extrapolation so it certainly can't be very accurate.

At lower zoom levels I've seen problems as well, a thumbnail of a piece of hardware that were showing blue patches that were inexistent at higher zooms, for instance.

To reiterate, based on my non-scientific observations the K20d LCD is not as good an indicator of the real picture as the K200d LCD was, at least in RAW. It's a shame but no big deal once you know about it.

letomuaddib

PS: Anyone who knows more about this please chime in and correct my misunderstandings. Also, if anyone has definitive information of the zoom level of the x32 (and which is the true 100% zoom in the K20d) I would appreciate this as well.
Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion 09-05-2008, 10:26 PM  
Pff. K20D's overrated.
Posted By letomuaddib
Replies: 155
Views: 21,600
For whatever it's worth, the newbe me also agrees with the spirit of
RiceHigh's comments, if not the form (his website is a pure bash of
Pentax with almost nothing positive to say about a brand that has many
positives.)

I think we're not doing ourselves much of a service by ignoring problems
such as AF and exposure and keep blaming the user (in the exposure case
at the very least that's the usual response I see.)

Can Pentax do something about both of these things? Most definitely they
can. It's not in nobody's advantage to lose important pictures because
of underexposure. Yes, something can be salvaged using RAW and post
processing, but it usually exposes noise and, guess what, Pentax does
not seem to do great with noise, either (based on my own research and
experience with both the K200d and K20d.) So a weak side of the product
is pushing users into another weak side of the same product. Not a smart
decision to underexpose by default, if you're asking me (yeah, yeah, I
know you are not.)

Now, if the AF issue and FPS strike me as some potentially hard (perhaps
very hard) problems, the underexposure issue seems so stupid and easy to
fix that it's hard to understand why is it even there. I understand the
usual suggestion is that with Pentax you have to work a bit harder and
I would kind of buy that, but why not make the advanced users only work
harder, instead of those first coming in contact with the camera? If I
did not have a bright LCD screen that hid the underexposure issue until
I wrapped my head around the histogram and understood there was an issue
I probably would have returned the K200d in a week.

By the time I understood the issue I came to love the Pentax systems and
appreciate the many pros. However, by keeping acting like there's no problem
or the problem is very trivial for the user to solve on his own, I think we're not
sending Pentax the right message. This should be solvable by an easy firmware
upgrade and it shouldn't even require a new body. And as much as I am eager
to hear about new products at Photokina I would like to see old annoying
problems solved, too.

I was stung by the issue with the K200d but now that I just upgraded
to the K20d I rediscover it and I find it even more upsetting. The
suggestion to usually keep the exposure compensation at +0.7 is good
advice but somewhat funny. How would you feel to buy a manual car
and be told that the gears are actually shifted on this car by two
(first becomes third, etc.) and yes, it does make you do more work but
the results are pretty good?

Oh yeah, I forgot to introduce myself, I'm a very new user to the Pentax
system and an unexperienced photographer (discount my opinion on that
basis freely) and in spite of this message I love the camera and the
lenses. I just don't think it does anyone (including Pentax) any good to
ignore problems and act like they do not exist. The choice between the
features/price point we enjoy and have the small problems fixed is a false
dilemma, we can (and should) have both.

Best regards,

letomuaddib

PS: Much of this is based on me not having heard of a good reason to
underexpose pictures pretty badly (sometimes my histograms are all
cramped in the left half.) If, for some photographic reason this is
a good thing I would like to know (though I still think it caused
more than one user to return his Pentax for a refund because of "dark
pictures and it's not smart to push users into seeing noise problems
even at pretty low ISO speeds because of underexposure.)

PPS: Are long winded messages frowned upon here? I guess we shall see.
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