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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
04-21-2014, 08:39 AM
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Who says the bright noon-day sun is a bad time for photography? I've managed to learn the metering and dynamic range of the K-3 over the past 6 months, and lots of highlight detail can be pulled back on this body...
DA 35mm Macro:
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-10-2013, 07:29 PM
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Went to the "Reptile Expo" with my son today (and had to repeatedly say "no, we're just looking!") and brought the K-3 and 35 Ltd. for some low-light macros. While it was snakes, snakes, snakes for the most part, there were also some nice "legged" reptiles, amphibians, and the occasional Tawny Owl!
That last shot is an axolotl (yes, they are captive-bred as pets) under UV light! K-3 WB did a great job through thick arcrylic and under such strange light...
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-05-2013, 08:19 PM
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Great setup, and great results. Impressively sharp, and unlike older folks, she can take it!
If you invite me down there in the summer, I'll gladly bring my K-3 and you can show me how you got that great shot... then you can decide. :p
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-01-2013, 12:42 PM
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Good catch! You were right. I simply never visited the ACR defaults, and it seems 8.1 applies a default value of 25 Color NR (with 50 Color Detail) to every shot. I turned that off, and there's the chroma noise... (where's that embarrassed emoticon... :o )
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-01-2013, 12:29 PM
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I'm gonna try that this weekend. I've never loaded any of the Pentax supplied software before, since I'm so immersed in Photoshop and ACR. (I loaded Sigma Photo Pro for my DP2 Merrill, only because it's the only software to read the files!) It will be an interesting comparison, and maybe a harbinger of things to come...
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-01-2013, 11:52 AM
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I'm sure the noise is related to the number of pixels on the APS-C sensor, as well as the newness of the camera (no raw profiles), and also to what Pentax engineers wanted to achieve (they tend to allow noise to preserve detail).
So here is another post about the K-3 noise (at least as of Nov. 1, 2013 - with no mass-market processing software recognizing or profiling the PEFs).
And since this is a "post your K-3 images" thread, here is the full image I talk about in that NR post (note that the splotchy neutrals are due to jpeg compression and sRGB colorspace - I shoot in AdobeRGB and process in 16-bit):
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
11-01-2013, 11:36 AM
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Hey Jacques,
Here are 100% crops of the 12,800 ISO shot, with and without the Nik Dfine2 treatment:
From raw, no NR applied:
With Nik Dfine2 applied:
About noise: I really don't think the ISO 12800 looks that bad, and can be rescued pretty easily (just not so well with Adobe default tools). However, I've noticed that everything from ISO 800 on up needs some sort of NR, while my K-5 shots only need it for certain ISO 1600 shots, and generally after 3200.
Also, if I push the shadows up on any K-3 image (even ISO 100) there is visible luminance noise to be tamed. Never had this on the K-5 at low ISOs, but it seems to be par for the course with the K-3. Of course, it might just be something related to how "dumb" processing software treats the DNGs right now, and after a profile has been created, the noise and DR might be better... who knows?
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Forum: Pentax K-3 & K-3 II
10-31-2013, 08:04 PM
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It's only redundant if someone else starts a thread with images in it! ;)
EDIT: Because some folks are too (___) to be bothered with a useful plugin to show them the EXIF data in every image, I've taken screenshots of what I see when I right-click and choose "Show EXIF." There is no reason for me to repeat this in the future. Go get a plugin for your browser if you want more information than what I write. They even have EXIF viewing plugins for phones!
Let's get the ball rolling, on this Halloween Night! (FYI, the EXIF is intact in the images, but they are hosted on my own site, so get EXIF Everywhere to right-click and see it all) Here is a Vampire Girl (white and green makeup on her face) under the harsh glare of the pop-up flash with the DA 35mm Macro Ltd:
And here is a 100% pixel-level crop:
And apropos of the evening, here is a pumpkin in the rain (at ISO 12800, but noise reduced in Nik Define, and resized to tinyville for the web), also from the DA 35mm Macro Ltd:
The K-3 has no focus problems at night, even with a macro lens.
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