|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
08-28-2019, 09:16 AM
|
| |
The disappointing noise performance of the sensor is not surprising. The new sensor looks optimized for speed (frames-per-second, EVF refresh, on-sensor PDAF, & video) which means it is compromised on still image IQ.
That sensor is a step forward for videographers and MILC but a step backward for still photographers and DSLRs.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
08-20-2019, 06:39 AM
|
| |
Claiming it is "accidental" is a standard click-bait tactic. People want to read "leaked secrets" more than corporate marketing publications even if they are the same.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
08-19-2019, 08:53 AM
|
| |
If that is your definition of "arrogant," then all of the brands are arrogant.
Moreover, that supposed arrogance is unavoidable when developing new products -- Pentax can't tell you what even Pentax does not know. Sure, they know they are working on a new APS-C camera (and have said as much), but there's no way they can know exactly what features it will have and when it will be done*. Between the engineering uncertainties of innovation, the manufacturing uncertainties of creating a cost effective production process, and the market uncertainties of last-minute price-feature trade-offs, they simply can't say when the next camera will ship.
*Actually, they could declare a release date and ship a half-finished, buggy product which is what too many tech companies do these days. That seems like an even worse arrogance than making false promises to customers.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
07-11-2019, 09:12 AM
|
| |
Automotive certainly will have the volume. Not only are car sales 4X of ILC sales, but new cars can easily require half a dozen cameras for decent 3-D x 360° coverage.
The big downside is that car makers are very price sensitive and will insist on cost cuts every year -- it's a high-volume, low-margin business.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-30-2019, 12:10 PM
|
| |
You've missed the point entirely that: 1) AF does not depend on the speed of SD card operations; but 2) SD operations compete with AF operations. You've got the direction of what-affects-what reversed.
Half duplex may slow down clearing of the buffer but it has no effect on AF because nothing in the AF process depends on the SD card's bus. However, if you try to clear the buffer faster WHILE the camera is also trying to do AF, then you will be devoting more of the bandwidth of both the RAM interface channel and internal processor buses to SD card operations. Ergo, there will be less resources for AF with UHS-II being used.
If you really want to maximize AF speed, disable buffer clearing during AF. Or, to ensure glitch-free operation, then disable AF and shooting while clearing the buffer.
UHS-II will certainly accelerate buffer clearing and playback which will please some percentage of users. But UHS-II won't do anything for FPS, AF speed, or image processing times for complex tasks (e.g. lens distortion, HDR, PS, etc.) I'm even skeptical that it will help start-up times because the amount of communications with the card at start-up is minimal. In fact, the K-1 becomes responsive to doing AF and shooting even BEFORE the entire SD card mount sequence is complete.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-30-2019, 07:09 AM
|
| |
Actually, the opposite will occur. Transfers to (and from) the SD card will compete for access to SDRAM on both the processor's internal bus and its memory interface. The higher the speed of transfer to/from the card, the slower the other activities.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-26-2019, 06:18 AM
|
| |
I'm surprised that camera makers don't follow the new product introduction strategies of car makers who always introduce a new model each year with minor tweaks and upgrades. With cars, everyone knows a 2019 model will appear, but no one expects it to revolutionize the automobile and obsolete all the 2018 models. 2019 cars are not must-have upgrades, they are just fresh product.
As digital camera technology has matured, the era of "gamechangers" has ended. All of today's cameras do a great job within their price categories. More megapickles, more FPS, more focus points don't really change the the image-making usability camera as much as the marketers and fanbois think. No one can claim that new images on Flickr/Instagram/500px/etc. made with the latest cameras are somehow better than the images made with 5 year-old cameras.
Even the R&D costs of the new models can be kept low with simple upgrades that don't really change the basic design or manufacturing system such as adding 20% more clock speed, 50% larger buffer, swapping white LEDs for green ones to illuminate the OVF information panel, etc. Cosmetic changes such as body color, button color, body texture are also low cost ways of creating a "fresh" model.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-21-2019, 03:43 PM
|
| |
Well, I'm an engineer, too and have designed film scanners.
In the case of the accelerator, a factory calibration could record the pixel-by-pixel values of properties of the sensor such as sensitivity, color response, dark current properties, etc. These would be 36 MPix files created during production and stored in flash memory (either in the firmware chip or in a flash section of the accelerator chip). Unless Pentax provided a function to export these files, PP would not have access to them and could not replicate their effects unless the user was willing to carefully take a set of calibration images..
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-21-2019, 02:44 PM
|
| |
The accelerator is only a cheat if it is actually making the image less true to the actual scene.
Within the realm of the math of signal processing, there are often valid ways that suppress noise with minimal effect on the true signal.
Whether PP can truly replicate the accelerator's effect depends on whether the accelerator is using only the RAW sensor data or if it has access to other internal data such factory calibration data or internal parameters thta don't appear in the EXIF or image data.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-17-2019, 06:58 PM
|
| |
The K-3 isn't anywhere near the mechanical limits for high FPS motion. There are FF DSLRs that go up to 16 FPS and an APS-C mirror weighs less than half as much and probably takes about 1/3 the power to flip.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-17-2019, 07:48 AM
|
| |
Indeed! The question is what are the "incremental upgrades" and how much do they cost to develop and build into the camera?
A "flagship" APS-C camera might not be that much cheaper than a "flagship" FF camera. Sure, it has a smaller sensor but the spec on that sensor might need to be higher-end for frame-rate and video features and the image processor might need to be much more expensive to handle the frame rate and video.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-17-2019, 06:02 AM
|
| |
And there-in lies the problem. A flagship APS-C camera with a high-FPS APS-C sensor is likely to cost almost as much as the K-1. Any cost savings from the smaller sensor will be spent on the high-spec processing components for high frame rates, deep buffer, decent video, and fast dual-SD card interfaces that people seem to want.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-16-2019, 07:30 AM
|
| |
The requirements for video, fast EVF frame rates, and fast PDAF pixel read-out make it harder (= more expensive) to support more megapixels.
For a given sensor price point, the best DSLR-optimized sensor would be better than the best same-price MILC/video-optimized sensor. Forcing a still-photography image sensor to also provide video and AF means either adding cost or compromising the still-image spec.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-14-2019, 05:51 PM
|
| |
They will bring "the best" out of the sensor but it will be the Pentax definition of "best", not the Sony one.
Part of the reason Pentax can provide a high-end still-image camera at a lower price is that they don't try to be all things to all people.
|
|
Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-14-2019, 04:05 PM
|
| |
I use an OVF 99.99% of the time and don't want to watch tiny movies, either.
But I'd love to have the 1-second shot review appear in the OVF eye-piece so I never have to chimp again.
|
